Company: Huntington Outdoor

Markets: Ohio, Indiana

Headquarters: 524 1/2 S. Broadway, Greenville, OH  45331

Phone: 800-704-5973

Email: office@huntingtonoutdoor.com

Huntington Outdoor operates a billboard plant in Southwest Ohio and east-central Indiana.  The company was formed by Justin Powell in 2008 and is headquartered in Greenville Ohio.   Jena Powell heads up the sales team, Chris Denlinger is the company’s creative director, Cindy Summers handles accounting and administration, and Chase Powell oversees construction and maintenance of the billboards. Insider talked with CEO Justin Powell earlier this week.

Justin, how did you get into the outdoor business?

I started Huntington Outdoor in 2008. I wasn’t really looking to get into the billboard business. I was just out of college and looking for a job. The recession was in full swing and jobs for twenty year old college graduates were not plentiful. It was at this point I decided to “create” my own job. I had no experience, no idea what “job” I wanted so I started doing some research: restaurants, insurance, real estate, car washes, internet sales, and so on..

Before I started searching, I created a check-list of what I wanted from a business. None of the businesses I researched matched the items on my check-list until I stumbled upon billboards. A friend of mine suggested billboards.  He said they seemed like they were a good business. I continued my research and decided to look into buying a billboard company. While looking for a company to purchase, I realized quickly that either people didn’t want to sell or if they did, they were overpriced so I decided to build my own (more research) and so Huntington Outdoor was born.

You focus on 8×20 signs and 12×24 signs rather than 14×48 signs. Why?

They’re too big! Those things are enormous. Our billboards are on heavily trafficked roads, but they aren’t interstate highways so they don’t need to be as big to be visible. We’re able to provide our clients with great advertising locations at a price point they can afford, which is one of the keys to our success. We are getting closer to that size with our recent purchase of Echo Outdoor. All of the signs acquired in the purchase are 12×32.

Do you have any digital signs?  What are your thoughts on digital billboards?

We don’t currently. As we are a relatively new company, we’re focused on installing signs in as many locations as we can to test the waters in multiple markets to see what is the most popular and successful with the plan to switch to digital as we go. Digital definitely makes sense along those routes and in those areas that can support it.

You’ve done a great job incorporating video into your website.  Who had the idea and was it difficult to do?

Thanks! It’s been a great addition to our website. Jena gets the credit for the video. It was her  idea and was one that we discussed early on in the planning stage of our website redesign that launched last fall. This made it fairly easy for Chris to implement as it was part of our redesign and not just added into our previous website layout. We believe there is great value in using video online if done properly and will be adding more in the coming months.

You purchased Sidney, OH based Echo Outdoor in April 2017.  How has the integration gone?

So far, relatively smoothly. Echo outdoor was a small company with in Sidney. We’ve met with all of the existing clients that were advertising with Echo Outdoor and that transition was very smooth. This was a great addition to our relatively new presence in Sidney.

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