You guys did it! The Support Wikileaks! billboard is up in Chicago for all to see! The billboard is located near I-90 & Tri State I-294. Here is a link to the exact location on google maps. Drive by and snap a photo (if it doesn’t involve risking your life). We’d love to see your photos and hear your opinions.
It’s people like you who make change happen, and we couldn’t be happier to have you as one of our users. You have made a great impact and we thank you!
By the way, did we mention that this billboard is located on a congested highway serving as an entrance/exit to one of the busiest airports in the world. In this month alone the billboard will recieve over 2.5 million views. Yes, we said “million”!
To view or comment on the campaign, click here.
Have a great billboard idea? Awesome. Here’s a few tips for creating a captivating campaign:
- Come up with a catchy slogan — something short and sweet that people can read quickly on a billboard. Got Milk? Just Do It. The ultimate driving machine.
- Create a killer design. Not an artist? Ask a friend for help. Your billboard should grab the attention of its supporters as well as everyday people on the street. Make it stand out!
- Write an inspiring description. Be persuasive. Spark excitement and passion about your issue.
- Videos. We all love ‘em. Create your own or find something on YouTube. Make it shocking, inspirational, exciting, funny. It’s like your campaign’s theme song.
You’re all set. Excellent work! Make the final touches and present your creation to the world.
If you’re like most people, you probably have a few issues you care about. If you’re like me, it’s more like 20: global warming (humans are causing it and it’s not “climate change,” for Pete’s sake!), the violence in Yemen and the Ivory Coast (appalling and utterly disgusting), Gators football (so freakin’ awesome), and legalizing weed (yah mon), to name a few.
Using Facebook and tweeting about my issues are fine and dandy, but how much does that really do? Chances are, my circle of friends shares many of my passions. What about the rest of the world?
In a world filled with constant inundation by Budweiser and Apple, now people like us can spread the messages we care about. So, speak out for what you believe in. Let your voice be heard.
One billboard at a time.
Wow, what an amazing and busy week this has been. In case you haven’t heard the news… the very first crowd-funded EpicStep.com billboard went up last week and has already received a lot of media attention - NPR, Huffington Post, Fox, CBS, etc.
The Support Wikileaks! billboard stands triumphantly at Santa Monica Blvd. & Highland Ave, at the middle of perhaps the busiest intersection in Hollywood.
It will remain there for a total of four weeks, so if you haven’t already, stop by and check it out. Enjoy the pics…
To view or comment on the campaign, click here.
Who would have thought that our morning coffee meeting on the 15th would turn into a mini-celebration? The first billboard funded in 6 days? No way! Lev started drinking shots of creamer by the fistful. We had to drag him away.
The crazy thing is, our first billboard in Los Angeles got funded by people all over the world. We never thought people outside of a campaign’s city would help fund a billboard, but they did. People contributed from as far away as Australia, Sweden, Brazil and Germany. To care about an issue so much that you support a billboard in another country? That’s pretty amazing. Chicago is next on our radar — the first billboard there has passed the 20% mark already.
In other news, more exciting campaigns are “live” now and even more are coming in the next week, so keep an eye out. Also, we wanted to thank you for all the feedback. Lots of you have sent along requests for new features and we’re hard at work figuring them all out. We’re learning as we go here, so it really helps to hear your suggestions.
In the meantime, thanks for being a part of this. You rock!
After many sleepless nights and countless 12 hour days, we couldn’t be more excited to release the “alpha” version of Epic Step. During this stage our goal is to learn as much as possible from our users in order to better provide the features and user experience they desire when using the site. That being said, we are absolutely thrilled to start seeing normal people come together to fund the messages you care about!
We are kicking off the “alpha” launch with two super-fantastic billboard campaigns – Support WikiLeaks! and Charlie Sheen has tiger blood!. However, more will be added within the upcoming weeks so go ahead and send us your most amazing billboard campaign suggestions to feature on the site. We’ll keep you posted and let you know if your campaign is selected!
As we approach the next epic step in our journey, we can’t help but anxiously await your opinion and feedback. So don’t hold back — go wild and let us know any little thing you love, hate or would change about the current site. We realize that when all is said and done, the future success of this site depends on the ability to make you, the user, happy.
Let’s get this party started!
This whole thing started with a phone call. The three of us were talking about that horrible BP oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. Days had turned into weeks and then months at this point and the oil was still leaking. It had just come out that Tony Hayward was spotted at a yacht race while animals were washing ashore! People’s livelihoods were literally being ruined and that douchebag was partying his ass off on a yacht. Bullshit! So the conversation got heated, we were all pretty angry. Someone mentioned that there was a campaign to raise money for people to blow vuvuzelas (those horns from the World Cup), in front of BP’s office. I happened to be driving, I looked up at a billboard and BOOM, it popped into my head. A billboard saying “Screw BP.” Then we all thought, wouldn’t it be cool to actually put up a billboard right in front of their headquarters.
So we started thinking, why should billboards and the advertising power rest with big corporations? Eat here. Buy this. Join this Gym. Individual people have to do crazy things to get their messages out there. Like go on hunger strikes, risk imprisonment or stage protests. It’s ridiculous. Yeah sure, there’s freedom of speech, but there’s no real way to actually be heard, to make an impact. To create change.
So, the three of us set out to see if there was anything we could do to give more power to individual people. Our idea instantly became a reality when we discovered a wonderful thing called crowd-funding. With crowd-funding, a bunch of people with like interests come together and pledge a few bucks each to make something amazing happen. It opens the door to countless possibilities and makes it possible for ordinary people to do extraordinary things.
Crowd-funding works because it’s built into social networking. You’re a new band and you want to raise money for an album. You tell your friends on Facebook and Twitter, everyone throws you a couple bucks and suddenly you’ve got an album. It’s amazing.
So we took crowd-funding and combined it with outdoor advertising. Voila, Epic Step! Now anyone can start a billboard campaign. All you need is $5 and an idea. And with enough support, anyone can have a billboard.
So the next time you look at a billboard for Coca Cola, think of what your billboard would say. Then start a campaign and let’s be heard together.
