How Out of Home Helps Connecticut Foodshare Fight Hunger

November 7, 2024

With Thanksgiving right around the corner, food is at the top of many minds. But for far too many people, it’s lack of food that dominates their thoughts.

That’s why Connecticut Foodshare, the food bank serving the entire state, knew that it needed to invest in different ways to get the word out about its services, especially in areas of the state not familiar with the rebranded organization.

“A lot of people that knew us as Foodshare from Hartford and Tolland County, or Connecticut Food Bank in other parts of the state and didn’t really make the immediate connection that we were now one statewide organization,” said Monica Obrebski, the organization’s Chief Marketing and Communications Officer. “One of our board members said, I think we need to really start looking at traditional advertisement, meaning billboards and ads at the train station.”

Of course, achieving mass reach with advertising in Connecticut means working with OUTFRONT – after all, we reach 95.7% of the state every week (SOURCE: Geopath). That level of saturation matters to a food bank serving an entire state, providing over 44 million meals to more than 25,000 households via a network of 650 partner organizations and mobile food pantry sites – and with the help of 6,000 volunteers, including several from our Connecticut office (SOURCE: Connecticut Foodshare).


For its first campaign, Connecticut Foodshare targeted Fairfield County with a mix of billboards along I-95, I-91, and I-84 as well as transit media on Metro North platforms, with creative guidance from STUDIOS, our in-house creative agency.

“Your art director was wonderful with giving us her expertise,” said Monica. “The colors, the fonts, the call to action, the QR code’s placement. I told her, you’re the expert. Tell us what’s wrong. Tell us what works best. And she was very helpful.”


For nonprofits like Connecticut Foodshare, every dollar matters. So instead of a traditional direct-buy ad flight, the organization leveraged our Digital Direct Ad Server (DDA) for an audience-based buy, delivering 2.8 million impressions to the target audience. Paying for the impressions an ad makes, rather than simply the time it sits on a billboard, concentrates the impact of every dollar spent on it.

As for the results? “We heard a lot of people say they saw the ad,” reported Monica. But word of mouth wasn’t the only way she knew the ads were working. “Website clicks are probably the best way to measure impact. Specifically, we have seen a heavy increase of people visiting our Get Help page, which is amazing. That’s our goal – for people that need food assistance to know to check out our website.” The billboard campaign was also responsible for some financial donations, though that wasn’t even a needle the campaign was intended to move.

Having validated that OOH helped build its brand awareness, Connecticut Foodshare then used it for activation.


“In the next campaign, we highlighted our annual Walk Against Hunger in Hartford… we did a billboard featuring the walk, and then we also did a billboard to highlight the need in our state and food insecurity with children.”

In addition to the billboards, the campaign included a geofenced mobile component targeting key locations. “For a small investment, it was worthwhile,” Monica said. “We know that there is a correlation with people seeing your name out there more, so [the campaign] is probably drawing them to our website. We do see that an investment in advertising is critical. Especially with everyone getting their news from different sources, it’s so hard to really reach everyone.”

We asked Monica what advice she would give to non-profits facing similar challenges

“Being very clear with the messaging, the call to action on the creative,” she replied. “Food insecurity is something that a lot of people feel strongly about; I think just staying within your mission is truly important.”

Connecticut Foodshare’s goal this year is to provide over 50,000 Thanksgiving meals. But they can’t do it alone. Visit ctfoodshare.org today to donate or volunteer.

Author: Jay Fenster, Marketing Manager @ OUTFRONT

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