Company: Look Billboards

Market:  Southern Oklahoma

Headquarters: 1500 W. Broadway, Ardmore, Oklahoma

Phone: 580-226-0222

LOOK Billboards operates 100+ traditional faces and 5 digital rotary-networked billboards in the following Oklahoma markets: Ardmore, Atoka, Caddo, Durant, Healdton-Wilson, Lone Grove, Madill, Springer and Sulphur-Davis. Most of the billboards are 12 by 24.  Chris Cowlbeck is the General Manager.  Charlie Clowe handles Financie and Accounting.  The company is a member of the OAAA.  In addition to running Look Billboards, Cowlbeck is also the General Manager IBOUSA.

Chris, how did you get into the outdoor advertising business?

Our main family business started over 47 years ago now with my mother founding our real estate company in Ardmore. We had terrific response to our yard signs, and had one hand painted 12 x 24 bulletin beside our office (now a location of one of our digitals), which we knew worked well.  A grade school friend of mine and now business partner, Charlie Clowe, attempted to get the local tourism effort to build some billboards to generate revenue to promote the city, and when we couldn’t build enough interest, we said heck, let’s do it ourselves.

What’s it like to operate in a rural market?

It can be both rewarding and frustrating at the same time.  Ardmore is a trade center for about 5 counties on Interstate 35 and was ranked one of the nation’s most affordable places to live a few years back.  That really sounds great until you figure that it’s very difficult to raise rates.  Being in the oil patch hasn’t helped buffer this, so we developed some unique ways of selling that includes becoming a good marketing consultant for our advertisers who can’t afford it.Another challenge is the increasing number of locations owned by the native American tribes that are not required to get permits.  Winstar Casino is now the world’s largest and just a few miles from us.  They have helped the community in general, but it has impacted our expansion efforts.