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 with over 400 faces in Southwest Ohio and east-central Indiana.  The company was formed by Justin Powell in 2008 and is headquartered in Greenville Ohio. The company’s VP of Sales Jena Powell also serves in the Ohio House of Representatives.  Director of Client Relations Haleigh Powell is a frequent contributor to Billboard Insider.  Insider talked with CEO Justin Powell.

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 last year’s purchase of Echo Outdoor. All of the signs acquired in the purchase are 12×32.

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. 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 seasonally updated.

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