After one Aussie founder couldn’t charge his Tesla, he built his own EV charging network (literally) from the ground up, took it global and has just supercharged it with AI.
Digital out of home (DOOH) advertising is undergoing its most radical transformation since the introduction of digital screens themselves, with a trio of industry disruptors declaring that the next wave of disruption will fuse utility, data, artificial intelligence (AI) and creativity.
Speaking on a future media strategies panel as part of B&T’s Breakfast Club, presented by JOLT, attendees at the Melbourne event gathered to hear insights from JOLT founder and CEO Doug McNamee, head of marketing at challenger brand Rollin’ Annabel Causer and Accenture Song Media MD Mel Fein.
Following a sizzle reel and business rundown by JOLT’s GM regional sales, Carin Lee-Skelton, McNamee kicked off the panel by explaining JOLT’s business model.
An electric vehicle (EV) charging network, which offers free EV charging, subsidised by the OOH advertising at each charger, JOLT is designed to accelerate both EV adoption and the reinvention of OOH media.
“I wanted to get an EV but had nowhere to charge it, and the public infrastructure just wasn’t there,” McNamee said. “So we asked: how do you build it at scale, sustainably? The answer was simple — you give away the power and fund it with ads.”
While there’s usually no such thing as a free lunch, advertising makes the prospect of a free EV feed feel remarkably close to reality, with users securing seven kilowatt-hours per day, or around 50 kilometres of range, all paid for by advertisers.
During the panel, moderated by Pippa Chambers, McNamee argued this increasingly important “utility-first” approach gives JOLT a social licence to operate that many traditional outdoor players lack.
“If you’re digging up a street, you need a reason. EV charging is the reason. It gets us premium sites the big guys can’t touch — in London, we’re taking over locations once owned by the world’s largest operators,” he added.
Industry first AI ready to roll
Looking ahead, with the panel agreeing the opportunity for DOOH lies in AI-led optimisation and creative reinvention, the timing was apt for JOLT to reveal a significant enhancement to its platform that enables advertisers, for the first time, to use AI to optimise DOOH campaigns in real time.
Despite AI being the industry’s buzzword du jour, when pressed for detail, McNamee doubled down, explaining how brands can use in-flight campaign performance tracking, along with new AI-powered optimisation in order to leverage recommendations from its AI-powered campaign optimisation engine.
This sees campaign changes happen in real time, shifting ad placements, creative, and timing to drive even greater results.
Fein added however that when new tools are dropped, “less talk, more action” is what’s really needed.
As Doug surmised, JOLT isn’t there to reinvent the wheel, it’s there to plug new, trillion-dollar industries into it.
“Outdoor already delivers scale and trust. Add AI and EV infrastructure into the mix, and you’ve got the most exciting reinvention of media in decades,” he said.
Economic headwinds
Fein stressed growing economic pressure is something that is impacting the whole industry.
“Boards and CFOs don’t care about media metrics — they care about results,” Fein said.
“Attribution and business outcomes are the hottest topics I deal with every day. We’ve been talking about universal measurement for years, but we’re still not there.”
Fein explained how marketing budgets are flat or shifting into retail media and performance channels.
Flagging economic pressure as the fiercest battle facing media today, the challenge, she added, is helping CMOs convince boards and CFOs that marketing is a growth engine, not a cost centre.
“The biggest barrier truly, is economic pressure. That continues to battle us every day… I don’t think we’ve written as many media plans to try and retain media spends, as we have in the last two years,” she said.
“It’s a continued war on retaining media budgets and helping clients tell that story to their boards and CFOs to make sure that marketing continues as a growth engine.”
Accountability key
For brands, DOOH is shifting from blunt awareness buys to finely tuned audience-first strategies, with Causer adding the medium now rivals digital in accountability.
“For us, DOOH sits in our digital budget. It’s audience-first, contextual, performance-driven,” she said. “With JOLT we could reach EV drivers at the charger, in [The JOLT] app, and on our site with an integrated offer.
“That’s not hype — that’s reality. My challenge isn’t whether DOOH works, it’s making sure we stay creatively brave while hitting performance numbers in a highly competitive category.”
Despite budget squeezes, Fein argued the biggest opportunity also lies in keeping pace with AI and transformational change — a true game changer if the industry can double down and fully embrace it.
With these JOLT’s real-time AI campaign adjustments, geospatial audience mapping and contextual triggers, it’s undoubtedly helping move the medium closer to the agility of digital platforms like Meta and Google.
While static panels still dominate, Fein noted the shift toward using sites as experience-led brand canvases rather than just quick-hit placements, making this an inflection point for creativity in the medium.
The session closed with a call to action for marketers to keep balancing brand and performance while doubling down on customer experience.
Causer alluded that while the pace of change is extreme, “the answer hasn’t changed — keep the customer at the centre, and everything else will follow,” she said.
With Sydney’s edition of Taking Charge: Shaping Media Strategies For The Future set for next week, the debate over DOOH’s role in the modern media mix is far from over.
But if Melbourne was any indication, the industry is ready to move far beyond billboards and into a future where advertising powers cars, cities and growth itself.
Want to know more about JOLT? Check out the Aussie scaleup’s sizzle reel:
