Artist Buys YouTube-Style Billboard To Promote His Own Channel

Over the past 20 months, YouTube has bought billboard space in major US cities to promote some of its most popular homegrown stars. More recently, a man with a much smaller digital operation has purchased his own advertising space in order to bring attention to his channel. That man is an artist named Jesse Edwards, and he designed a Los Angeles billboard in the style of YouTube’s ads.

Passersby can find Edwards’ billboard on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles, above a gallery where he recently had a show. The display hawks Edwards’ YouTube channel, Painting Passion, on which he blends art tutorials with his urban, in-your-face easel-side manner. In order to draw attention to his videos, Edwards plastered a giant picture of the character Pepe the Frog, known as a meme on sites like 4chan and Twitch, next to the name of his channel. As with YouTube’s ads, Edwards also included his subscriber count, but unlike Bethany Mota or Michelle Phan, Painting Passion

doesn’t have millions of fans; it has 179.

The crazy thing about Edwards’ stunt is that, despite all its goofiness, it is doing its job. As The Daily Dot notes, a Tumblr post poking fun at the billboard has received more than 80,000 notes in response. Edwards’ videos have seen a bump as well. The latest episode of Painting Passion has received more than 11,000 views, compared to his usual average of about one thousand hits.

Edwards’ billboard is mostly a funny anecdote, but perhaps it also teaches a lesson about selling yourself on YouTube. Forget channel optimization and consistency; if you want to make it big, post a lot of memes.