Billboards in San Francisco used to advertise familiar consumer brands. Lately, though, puzzling ads with phrases like “Agents don’t work without evals,” “Too much B2B SAAS,” and “Intelligent AF” have appeared across the city. They’re not aimed at the average passerby — they’re meant to read like inside jokes for a tech-savvy audience.
Louise Mozingo, who runs UC Berkeley’s urban design program, says the messages are deliberately opaque. “They’re quite clearly not advertising to the average consumer,” she said. Still, these ads are everywhere: billboard rental revenue in San Francisco grew roughly 30% between 2023 and 2025, according to data from Outfront Media, and advertisers wait months for premium spots.
The inscrutability is intentional. Mike Bilodeau, head of marketing at AI infrastructure startup Baseten, explains the strategy as an “if-you-know-you-know” approach. Baseten and similar companies run billboard, bus shelter and kiosk ads with slogans such as “Own your models,” “Own Your SLAs,” and “Own Your Nines.” The idea is to speak directly to engineers and decision-makers who already understand the jargon; to them, the ads signal relevance and familiarity.
Outfront Media’s west region senior marketing director Christine Rose contrasts this with traditional campaigns, which aim to explain a product to a broad, defined audience. These tech ads instead rely on shared language, cultural cues and inside references. PR and marketing consultant Michelle Garrett adds that billboards also confer legitimacy: appearing on a big, low-tech roadside sign makes a startup look bigger and more credible. The mysterious wording can generate buzz beyond the intended audience, because people share and speculate about what the ads mean.
But exclusivity has downsides. Marketing professor Karen Anne Wallach, who studies exclusionary language in campaigns, says this approach creates an “in group” and an “out group.” Short-term, the tactic can strengthen bonds with the target audience, making insiders feel recognized and closer to the brand. Long-term, however, the larger group left out may form negative associations. “You tend to remember that kind of negative branding,” Wallach says, and that negativity can become part of a brand’s broader reputation.
Local residents sometimes view the trend as emblematic of tech’s outsized influence on the city. Callers to KQED’s Forum described the billboards as confirming that “tech has overrun the city,” leaving some locals feeling pessimistic about what the ads say about San Francisco’s culture.
Tech companies acknowledged the risk of alienating many people, but say the upside — stronger connections with a valuable, informed audience and the credibility conferred by high-visibility placements — outweighs it.
The phenomenon reflects a broader shift in how language, place and identity intersect in advertising: public spaces are being used to target highly specific professional communities, even when the messages are opaque to most viewers. The tactic can work as a shorthand signal to insiders, but it also reshapes how outsiders perceive both the companies and the city they occupy.
Jennifer Vanasco edited this story for broadcast and digital.
