The Billboard Insider Podcast

On today's Billboard Insider podcast, OAAA President and CEO Anna Bager highlights the out of home stories to watch in 2024 and what brands are saying about out of home. What are some important stories to watch in 2024 2024 is an election year that's going to be huge and will be very interesting to follow.  It's not only a presidential election year in the US, it's an election year globally.  Next...

On today's Billboard Insider podcast, out of some sales expert Kevin Gephart answers reader questions on cold calls, sales compensation, finding a job after a layoff and how best to coach out of home sales reps. Some of the highlights. Is cold calling dead? No. If you want to sell sales training in books and seminars, advertise that cold calling is dead and you'll get tons of people that sign up a...

  On today's Billboard Insider podcast, SignBird founder John James talks about how drones can help you market your out of home company more effectively. John give us an overview of SignBird and what you and your team do. John James, SignBird We capture out of home on camera: drone in the sky; camera mounted on a car; or boots on the ground.  SignBird's job is to improve the way out of home is cap...

  On today's podcast OAAA President and CEO Anna Bager talks about the top stories of 2022, issues to watch in 2023 and new initiatives for independent out of home companies. What are some out of home stories to watch in 2023? Anna Bager, President and CEO, OAAA Keeping an eye on the economy...I have a strong sense that we're going to be fine... Signal loss, cookies going away, changing to IOS 14...

Today's podcast guest is Jim Johnsen, a managing director at the out of home investment banking firm Johnsen Fretty talks about out of home valuations and the out of home debt and equity markets. Here are the highlights. A healthy out of home transactions market. The market is healthy with lots of buyers and sellers at the moment.  On a scale of 1 to 10 it's somewhere between an 8.5 and a 9. Jim J...

On today's Billboard Insider podcast we talk with DJ Jennings and John James about OutdoorLink's recent purchase of SignBird. Here are the highlights. DJ Jennings, Chief Revenue Officer, OutdoorLink DJ Jennings on OutdoorLink's history OutdoorLink was created by my father Dwight to service the billboard industry to help operators with the day to day pains they have managing inventory - things like...

Today's podcast guest is Dr. Rick Wilson, Associate Professor at Texas State University San Marcos, has written extensively about the impact and effectiveness of out of home advertising. Here are some highlights. Rick Wilson, Associate Professor of Marketing, Texas State University How did you get involved in studying out of home advertising? The short answer is that my dissertation to get my doct...

On today's Billboard Insider podcast out of home banker Nick Gonzales talks about the out of home debt markets.  Nick's bank seeks $1-20 million out of home loans. Here are the highlights. On July 1 Metro Phoenix Bank was acquired by Alerus Financial Corporation. What does the acquisition mean for out of home borrowers? Nick Gonzales, Alerus Financial Corporation We're really well positioned to re...

On today's Billboard Insider podcast, Blackbird Media CEO Chenault Saunders and President Prentiss Nelson talk about giant digital billboards. Some highlights of the interview The Nashville Sign Blackbird Media owns a spectacular 36' by 38' digital sign in Nashville.  Tell us the story about how it came about. My grandfather...bought that sign in the 50's...It had been a coco-cola perm.  It was a...

  On today's Billboard Insider podcast we talk with out of home sales expert Kevin Gephart.  Kevin has 37 years experience selling advertising including 12 years selling our of home advertising.  He co-published The Ultimate Out of Home Sales Guide together with Billboard Insider. Some highlights of our interview. On the importance of qualifying prospects We had a phenomenal rep in our sales depar...

On this week's Billboard Insider podcast OAAA EVP Government Affairs, Mike Hershey talks about 6 out of home issues to watch.  Here are the highlights. Political Spending OAAA EVP Michael Hershey Let's compare 2020 to 2016...we saw an almost doubling in political campaign spending in the most recent presidential election.  In 2020 we had $14.4 billion, a doubling from previous.  US House and Senat...

On this week's Billboard Insider podcast Dave Westburg interviewed SignBird founder John James and Formetco Digital Billboard Sales Manager Britt McConnell about how to effectively market digital signs. John James, Signbird John, what's in a good sign photo? The common denominator that everybody can agree on is that...there should be traffic in every photo and brakelights.  There should be cars in...

Today's podcast guest Justin Powell talks about founding Huntington Billboards in the middle of the 2009 great recession and growing the company to 1,800 displays over 13 years. Some of the highlights. How did you enter the out of home business? Justin Powell, Founder and President, Huntington Outdoor I graduated from college.  I was 20 years old...  I made a big list.  I called it my new venture...

On today's podcast billboard valuation expert Paul Wright from SignValue gives his opinion of the big three and says that post pandemic values will be higher than pre-pandemic values. Here are the highlights. On Lamar Advertising Well, Lamar, like the other public companies had a great third quarter compared to 2020 but that can be a little bit misleading with all of the companies.  Revenues are u...

Today’s podcast guest is Collin Huber, Out of Home Advertising Market Manager for Daktronics.  Collin talks about what to ask when you buy or replace a digital billboard and why mils matter. Here are the highlights What are some questions digital billboard buyers overlook? Collin Huber, Market Manager - Out of Home Advertising, Daktronics From a product perspective it’s important to ask what capab...

On today's Billboard Insider podcast Adomni founder Jonathan Gudai talks about how out of home is recovering and what he thinks of the capital flowing into programmatic out of home. Here are the highlights. How is out of home recovering from covid? We feel like we are back right now.  We expected Q3 and Q4 to have the lions share…but we were surprised by Q2…there was a huge spike and audiences sta...

Today’s podcast guest is John James, the founder of SignBird.  Today John talks about selling billboards for Lamar, his proudest out of home sale and what your website needs to effectively market your signs. On getting into out of home My first job out of college – I was working on political campaigns and I was doing different things…in some of our marketing for that particular campaign we looked...

Today’s podcast guest is Jay Johnson, CFO of Lamar Advertising.     Here's what Jay said about out of home's resilience, managing through covid, sustainable leverage, cyber risk and the acquisitions market. What was your biggest surprise about out of home coming into the industry? The resilience of the out of home industry and billboards in particular.  You look at this past year it is simply shoc...

Today’s podcast guest is Denise Levine, Chief Revenue Officer of Branded Cities a 20 year old out of home company which specializes in iconic urban out of home locations.  She talks about what it's like selling iconic urban out of home assets. Here are the highlights. Review Branded Cities history and current plant. Denise Levine, Chief Revenue Officer, Branded Cities We’re 20 years in the out of...

Today's podcast guest Melody Roberts, Owner | Chief Creative Officer, of Out of Home Creative talks about how to give out of home clients a great creative experience. Here are the highlights. How did COVID impact your business? Melody Roberts Owner | Chief Creative Officer Out of Home Creative Probably like most, I had a downturn through June. And then, in July, I started seeing an uptick in reque...

Today's podcast guest Auz Khan, CEO of Adwatch Media gives tips on how to use your website to generate more sales leads and what to put on an available billboard. Here are the highlights. Auz Khan, Founder and CEO, Adwatch Media What is Adwatch Media and how can it help out of home companies. Adwatch Media is a digital advertising and marketing company that white labels its services and sells them...

Today's podcast guest, Stephen Freitas (Executive Advisor to the OAAA and Partner in OOH Capital) says the out of home industry needs to make it easier to transact.  He also tells a great story about Malcolm Gladwell. Is the out of home industry doing a good job marketing itself? Yes....If you take a step back and look at what the industry has been doing over the last decade and look at where the...

Today's podcast guests are Evan Richheimer and Luis Cerda, Co-Founders of New Tradition Media an out of home company which operates a large format out of home plant in 16 large US cities.   They talk about getting started, the Regency signs purchase and how they secured One Times Square.  Don't overlook the value of a cold call! Luis Cerda, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, New Tradition Media Luis...

Today’s podcast guest is Kelly Peppers, the CEO of Colossal Media, the global leader in hand painted outdoor advertising.  Kelly talks about the company's growing pains, a successful capital raise and priorities for next year. Kelly, how did Colossal get into out of home. Kelly Peppers, CEO, Colossal Media We’re a Brooklyn-based media company credited for reviving hand-painted outdoor advertising....

Today’s podcast guest is Jon Odom, Founder and President of Productivity Fabricators, a family owned and operated steel fabricating business in Richmond, Indiana.  John talks talks about how to design and maintain your billboard structures. Give an overview of productivity fabricators. Productivity Fabricators came into being January 1, 1994.  I had worked for the previous owner for 8 years as the...