I think it's related to the K shaped economy. The country is no longer being built for the middle class, which is concerning.
Otoh maybe I'm looking at it wrong, and maybe billboard advertising has gotten so ineffective that it's cheapened to the point that you can tuck it into your campaign as an afterthought. If you get one solid enterprise lead from it, it pays for the whole year. And besides it has branding value.
Either way, definitely feels a bit dystopian to me. How alienating must it feel for the service worker commuting to his dead end job where even the billboards don't make sense anymore?
I wonder if it's so some brand manager can put "78% of XX managers have heard of our brand" on a slide after running a survey near the billboard