Rick Robinson has 30 years of experience selling OOH Media, including stints with Ackerley Airport Advertising, Gannett Outdoor, CBS and McDonald Media. Rick is the Chief Operating Officer at Billups, a full service OOH media specialist agency based in Portland, Oregon. Rick has created an outstanding 42 second video titled Storytelling and OOH. It should be required watching for any outdoor design or sales person. Billups provides planning, buying, production, posting and post-buy evaluations for agencies and brands. Billups also owns and operates Division Black, an experiential agency. Insider talked with Robinson about how technology is revolutionizing OOH buys this week.
Rick tells us a little bit about Billups
The firm has 75 employees and 11 offices, and our headquarters are in Portland. We’ve grown very rapidly. Ben Billups started as a one man show 13 years ago. We now have three partners and have expanded aggressively via organic growth and acquisitions.
How did you happen to become involved with Billups?
We were competitors. I met Ben and realized that we had a strikingly similar vision for the future. We joined forces. It was fate!
What are some of the challenges of planning and buying OOH versus other kinds of media?
The key challenge for everybody is that it simply “takes too long” to execute. We’re all trying to automate. The industry does not have one agnostic planning tool. Everybody is working to get “faster” in their own way. DoMedia has developed something, Adstruct is setting a benchmark, Ayuda, and Billboard Planet are also in the mix. The big question is do you build it or buy it? ayue’re figuring that out. We have a treasure trove of tribal OOH knowledge at our agency. The challenge is how to unleash it.
Any thoughts on smart data and billboards?
Data coming from other places will be used in the OOH business. Inrix was originally started to generate traffic data and has now re-purposed the data for OOH. Cellular carriers are doing the same thing. There are other examples…
What has to happen for programmatic real-time OOH buying to take off?
First, we need to automate the planning and buying process before we can take advantage of programmatic opportunities. We need to have nationwide inventory visibility, real-time avails, an easy ad server platform, and instant ROI tracking.
Second, let’s clarify if/when and how our clients want programmatic OOH? We don’t know for sure. The industry is hoping so and there is a bit of “Build it and they will come” syndrome at work here. Most of our brands buy real estate. They want to cover a certain geo-tactical target. Looking for hipsters? Buy Downtown LA. Looking for conservative middle class consumers? Buy ‘Burbs. When people buy OOH they generally buy geography, not impressions.
What trends have been helping OOH?
Three things. The urbanization of America. The fact that we are spending more of our lives outside of our homes. And the use of smartphones. All of that leads to a necessity for OOH. And the public still loves a great billboard.
How will driverless cars impact OOH business?
There are three kinds of OOH. Walk-by, stand-by, drive-by. The first two won’t be changed much by driverless cars, but the classic freeway billboard experience will be altered. How?, I don’t know yet—no one does. The industry needs to understand the marriage of OOH and mobile because the driverless car will be the next-generation mobile device.
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