Company: Joyce Outdoor Advertising
Markets: New Jersey, Chicago, Pennsylvania
Headquarters: 800 James Avenue, Scranton, PA 18510
Phone: 570-871-0311
Email: info@joyceoutdoor.com
Joyce Outdoor Advertising operates billboards, digital signs and wallscapes in New Jersey, Chicago and Pennsylvania. Insider talked with the company’s owner Kevin Joyce. Kevin is the only person Insider knows who practiced basketball on a hoop made of billboard scraps. That’s growing up in the business!
Kevin, how did you enter the outdoor business?
There’s a long answer to your short question. I grew up in the billboard business. My father started a billboard plant when he was a teenager, and it eventually became a large company. The industry was the backdrop of our childhood. My father would frequently come home with raw wood “Patrick” imprints for us to paint. The basketball hoop in our yard was built with scrap pipe from bulletin columns, as well as uprights and wood panels from the faces. We spent countless hours in the shop, where I especially drove the artists (Jack Davitt / Joe Trudnak) and painters crazy. Fortunately, they tolerated me until I was around 9 or 10 years old. I officially entered into the business in 2009 or 2010. Being one of the casualties of The Great Recession from my previous job, I was forced me to explore something different.
Tell us about your plant.
The plant is a mixture of static and digital locations, comprised of posters, bulletins, and more recently, wallscapes.
How are each of your markets (New Jersey, Chicago and PA) different?
Like other major markets, Northern NJ and Chicago are extremely competitive landscapes. They are fortunate enough to have mostly national buys, spread among numerous OOH companies.
My home market in PA is a much smaller, and almost entirely local/regionals buys. Here, one major OOH operator is the 800lb gorilla, and they tend to influence market rates with their pricing power.
Who’s digital signs do you use and what have you learned?
We have both Daktronics and Formetco displays. Both manufacture great products, supported by great service. I’ve learned that they are striving to make their systems as user friendly as possible, often saving time. That’s certainly a commodity for small operators.
What’s one thing thing you know now that you wish you knew when you started in the outdoor business?
When differentiating yourself from competitors, don’t go negative. Highlight your great locations and what you do best. Don’t even mention the other operators of media platforms. Going negative comes off as petty.
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