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 1800 displays in the Midwest.  The company was formed by Justin Powell in 2008.

Justin, how did you enter the out of home 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… 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

Growing pains

About the time I got to about 70 billboards my occupancy rate was atrocious…It was 40% or something.  It was absolutely awful because I was doing everything.  I would have nice clothes on and talk to an advertiser and then I would change out of my nice clothes in the car and change into climbing gear and change out a vinyl and then I would chop down trees.  I would do land leasing.  I would do everything.   My little sister at that time – Jena was 17.  She looked at me and said “Hey Justin, why don’t you let me take over sales.  And I’m like yeah sure.  She became a partner in the business.  And then my brother, he was 16.  He came to me and he said, Justin, I think I can build these things for you.  Let me do that…On that foundation we continued to build and build and build.  We got to about 500 billboards and my sister Jena got elected as State Representative…So we hired a General Manager at that point…things have transitioned a bit.

Digital Billboards

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

Whose digitals?

We use Formetco.  Formetco has done a very good job for us.  They look nice and have been very reliable.  Formetco seems to know what they are doing…All of the nightmares I thought we would have…we haven’t had.

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