Stic Taps Brand Veteran Sarah Zurell as CMO for National Expansion

LOS ANGELES, CA – February 12, 2026 – Adtech startup Stic, which aims to turn everyday vehicles into mobile billboards, has appointed Sarah Zurell as its new Chief Marketing Officer. The move signals a strategic shift from early-stage startup to a major growth-phase company, coming on the heels of a recent $10 million funding round that valued the company at $200 million.

Zurell, a seasoned executive with a unique background spanning fashion, mobility technology, and brand revitalization, is tasked with steering Stic’s marketing and brand strategy as it embarks on an ambitious national expansion across North America. Her appointment is a clear indicator of Stic's intent to aggressively scale its community-powered advertising platform, which connects brands with drivers who earn passive income by placing removable, tech-enabled ads on their cars.

A Strategic Hire for an Ambitious Road Ahead

Zurell’s arrival at Stic is timed for a period of pivotal growth. The company, founded in 2023, recently secured a $10 million bridge funding round led by Accretion Capital, with participation from notable entrepreneurs and investors. This capital is earmarked to fuel the company's expansion into more than 30 U.S. states and Canada over the next year.

Stic CEO Adam Cohen emphasized the strategic importance of the hire in the company's official announcement. "Sarah joins Stic at a pivotal moment," he stated. "As we expand into new markets and strengthen partnerships, her ability to build brands with cultural relevance and commercial rigor will be instrumental. She brings a rare combination of creativity, kindness, operational discipline, and marketplace understanding."

This move is about more than just filling a C-suite role; it's about acquiring a specific, proven skillset to navigate the company's next chapter. Stic is betting that Zurell's expertise will be crucial in building a national brand presence, deepening relationships with major advertisers and agencies, and solidifying its position in the competitive out-of-home (OOH) advertising market.

From Fashion Runways to Digital Roadways

What makes Zurell a particularly compelling choice is her eclectic and highly successful career trajectory. She most recently served as Chief Marketing Officer for the fashion brand Chinese Laundry. There, she was credited with orchestrating a major brand revitalization, bringing a legacy name back into the cultural zeitgeist. Her marketing efforts saw global celebrities like Taylor Swift and Shakira wearing the brand's shoes, culminating in the successful sale of the company to a private equity firm.

Before her foray into fashion, Zurell was at the forefront of mobility tech as the co-founder of Pavemint, a platform often described as the "Airbnb of parking." As Chief Brand Officer, she built a marketplace connecting drivers with underutilized parking spaces, gaining firsthand experience in the convergence of real-world movement, location-based data, and digital platforms. This background in solving urban mobility challenges provides her with a deep understanding of the dynamics at play in Stic’s own model.

Her experience also includes a role at Google Ventures' Strut, where she worked on early shopping algorithms, and her recent appointment as the youngest female Chair in the 103-year history of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, underscoring her leadership credentials. This combination of high-fashion brand building, tech marketplace creation, and civic leadership positions her to tackle Stic's unique challenges.

Disrupting the Out-of-Home Advertising Landscape

Stic is entering a dynamic and evolving OOH advertising industry. For decades, OOH—comprised of billboards, bus wraps, and other public media—has been a powerful tool for brand awareness but has often struggled with the precise measurement and targeting that define digital advertising. Stic and its competitors aim to change that.

The company's model uses technology-enabled stickers that track vehicle mileage, location, and time of day to calculate real-time ad impressions. This allows brands to receive detailed analytics on campaign performance, a feature often missing from traditional billboard buys. It also enables hyper-local targeting, allowing a brand to saturate a specific neighborhood or demographic area by activating drivers who live and work there.

Stic is not alone in this space. Companies like Wrapify, Carvertise, and Nickelytics have been operating with similar models, connecting drivers with advertisers for car-wrap campaigns. However, Stic is positioning its advanced technology for tracking and optimization as a key differentiator, offering APIs and data dashboards for agencies seeking greater transparency and control. The company claims it can deliver far more impressions than a static billboard at a fraction of the cost, offering a compelling alternative for brands battling saturation and rising costs on digital platforms like Google and Facebook.

In her own words, Zurell sees this as a crucial value proposition. "Stic represents the future of out-of-home advertising—measurable, human, and community-powered," she said. "At a time when brands are seeking alternatives to saturated digital channels, Stic delivers real-world visibility at scale while creating accessible, passive income opportunities."

The Other Side of the Sticker: A New Gig Economy Frontier

Beyond its B2B adtech offering, a core part of Stic's identity is its impact on drivers. The "community-powered" aspect of its platform provides a new avenue for passive income in the gig economy. Unlike ride-sharing or delivery services that require active labor, Stic allows drivers to earn money—reportedly up to $0.14 per mile—simply by going about their daily routines.

This model offers a low-friction way for individuals to supplement their income, a compelling proposition for gig workers, students, or anyone looking to offset the costs of car ownership. The process is managed through an app where drivers are matched with campaigns, and their earnings are tracked automatically. This dual-sided marketplace is central to the company’s mission.

The success of Stic and its competitors hinges on their ability to build and maintain a large, reliable network of drivers. As Zurell steps in to build the Stic brand, a significant part of her focus will be on communicating this value to the driver community, ensuring the platform is not just a tool for advertisers but a trusted source of income for its participants.

As the OOH industry continues its shift toward data-driven, programmatic, and highly measurable solutions, Stic's investment in leadership and technology places it at the center of this transformation. With Zurell at the marketing helm, the company is not just selling ad space on cars; it is selling a new vision for how brands connect with the public in the physical world, one driver at a time.