Billboard Insider is running a series of interviews with out of home legend Charley MacIntyre who recently sold Bullfrog Outdoor to Adams. Last week Charley talked about site development. Today he talks about sales and creative.
You started in sales. What does selling outdoor mean to you?
Make a friend. If you can help someone, and make a connection, then you make a friend. And then do what you say. Simple as that. I’ve had clients for 10 years. I did all the sales myself—never hired a salesperson.
What have you learned about creative? What works on a billboard and what doesn’t?
Hold the ad five feet away. Can you read it? Can you read it right there? That’s the test. I’m still amazed at how many digital billboard ads I see that are poorly done—hard to recognize. I drove past a sign near a facility that makes 75-80 percent of all artificial limbs in the world. They had 48 words and a logo. Who approved that? Nobody’s reading it at 60 miles an hour
Did you ever pay for impression data, or did you sell purely on local traffic knowledge?
Always local. Nobody in my market was searching for La Grange, Indiana on a media plan. It was simple: if you’re going north-south in this county, you need to be on this road. If you’re going east-west, you need to be on that one. Everybody knew it.
Using spec ads
When I was selling, I’d sometimes bring in a spec ad. Put their creative on a sheet, lay the demo map underneath it so they could see exactly where the sign was and what their ad would look like. That was clever and it closed deals.
Using drones to get marketing photos
On drones—I tried that once for aerial shots of my inventory. Made the mistake of filming in winter. Billboards don’t look quite as inviting surrounded by snow as they do in spring with green grass and flowers behind them. Live and learn.
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