Company: Porlier Outdoor Advertising

Markets: Missouri, Kansas

Headquarters: 127 Mulberry Street, Foristell, MO  63348

Phone: 636-463-2100

Porlier outdoor operates a billboard plant in Missouri and Kansas.  The signs are clustered from St Louis west to Kansas City.  The firm was started in 1988 by Brent Porlier.  Insider talked with Porlier this week.

Brent, how did you enter the billboard business?

I answered a help wanted ad for an entry-level real estate rep position for the Kansas City Star newspaper. That decision led me into a real estate position with Whiteco Metrocom (formerly White Advertising International). After 7 years, I moved to St. Louis to begin working for DDI Media (formerly Drury Displays, Inc). In 1988, I partnered with DDI Media to pursue my own company. DDI Media graciously provided the financial backing needed to start the company. After a fruitful 26 year partnership, myself and DDI Media made the decision to geographically split our inventory. I now own and operate about 300 faces between the St. Louis and Kansas City market. I’m fortunate to be able to pursue my true love of site development, which allows for a more flexible schedule to spend time in Montana, my home away from home.

Tell us about your plant.

We’re a loyal bunch and we like to form long-term relationships with our clients, contractors, and suppliers. We believe in top quality products even if they cost a little more, and we place a high importance on keeping our structures looking pristine by focusing on vegetation and structure maintenance. We invest in the latest technology, such as OutdoorLink’s light monitoring system that notifies us immediately of light outages on our signs. We’re excited to be wrapping up our LED lighting project with Reliable Electric, and in the next few months, 100% of our billboards will be equipped with industry-leading Holophane LEDs. I’m fortunate to have a capable and gifted crew of six very talented people. Everyone in the company wears a lot of hats and has a lot of responsibility. I’ve found my employees thrive with less micromanaging and more freedom to be hands-on in the company. I have a team that genuinely enjoys what they do and are vested in the success of the company. My employees are an extension of my own family. We all get along really well and have a lot of fun together.

Whose digital billboards do you use and what have you learned?

We currently don’t have any digital billboards in our inventory, however, we received great service and attentiveness from Watchfire Signs with our previous digital billboards. We have confidence in their product and service and will likely use them in the future. Our experience has taught us that the location of a digital billboard needs to be well thought out. We’ve also learned that selling digital space is different than selling static space; there’s many advantages to digital in terms of on-demand, real-time advertising, but the space needs to be sold as such to really get the full effect and wow factor of the medium.

You run creative copy when you’ve got an empty billboard. What’s your approach?

Over the years we’ve dabbled in different designs for our available inventory, but historically, we’ve had the most success implementing consistency in our self promo ads. In almost 30 years, we’ve had just three main “Ad Here” designs. The first were hand painted red, white, and grey designs, simply showcasing the words “Ad Here” and our phone number. We moved our headquarters in the midst of the digital printing evolution, so we revamped the layout to include a gradient background, our company colors, and our new phone number and web address. About seven years ago, we decided to freshen our brand further when high quality stock images became more readily available. We began using larger than life, colorful photographs in addition to our standard “Ad Here” verbiage. We’ve had a lot of fun with these. From a colorful parrot, a roaring lion, a dog with earbuds, and everything in between, you never know what or who you’ll see hanging out on our signs. Fresh photos and a consistent layout, paired with an exceptional, high-quality print has assisted in building our brand, which we’ve carried through to our website. This has been instrumental in helping our potential clients link us to our inventory.

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