Diabetes and cardiometabolic conditions come with stigma, and many of the members you need will never click a health ad or enter the condition in a search bar. Out-of-home and experiential meet people in the physical world – transit, community, employer events, provider settings – and create the brand familiarity that helps a stigmatized decision feel safe. We plan and execute activations that build trust where digital targeting reaches its limits.
The Challenge
Your strongest potential members may never interact with a health ad online
Diabetes and cardiometabolic conditions carry real stigma, and a large share of the population you need actively avoids clicking health ads or searching the condition where it might be seen. Digital acquisition, tuned to intent signals, systematically misses these people because they never raise their hand online. Relying only on performance channels means you are fishing in the small pond of people already comfortable being targeted, and ignoring the larger group who need a different first touch.
Increasing digital CAC is pushing you into channels you have never managed
As paid social and search get more expensive and privacy changes erode targeting, the marginal cost of the next digital member keeps climbing. Founders start looking at out-of-home and experiential as a way to build brand demand that lowers blended CAC, but they have no framework for planning, buying, or measuring it. Treating OOH like a billboard vanity buy – or avoiding it entirely because it cannot be tracked to a click – both leave real, cheaper growth on the table.
Cardiometabolic trust is built in the physical world, where you have no presence
For a condition people manage daily and often privately, brand familiarity and social proof in real-world settings do the trust work that a landing page cannot. Members decide to enroll partly because they have seen your brand around – in their community, at their employer, in a provider's office – and feel it is legitimate. A company that exists only online is invisible in exactly the contexts where the trust decision actually gets made.
You hesitate to invest in OOH because you cannot attribute it like a click
The instinct to avoid any channel that does not produce a clean last-click number keeps many cardiometabolic teams out of the brand-building work that would lower their whole funnel's cost. OOH and experiential do drive results, but they show up as lift in branded search, direct sign-ups, and enrollment quality rather than as a tracked click. Without a measurement approach designed for these channels, teams either refuse to try them or run them blind and cannot tell whether they worked.
How We Help You
We begin by determining whether out-of-home and experiential belong in your mix at this stage and, if they do, what role they should play – brand familiarity, trust within a specific market, employer or provider proximity, or launch awareness. In cardiometabolic, these channels are tools for a defined job rather than a default, so we scope them around your real growth stage and the members digital cannot reach.
Next, we plan placements and activations based on where your members and buyers are physically present and where the trust decision happens. That may include transit and community placements in a market where you are concentrating, visibility during employer benefits moments, or activations in provider-adjacent settings – selected for closeness to the decision, not raw impression volume. We create the work with the condition's stigma in mind, because an overly forceful diabetes billboard can drive away the same people it is meant to reassure.
We establish a measurement plan before any spend, because concern about unattributable OOH is ultimately concern about running it blindly. We implement branded-search lift, geo-based holdouts, direct and enrollment tracking, and market-level comparisons so you can determine whether the activation shifted the funnel, even without a click. This turns OOH from a vanity purchase into an accountable channel.
We operate the activations hands-on, coordinating vendors, placements, and creative, while connecting the entire effort to your digital funnel so brand lift translates into less expensive, higher-quality acquisition downstream. The goal is not a photogenic stunt – it is a measurable decrease in the cost of acquiring a member who trusts you.
Our difference is that we approach OOH and experiential as accountable growth channels integrated with performance marketing, rather than a standalone brand indulgence. We link the physical-world work to your measurement and digital acquisition so its impact is visible, and we are candid when your budget is better kept in digital for now.
What we deliver
- A clear read on whether OOH and experiential fit your stage, and what job they should do
- Placement and activation plan built around member and buyer proximity
- Stigma-aware creative that reassures rather than exposes
- A pre-spend measurement plan using lift, geo-holdouts, and enrollment quality
- Vendor and activation execution integrated with your digital funnel
The most difficult cardiometabolic members to reach are those too self-conscious to click on a health ad. Out-of-home builds trust with them in the physical world before they are ready to raise a hand online.
Our Methodology
We deliver an OOH and experiential engagement designed around a specific role in your funnel. Phase one is the fit-and-job decision: we evaluate your stage, your reachable and unreachable audiences, and whether physical-world brand building can reduce your blended cost – and we tell you candidly if it cannot yet. Investing in OOH before it can justify its cost is a common, preventable mistake.
Phase two combines planning with measurement design. We select placements and activations based on proximity to the decision, develop stigma-aware creative, and put lift, geo-holdout, and enrollment-quality measurement in place before spending a dollar, because an activation without tracking teaches you nothing.
The last phase covers execution and readout. We operate the activations, manage vendors, and assess performance against the pre-spend plan, then determine with you whether to scale, refine, or stop. Unlike a media agency that sells impressions and then moves on, we connect the work to funnel outcomes and apply the same accountability expected of any performance channel.
Our Approach
During the first few weeks, we make the fit-and-job decision and, when OOH is justified, develop the placement plan and measurement approach in parallel. You will learn early whether the channel suits your stage, because we would prefer to direct you back to digital than sell you a billboard you cannot measure.
In the middle of the engagement, we develop stigma-aware creative, establish geo-holdout and lift tracking, and then launch the activations. Your team includes an operator who leads planning and measurement, supported by creative resources; from you, we need agreement on target markets and access to digital funnel data so we can evaluate the lift.
Once the activations have run, we compare results with the pre-spend plan – branded-search lift, plus direct and enrollment changes in exposed markets versus holdouts – and decide together whether to scale or stop. We maintain a working cadence throughout planning and provide a structured readout when results are available.
Engagements are scoped around the activation and generally last two to four months from planning to readout. By the end, you have a measured conclusion on whether physical-world brand building reduces your acquisition cost, along with a repeatable playbook when it does. Some clients incorporate OOH into an ongoing brand-and-performance mix; others discover the timing is not right yet, which is valuable insight as well.
- Reach into members digital channels cannot touch
- Measured brand lift read through search, direct, and enrollment quality
- Lower blended CAC when brand demand feeds the funnel
- An honest verdict on channel fit for your stage
If your diabetes & cardiometabolic health company needs ooh & experiential leadership, we should talk.
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Frequently asked questions
What does an OOH and experiential engagement cost a cardiometabolic company?
The cost has two parts – our fixed fee for planning, measurement, and execution, plus media and production spend, which can vary significantly by market and format. We tailor our fee to the engagement and help establish a media budget aligned with the job the channel must perform.
How quickly can we expect results from OOH and experiential?
Brand-building channels follow a slower curve than performance ads, so meaningful signals in branded search, direct sign-ups, and enrollment quality generally emerge across the weeks a market is exposed, rather than on day one. Comparing results with your geo-holdouts shows whether the channel shifted the funnel.
How will the OOH team collaborate with our current marketing staff?
We work as part of your team, manage vendors and placements, and incorporate measurement into your current funnel reporting so the effort does not become siloed. We require alignment on target markets and access to your digital funnel data to assess the lift.
How is Winston Francois different from a conventional media or OOH agency?
A conventional OOH agency sells impressions and focuses optimization on the media buy; we view physical-world channels as accountable growth and measure them against a pre-spend plan. We first determine whether the channel is appropriate for your stage and will advise you to remain in digital when that is the better choice.
How is OOH ROI measured when there is no click to follow?
We put measurement in place before any spending – geo-based holdouts, branded-search lift, and shifts in direct sign-ups and enrollment quality across exposed markets versus control. This allows us to determine whether the activation changed the funnel despite the absence of a last-click.
How do you address diabetes stigma in public-facing creative?
With care and intention – a blunt diabetes message displayed publicly may shame the exact people it is supposed to reassure. We develop creative that conveys support and legitimacy without identifying or labeling the viewer, allowing it to build trust instead of prompting avoidance. Acknowledging the condition's emotional reality is fundamental to the activation's success, not an afterthought.
What kind of cardiometabolic company is best suited to this service?
The ideal fit is a growth-stage diabetes or cardiometabolic company facing higher digital CAC, focusing on particular markets or employer channels, or requiring brand familiarity to move past stigma. If you are at an early stage and still validating your digital funnel, OOH is generally too soon, and we will tell you. The channel deserves a role when brand demand can materially reduce the cost of everything downstream.
