Marcus Sherwin recently shared something that caught my attention: "#CMOs #Superbowl wkend qq over a 10 year period which returns better?

A) 30 second Ad at the Super Bowl in 2026
B) A 15 minute digital billboard daily in Times square for the next 43 years". He adds the kicker: one option reaches about 127 million people once, the other about 500 million over 10 years, and "Both cost the same".

That simple A-or-B question is a great test of how we think about marketing ROI, especially in B2B where best practices often default to measurable, lower-risk plays. Marcus also pointed to a conversation with Laura Erdem from Dreamdata on his show #NotJustAds about the creator economy for B2B, where she described going against B2B norms, getting upside early, and even turning a critical comment from a well-known creator into one of their best quarters.

Let me build on Marcus's question, because the right answer is less about which channel is "bigger" and more about what kind of growth you are buying.

The real comparison: reach, frequency, and attention

At first glance, Marcus frames it as a pure reach tradeoff:

Super Bowl: ~127M reach, once
Times Square billboard: ~500M reach, spread over time

But marketers do not buy reach. We buy outcomes, and outcomes depend on at least four variables:

Attention quality (did anyone actually notice and process it?)
Frequency and memory (will they remember it when it matters?)
Targeting and relevance (were the right people exposed?)
Timing (did it show up near a buying moment?)

If you treat both options as "impressions", Times Square wins on volume. If you treat them as "cultural moments", the Super Bowl often wins on concentrated attention and secondary effects.

Key insight: A single, high-attention moment can create downstream distribution that raw impression counts never capture.

Option A: the Super Bowl ad is not just 30 seconds

When people argue for the Super Bowl, they are rarely arguing for 30 seconds of airtime. They are arguing for a marketing event with built-in amplification:

Earned media: press coverage, hot takes, "best ads" lists
Social sharing: replays, reactions, memes
Internal impact: recruiting, sales confidence, partner interest
Category signaling: "we are a serious brand"

In B2B, that signaling is often underrated. Enterprise buyers are risk managers. They look for cues that a vendor will still be around, can hire talent, and has credibility with the market. A huge public moment can act like a trust shortcut.

That said, the Super Bowl can fail in predictable ways:

If the creative is generic, you pay premium pricing for commodity attention.
If there is no follow-through (retargeting, PR, sales enablement), the spike evaporates.
If your buyers are not there or do not care, you purchase fame, not pipeline.

So, the Super Bowl bet is really: can you turn concentrated attention into a durable narrative and repeated touchpoints afterward?

Option B: the Times Square billboard is a compounding asset (if you earn repetition)

A daily 15-minute digital billboard in Times Square for years is the opposite bet: slow, persistent exposure in a globally recognizable location.

The hidden advantages:

Repetition builds familiarity. Familiarity lowers perceived risk.
It creates ongoing proof you can point to: "we are in Times Square".
It can become a content engine: photos, customer visits, team moments, influencer drop-ins.

But there is a trap. Out-of-home exposure can be thin attention. People are busy, moving, looking at phones, and not all "reach" is equal. If the billboard is just a logo and a vague slogan, you might buy a lot of forgettable impressions.

To make Times Square work like a growth asset, the brand has to manufacture additional distribution:

Regular content series tied to the billboard (launches, customer stories, creator collaborations)
A strong, simple message that people can repeat
A reason for others to talk about it (controversy, contrarian take, bold POV)

This is where Marcus's mention of the creator economy and Laura Erdem's experience matters.

What Laura Erdem's story suggests: break rules, but do it with a system

Marcus said Laura "decided to go against all B2B best practices" and got huge upside early, and that a critical comment from a well-known creator helped lead to one of Dreamdata's best quarters.

That is a blueprint many teams miss. Going against best practices is not the same as being random. The pattern usually looks like this:

Do something legible and public (a bold campaign, a visible placement, a contrarian message).
Let creators and the market react.
Treat reactions as feedback, not as ego hits.
Turn the feedback into the next piece of content, the next angle, the next offer.
Convert attention into demand with a clear next step.

A critical comment can become rocket fuel if you respond with clarity, confidence, and evidence. In public channels, the response often gets more attention than the original criticism, especially when you handle it like a professional and not a defensive brand.

Key insight: In the creator economy, the conversation is the distribution.

So which returns better over 10 years?

Marcus's question is powerful because the honest answer is: it depends on your goal, your category, and your ability to compound attention into repeatable demand.

Here is a practical way to decide.

Choose the Super Bowl if you need a category-level narrative shift

Option A can outperform when:

You are entering a crowded category and need instant credibility.
You have a differentiated story that can travel in mainstream channels.
You have a plan for what happens in the next 90 days (PR, social, retargeting, events, sales plays).
You can turn a single moment into many assets (cuts, behind-the-scenes, creator reactions, customer tie-ins).

The mistake is treating it as a one-off stunt. The win is treating it as the opening scene of a longer campaign.

Choose Times Square if you can turn visibility into a repeatable content machine

Option B can outperform when:

Your buyers overlap with New York media, finance, tech, or global travel flows.
You value long-run trust cues and repeated exposure.
You have the creative discipline to keep the message sharp over time.
You have a system to generate ongoing content and creator moments around it.

The mistake is thinking the billboard itself is the strategy. The win is using the billboard as a stage for many moments.

The metric most CMOs forget: cost per remembered impression

Both options "cost the same" in Marcus's setup, but the real KPI is not cost per impression. It is cost per remembered impression among the people who might buy.

To estimate that, ask:

What percentage will notice it?
What percentage will understand it?
What percentage will remember it a week later?
What percentage will take an action that lets you follow up?

That last question is where B2B teams can blend brand and demand without killing creativity. If your big play does not give people a path (search term, landing page, demo hook, newsletter, community), you are making measurement impossible and wasting the tail.

A modern answer: build a hybrid "moment + marathon" plan

If I were responding directly to Marcus as a CMO, I would say: the best teams borrow from both options.

Create one big cultural moment (it does not have to be the Super Bowl) that forces attention.
Then run the marathon: consistent distribution, creator collaboration, and follow-up content that keeps the story alive.

That is exactly why the Laura Erdem angle fits so well. Creator-led conversations can provide the frequency and iteration that classic brand media lacks, while big visible moves provide the legitimacy and spark that pure performance marketing often cannot.

Final takeaway

Marcus Sherwin's question is not really about a Super Bowl ad versus a Times Square billboard. It is about whether you are buying a spike or building a compounding narrative. The winning choice is the one you can operationalize: a clear message, a plan for distribution, and the humility to turn feedback (even critical comments) into momentum.

This blog post expands on a viral LinkedIn post by Marcus Sherwin. View the original LinkedIn post →