How a 100 Year-Old Spanish Grandmother Amped OOH for JCDecaux

It's not about the clicks—it's about the love

DAVID Madrid won four Grand Clios last night for a game-changing OOH campaign on behalf of JCDecaux. The outdoor advertising company’s effort hinged on a 100 year-old Galician granny who took over Madrid’s subways for three months.

“Meet Marina Prieto” began with some stats. Since 2023, subway ad investment in Spain shrank by 7 percent. JCDecaux vowed to reverse that trend.

The brand tapped unknown Marina Prieto, who had all of 28 followers on IG. The thinking was: if she could go viral, any brand could, too—thanks to subway ads from JCDecaux

Ultimately, the initiative drew 185 brands to the agency’s roster—and Marina became the talk of the town. 

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Muse chatted with copywriter Clara García Alfaro, who spun the idea, on finding someone “unremarkable,” buying empty metro spaces, how love triumphs clicks, and more.

How did you find Marina and what compelled you to work with her?

Clara García Alfaro: The brief asked us to prove the effectiveness of the media. So we decided to turn the campaign itself into the ultimate test, by trying to make someone completely unknown famous.

We could’ve gone with an influencer, added a CTA … but we wanted to push the idea to the extreme. We needed the most generic person possible.

So we thought: let’s look on Instagram. But of course, try searching for someone unremarkable on a platform designed to do the exact opposite and show you people with followers, exciting content and trending posts. Hard work!

We spent four days searching random profiles. We found weird people, influencer dogs, a sweet old man who paints, someone who takes a selfie every day … and then we saw Marina.

She reminded us of our grandmothers. Her posts were natural, just normal moments from her life. She only had 28 followers—mostly her family. And she was going to turn 100 soon. We thought: If we’re going to make someone famous, let it be someone who really deserves it. At first, we thought her family would say no, that it probably sounded like a scam. But they trusted us, and it worked.

What did you set out to prove, and what does this say about the industry?

That media still works. Simple as that. [It showed the industry] that not everything needs to be powered by AI. Sometimes it just needs to be powered by heart. We’re all obsessed with data. But what Marina gave us wasn’t clicks. It was love. The industry needs that reminder every now and then. Her Instagram was basically our analytics dashboard. But more fun. And more alive. This was supposed to be a B2B campaign. But B2B is made of people. So we spoke to them like people.

What were the advantages of using the Madrid metro system?

It was a proof of concept. Three months of “let’s see what happens.” And what happened was people fell in love with a woman they didn’t know. Which is way more than any banner ad has ever done.

Why did you believe this would be a successful campaign?

Because it felt weird. Weird is good. You don’t ignore weird. You talk about it. It was an old woman in a metro poster with no product, no brand, no clue. You had to ask. And when you asked, the answer was a story.

What surprised you most?

The fans. And not just fans of the campaign. Real Marina fans. Teenagers asked to meet her. Gen Z, the hardest audience to impress, was in love with her. People from all over the world sent birthday wishes. They wrote to her like she was a part of their family. One guy from Argentina even asked her to record a video for his friend’s wedding. Some wanted to visit her. University students made their final projects about her. Which is kind of insane. I mean, who gets that kind of reaction? That’s when we realized this wasn’t our idea anymore. It was theirs.