By Nick Coston
When you see the word “lemonade” I’m gonna guess you don’t think of car insurance. Chances are since it’s now summer, you’re thinking of the drink, or maybe the Beyonce album that she released in 2016, but car insurance? Homeowners? Pet or life insurance?
Yea, me too, same reaction. But after I saw what their OOH campaign looked like with its bright pinkish colors and easy to read, cursive ad copy, it gets my attention.
I know a thing or two about car insurance companies using billboards. Back in the early 2000’s I was part of the team at the Clear Channel Outdoor Baltimore/DC division that first sold Geico, who was and is still based out the DC metro area, to use outdoor. They started with local agents hyping their Geico Field Rep offices then quickly spread to more state-by-state buys, first for automobile, then homeowners, boat insurance and finally renters’ insurance. By the time I left CCO in 2012 they were a $13M client with us alone.
One simple, easy to remember word backed my bright yellow lettering over back, purple or green background. Eye catching. By 2012, I was hired away from CCO to be part of the two-man OOH buying team for Geico, a gig I held for almost 10 years.
One thing I always remember was Ted Ward, the brilliant VP Marketing Director at Geico insisting that their outdoor, which was mostly static poster and bulletins, have bright colors and simple messages. Under 5 words and usually had SAVE MONEY in there somewhere. After a while, we didn’t even use a phone number or website, drivers just knew to find them.
Cut to 2025 and here comes Lemonade Insurance, clever name, launched in November 2021. Initially they relied on digital first, AI-driven and social media marketing. Why not, catchy name, great colors, offered at first as an app-based concept offering coverage based that was based on drivers’ habits.
Lemonade Car when it rolled out in Illinois promised to change quoting inaccurate rates with a tech-forward approach that rewards safe and low-mileage drivers. They tracked your milage and planted trees to help clean up your messy personal carbon emissions.
But let’s get to the good part, the OOH part. Launching OOH campaigns in NYC, Chicago, Denver, Lemonade went bright with their ad concepts using eye-catching pink branding rather than insurance agent photos or tag lines. No little cute lizards this time. They didn’t just utilize roadside billboards, oh no, not Lemonade. They wisely jumped all in placing their simple, bright pink copy on transit shelters, walls, transit, bulletins, and even my fav, wild posting. Starting in July 2023 then again in summer of 2025 they went all in, mostly static units. And finally in January of this year they collaborated with Tesla to introduce “Lemonade Autonomous Car Insurance using specialized digital and billboard ads targeting Full Self Driving driver is eligible states.
While the future for Lemonade Auto Insurance has somewhat mix forecast, I personally think they have a very bright future. Keep in mind however, that I am biased towards insurance companies with quirky names that love OOH. They are only available as of this writing in 10 states. With more EV’s taking the U.S. roads every day, Lemonade is most definitely a cost-efficient option as they offer up to a 50% discount on miles driven while using Tesla Full Self-Driving. It also covers wall damages, EV charging, and includes pet coverage in full coverage policies.
That’s right, pet coverage. Interesting enough, we are looking at purchasing an EV (our son has one) and we certainly have plenty of dogs and cats to insure. They get my attention.
While I’m still a longtime, satisfied Geico customer, here’s to Lemonade continuing to expand, continuing to be innovative, continuing to buy big and bright outdoor.
As the famous ad man Don Draper from Sterling Cooper always says, “let’s just put some billboards up, you can’t go wrong buying them”.
Insider’s Note: Nick Coston has been writing opinion pieces for the OOH industry for 10 years now. His weekly pieces also appear on Substack where you can view the last 2 years worth. Full-time, Nick is the VP, Sales and Sales Strategies for Moving Walls, the Singapore based media and ad tech giant, here in The America’s.
If you are interested, here is Nick’s Substack LINK
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