On last week’s Billboard Insider podcast Chris Cowlbeck talked about 4 IBO public service initiatives.
The first one that comes to mind is one that we’ve had for a couple of years…Operation Christmas shoebox…They pack these shoeboxes and send them to kids in third world countries. Everybody feels good about helping those kids out.
We’ve been introduced to a company out of Las Vegas called Miracle Flights…They find kids that need to go to surgeries or medical treatment and backload them…They were sending about 700 flights a month for kids…I had a soft spot in my heart of that because I had a similar situation for my younger daughter…The fellow Mark Brown that runs that is also an agency guy in Las Vegas…He’s a proponent of billboards…
We also have Artpop with Wendy Hickey, helping the artists in the different cities.
…A problem that we’ve had is our billboard vinyls, when we have a spent campaign…they vinyls come down and those bad boys stack up…some of us sell them, some of us trash them. Everybody’s got a different way of going about it. The big three generally work with a company in California – 
Rareform – that does some recycling work. We got this call from a group that we’ve been trying to help called Every Shelter. I’m going to so a shoutout to Brian Cassidy of Meadow Outdoor. Terrific billboard operator up there in the Pacific Northwest. And Jim Johnsen with Johnsen Fretty who’s an M&A broker guy…approached us about 6-8 months ago with this group out of Houston, Scott Kauffman and Everyshelter.org…He is recycling billboard vinyls to make flooring or shelters in third world countries and then to lake covering for some of the old 1940 style tents that are popular in third world countries…The tricky part of that is how do you get billboard vinyls from the Portland area to Houston…our billboard vinyls are very effective and they can be years on the job…
How might the program work?
We’re in the process of putting together a letter of understanding that describes how the program will work in detail and includes a couple of the public out of home companies…IBO has volunteered to keep track of the database…My goal is to begin to get our operators to palletize their vinyl and keep them on their site until they have 4, 5, 6 pallets…Uber has a subsidiary called Uber freight. They have a philanthropic arm which is giving free backhaul space to Every Shelter and to FEMA…What we want to do is let the experts in disaster identify where the need is and we just say here’s the supply…Because these are donated vinyls there’s a tax deduction that comes along with it…
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