How Colossal Media has kept art in advertising for the last 20 years

In recent years, many people have been asking, “Is it cake?” When it comes to billboards, there’s another age-old question: “Is it paint?”

For anyone who’s ever seen hand-painted ads in cities like Atlanta, Chicago, or Portland, Oregon, chances are high that they were done by Colossal Media. The company began in Brooklyn in 2004 with a goal to revive the once-dying art of sign painting, and has since expanded to 85 locations around the country, Jennifer Edelberg, VP at Colossal, told us. Clients over the years have included Coca-Cola, Delta Airlines, and Gucci, which has its own designated wall in Manhattan in partnership with Colossal.

“We singlehandedly resurrected this craft,” Edelberg said, calling other companies that now offer hand-painted ads “an honor and a testament to how powerful the format is.”

With Colossal’s 20-year anniversary approaching, Edelberg walked us through the craftsmanship that’s been driving the company and keeping advertisers hooked for nearly two decades.

School’s in session

Edelberg credits Colossal’s ability to bring back hand-painted murals—which were once the norm in OOH advertising before fading into ghost signs—in part to its paid apprenticeship program. Apprentices in New York and LA, Colossal’s two biggest markets, spend about a year in the program alongside anywhere from one to 11 others. After graduating, the painters—informally known as “wall dogs”—can go on to work for Colossal either full-time or or part-time for a ”sustainable, long-term career in the arts” complete with benefits, Edelberg told us.

“We’re the only company in the world with a program like this—and you don’t even have to be an artist coming in,” she said.

What does Colossal look for in a potential painter? It goes beyond artistic talent.

The mural-painting world requires “a lot of heavy lifting, a lot of challenges, a lot of environmental adversity faced from snow to really hot temperatures,” Edelberg said, “so we don’t only look for individuals who are committed to and passionate about the arts, but also those who have a background in construction…we look for people who are committed to all the different elements of a job like this.”

Once in the program, artists are trained to develop a skill set rooted in tradition.

“How we sign paint is based on the same fundamental principles that were used by the early greats like Michelangelo, and how he painted the Sistine Chapel,” she said. “We have an exceptional level of quality.”

A picture is worth a thousand brushstrokes

Colossal Media murals are often praised for their photorealism, a quality the company prides itself on. With some campaigns spanning multiple locations—like a recent Lil Nas X/Vitamin Water campaign in LA and NYC—Edelberg said brands are given assurances that “the portraiture of the celebrity or anything we’re replicating will be exactly the same from state to state and mural to mural.”

To get that realistic look, she said about three weeks of pre-production is needed for Colossal employees to pattern the artwork, color mix, burn butcher paper, and transfer a rough image outline onto the wall. From there, she said it takes about three days to paint a simple graphic and around 12 days for complex portraiture—a timeline that she says is roughly similar to lead times for traditional OOH installations.

All that work (and ensuring the real estate on which paintings can be placed, for which Colossal has a dedicated management team) doesn’t come cheap. The point-of-entry cost for a four-week-long mural (Colossal’s “minimum flight time”) is usually around $30,000 but can go as high as $200,000 depending on the size, according to Edelberg. Some companies go even bigger: Gucci, whose wall in Soho has its own tag on sites like Google Maps and Yelp, is on an annual contract, she told us.

“What we do is harder, it takes longer, it’s a premium experience, which also translates to something that’s oftentimes more expensive,” she said. “But every single time we paint a mural, we see people stop in their tracks to look or engage with the brand almost like it’s a live performance. The memorability, the stickiness of that is so powerful.”

Beyond the memorability—and the selfies and social posts often generated from installations—Edelberg said Colossal can also help generate buzz around its murals by incorporating mobile geofencing, QR codes, augmented reality, and shoppable experiences.

“The other really powerful thing about murals, aside from being very human and soulful and colorful, is its ability to really take on a cross-platform reach, and [generate] so many touch points from a single wall,” she said.

What’s next?

Fall tends to be the busiest time of year for Colossal Media, with back-to-school campaigns and fashion week leading into Q4 holiday campaigns.

As the firm approaches its 20-year anniversary, Colossal employees are thinking about how to redefine the company as a “cultural connector in the community,” not just an OOH advertiser, Edelberg said, while celebrating its success embracing a format with such a storied history.

“We’re just proud that we can continue to offer this as an opportunity for aspiring sign painters and that we can keep this craft and trade alive,” she said.