Ten years ago, Dan Levy got an unusual call from a recruiter.

At the time, he was a successful marketing executive who had worked at companies like

MTV and World Wrestling Entertainment. He spent all day thinking about digital advertising,

ads on social networks and video sharing sites. But the phone call was about an

opportunity in a much less glamorous field, billboards. I originally turned down the interview,

because who wants to be a billboard marketing guy? Everything in the media and advertising world

had been going so aggressively towards digital and towards mobile.

So first pass, it didn't seem like it was the type of move that made sense for me.

But Levy gave the opportunity a second pass, and he changed his mind.

I learned that the job was about trying to help bring the world's oldest advertising medium into the 21st century.

Today, Levy is the chief marketing officer at Clear Channel Outdoor, one of America's largest billboard operators.

In a modern advertising landscape run by Titans like Facebook and Google,

billboards may seem like an antiquated way to market a product. But if you drive through any

major city, you'll see hundreds of them lining the freeways. They tempt you with photos of

McDonald's cheeseburgers that are 14 feet tall and 48 feet wide.

They extoll the virtues of the latest AI software products.

They implore you to call personal injury lawyers and to find Jesus.

Traditionally, billboards have been used to reach as many people as I can to deliver my message.

You know, new product launches or new TV shows or movie releases,

you want to get to a scaled audience.

But today's billboards are more than just static tools of mass communication.

The industry is increasingly being digitized,

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