Fancy truffle hot sauce Truff rolls out interactive billboard in Philadelphia

Fancy-schmancy truffle hot sauce brand Truff made its marketing strategy even fancier yesterday, rolling out its first out of home (OOH) activation in Philadelphia.

• Truff’s first foray into OOH is...wait for it...a Philly cheesesteak competition.
• Two static billboard placements in Philadelphia's Center City prompt viewers to simply fill in the blank online: “_____ has the best cheesesteak in Philly.”
• The cheesesteak maker with the most votes will receive $10,000.
• Fans are also encouraged to debate the topic on social with #TRUFFBestPhilly.

Origin story: Truff isn’t from Philly, but some of its employees are. “The topic of who has the best cheesesteak was almost political to them,” Truff’s marketing director, Michelle Gabe, told Marketing Brew. Those conversations led to the idea for the campaign, as the team realized heated debate often leads to social media engagement.

Zoom in

Since the folks behind the viral @sauce IG account rolled out their first Truff hot sauce in 2017, Truff’s in-house marketing department has been tasked with expanding outside the Instagram account that spawned the brand and into other channels.

• Behind social, its second-most-popular marketing channel is podcast advertising—you can hear its ads on pods such as The LadyGang and Chatty Broads.
• It started testing out podcast ads in November 2020, and by summer 2021, the brand was ready to expand into something new.

Why OOH? Gabe told us Truff chose to dive into OOH because of its potential for social media integrations, aka Truff’s strongest channel. “We wanted to create a campaign that speaks to our presence on social and cause a lot of buzz and word of mouth,” Gabe said.

+1: Period underwear brand Thinx also combined OOH with social media recently, rolling out its first digital billboard with help from Instagram and TikTok influencers.—PB