Company: Huntington Outdoor

Markets: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee

Headquarters: 311 East Street, Gordon, Ohio. 45304

Phone: 800-704-5973

Email: office@huntingtonoutdoor.com

Huntington Outdoor is a family owned out of home company which operates a billboard plant with over 3,100 displays in 13 states.  The company is a member of the OAAA and an operator associate in the IBOUSA.  The company was formed by Justin Powell in 2008.  Justin serves as the company’s President and CEO.  Gary Riley is the firms General Manager Justin’s sister Jena Powell serves in the Ohio State House of Representatives.    In 2023 Huntington renovated an empty church to serve as headquarters.

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.

How many faces are you up to, and how many of your total faces are digital?

We went from 2,316 displays at the beginning of 2023 to just under 3,100 displays today. . Huntington Billboards has always been a greenfield development company. We build 95%+ of our locations. We are extremely excited about 2024 because it is shaping up to be our biggest greenfield development year ever! We have 83 new displays scheduled to be built in February and over 800 for the year.

Over the last year, we have added 24 new digital displays, bringing our company’s total to 57. Historically, we’ve been very cautious when it comes to digital deployment because we did not feel confident in being able to consistently beat our hurdle rate on most projects. As we have developed additional locations and tracked their returns, it has given us increasing levels of confidence in where we should and should not deploy digitals. Over the next year or two, we will likely double our number of digital displays (both from conversions and new development).

What are some of your objectives for the coming year?

1. People: A long time ago, I realized the success of Huntington was going to be directly tied to the quality of people on our team. We have amazing people and an incredible team, but with all the growth, we need more. We are looking for territory managers in Florida, Iowa, and Kansas and eager for installers in Iowa/Minnesota/Kansas/Oklahoma/Florida. If any of your readers are interested in joining a growing company that works hard and treats its people well, please reach out to Gary Riley (gary@huntingtonbillboards.com).
2. Acquisition Fund: Up until now, nearly all of our growth has come from developing new locations. While this will continue for the next 5+ years, we’re at the point where we’re ready to more aggressively look at purchasing existing plants/assets. To accomplish this, we’re in the middle of raising an eight-figure debt fund that we will use to add great assets over the next 18 months. If you are an independent billboard owner that is looking for a family-owned and run company to continue your legacy of treating your customers and landowners really well, please send me an email (justin@huntingtonbillboards.com). I would love to talk with you to see if we would be a great fit.
3. Increase National and Political Clients: OOH is being shortchanged by many in the advertising world. I think this is primarily because we have not asked for the dollars. I was speaking with the owners of a local TV station, and they said that 30% of their overall revenue came from political spending during election years. While our political advertising revenue is increasing, it does not come anywhere near that percentage of sales. Our industry deserves the dollars, and in 2024, I am going to focus on aggressively asking for them.

What’s one thing you wish you could change about the way the out-of-home industry does business?

I really wish we could make it easier for national advertisers to purchase our advertising medium and decrease turnaround times. To compete in the political ad space, we are going to have to offer sub-week turnaround times. We are obviously there with digital, but we need to get better on our static displays. The online advertising space has Google that offers them an easy and efficient platform for placing ads across the internet within hours. We need this, and my guess is it is not going to come from a pure play sales aggregator; it’s going to come from an enterprise management software like Apparatix.

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