Each city has had its own unique issues during the Covid crisis. We wanted to take a look at Las Vegas, which relies so heavily on tourism. Insider reached out to Chad Harris, Owner/Operator of Las Vegas Billboards for a conversation about the market.
Covid took a big hit to the gaming industry in Nevada. What’s the current status of the gaming and business community in Las Vegas?
I never imagined I would drive down the Las Vegas Strip and see it empty and dark, like a ghost town. Now we are in the reopening phase, but our city has changed and resort corridor advertising and national advertising is still a very small percentage of our business, where it used to be the majority. The live events, day clubs/pools, nightclubs, shows and most entertainment attractions have not reopened. When we anticipated the shift, we turned our focus to local business instead, and it’s working for us.
How was your Company impacted by the shutdown of the Las Vegas strip?
We finished 2019 strong, and added two new digital billboards, bringing our total to 28 digital faces. Then 2020 brought new challenges to our industry; while we pursue all the development opportunities we can find, some plans will have to wait — including two digitals we made the decision to hold in permitting. When Nevada went into shutdown last spring, we took advantage of the time off to look at the big picture of our business. I met virtually with my managers, we examined our processes and procedures, and made some changes. It’s interesting what you can get done — and the things you see that can be improved — when you aren’t caught up in the daily grind. Our new approach moving forward is to treat Las Vegas Billboards almost like a startup, with great inventory and lots of knowledge.
You talked about things you did to improve yourselves during the shutdown. Can you give me a couple of specific examples of key things you worked on?
A major question we asked ourselves was, how can we empower our sales team to be more efficient and autonomous? We found our answer by creating a new tool to give each sales consultant access to see what our rate flexibility is for each of our digital panels, so they can customize a plan to the client’s specific needs, but still keep a solid rate structure on our units. It’s allowed us to expand our digital billboard offerings to a greater marketplace of advertisers. We also streamlined our accounts payable and accounts receivable department, cutting some unnecessary and outdated billing practices, and like all businesses, focused on creating the safest place possible to work in.
The shutdown also had us brainstorming ways our company could give back, and become a resource for the community during a dark time. Pre-COVID, we were restricted to limited PSA messaging due to the high occupancy on our digital units. Now we are able to open up our digital units to groups that have positive messaging, and/or provide information about services that the public could benefit from.
Did you do any promotional pushes for local business? Special deals or specific sectors you found success with?
We have been more targeted and flexible in our approach with advertisers. We are focusing more on new advertisers that have never been on billboards before, and utilizing our flexible rate and term structure to allow more businesses and services to use our platform. This has created many first-time short-term advertisers that have stayed with us beyond their initial term.
Have you been able to maintain staffing through the downturn?
It was my personal mission that no employee would be let go or furloughed. Being a family-owned business, our team is our family. From day one of the shutdown, I told every team member that they would receive their payroll checks and not to worry about that — that was the number one priority for me. Everyone is already worried enough about their health and their families and everything else.
Knowing that there were going to be some high-quality people in the market looking for a new place to call home, we actually added team members this year. We have two outstanding new sales consultants who bring years of experience and expertise in OOH and other media channels.
What’s the current status of business and tourism in Vegas? What do you see as current opportunities and what keeps you up at night?
Tourism is still down, of course, and it seems drive-in traffic is where most of our tourism is coming from, while fly-in traffic is still significantly down. Driving in your own vehicle gives you greater control over how sanitary your environment is, and until we get COVID-19 under control I feel the fly-in market will be slow to come back. But the local market is strong, traffic volume is back to normal and the local market has adjusted well to the new normal.
A wise man once told me that sometimes, the best deals are the ones you don’t do. We are seeing opportunities that we passed on in recent years coming back to us. Now those deals have changed, and may be something to consider. After 27 years in this industry, ordinarily I could project where things were going. Now there is more uncertainty, but we can’t allow it to paralyze us as an industry — it’s more motivation to be even better than ever at what we do.
The Raiders are coming to town! What’s the buzz in Las Vegas and do you see opportunities for your business?
Yes, the Raiders are here! It’s very exciting, but there are still a lot of unknowns… Will they play? Will they allow fans in the stadium? I think so many people in our city had high hopes for 2020 to be the best year ever, but that changed and now we just have to adapt, while working smarter and harder than ever.
What’s your sense on how the second half of 2020 goes for LVB?
Las Vegas Billboards will continue to do what we’ve always done, and what we do best: show up every day and work hard for our advertisers, continuing to put their needs first. Whether times are good or bad, we keep trying to find new ways to build successful relationships.
The coronavirus brings a lot of uncertainty, but we are resilient and we will overcome this. Las Vegas will come back stronger and better than ever. And I know one thing for sure: billboard advertising is not going anywhere. We are still the best form of media on this planet… but I’m a little biased.
[wpforms id=”9787″]
Paid Advertisement
