Stephen Freitas is Chief Marketing Officer of the OAAA. He is a leading industry marketing spokesman and thought leader, helping to advance and unite the out of home advertising industry through education and marketing. Before joining OAAA, Freitas spent a decade developing high profile marketing programs for Clear Channel Communications and its predecessor, Eller Media Company. As senior vice president of marketing, Freitas was responsible for global branding, advertising, research, public relations, and corporate communications. Prior to joining the out of home advertising industry, Freitas worked as a media planner at two San Francisco agencies. With a background in earth sciences, he began his early professional career in oil exploration at Chevron, USA. Insider interviewed Freitas last week.
Stephen in an interview with us last August you mentioned that digital out of home screens are accelerating the use of geographically targeted campaigns. Can you give some recent examples?
Today’s out of home advertising industry is thriving because of a fortunate convergence between proximity, digital flexibility, and data integration. The triangulation of these three factors has provided an opportunity unlike any we’ve seen. To match the precise location of a target audience, with granular data to reveal discrete information about that audience, and then serve a relevant message to that audience is a remarkable advancement for our industry.
Data integration has quickly become the rule, not the exception, for OOH campaigns generally, and digital OOH campaigns specifically. Geopath’s Operation MORE will take data integration to the next level, making the information available across the entire OOH industry. On a tandem path, individual OOH media companies are exploring better ways to tell stories using data.
OAAA has released this year’s 115 OBIE finalists. Any trends in this year’s batch of finalists?
It seemed the collective quality of the entries this year was particularly strong. It’s a trend we’ve noticed over the last few years. OOH has increasingly become a more core media choice, and for this reason, agencies are focusing added resources to develop stronger OOH creative. The result is better design executions across the board.
Since this year marks the 75th anniversary of the OBIE Awards, we decided to refresh the program and entry criteria to better reflect today’s ad business. You’ll see new ad categories at the OBIE show this year, including awards for integrated media and interactive campaigns. We have also added craft awards for best copywriting, illustration, photography, and digital design.
Most exciting for me is the addition of the Bronze OBIE Award. With this new designation, we will reward more outstanding OOH campaigns with OBIE Awards, expressed as Bronze, Silver, and Gold. We have also introduced a new best-in-show prize, described as the Platinum OBIE Award. This award will be presented to the one OOH campaign that impressed our judges the most.
What speakers are you looking forward to hearing at the OAAA/Geopath national convention?
This year’s national convention planning committee has introduced a new approach to the program we believe the attendees will find truly appealing. We have our customary roster of impressive general session speakers planned for both days including The NFL’s Chief Marketing Officer Dawn Hudson, Twitter’s VP of Global Brand and Creative Strategy Joel Lunenfeld, and Zenith Media’s EVP of Global Innovation Tom Goodwin. We’re also thrilled to have Rob Dembitz, Director of Global Innovation for Cannes Lions, and MIT professor Carlo Ratti who’s book, The City of Tomorrow is defining the future of Smart Cities.
But, the really innovative programming comes during the afternoon sessions. We have eliminated the traditional workshops from the program. Instead, we are presenting highly-focused, 15-minute presentations similar to the popular TED Talks.
The Tech Talks session will look at technologies that have the potential to transform the OOH business and will include presentations from WAZE, Corning Glass, Panasonic, Spyder Apparel, Pinterest, and Foursquare.
The Art & Science Exchange will explore how the integration of creativity and insights will improve the overall impact of an OOH campaign.
We’re also hosting a session designed especially for independent OOH media operators, and Geopath will offer an intense OOH ratings training course.
What’s on the horizon? What’s the next big thing that will impact the OOH business?
I believe a few technologies have the potential to dramatically transform the OOH business in the next several years. The first is the autonomous vehicle and the rise of the Connected City. There is a lot of speculation right now. We know a fully autonomous society is many decades away, but it’s important to think about the opportunities so the OOH industry can be part of the conversation. OAAA has commissioned a white paper on the subject that will be presented at the national convention.
Other technological trends that could impact OOH advertising in a big way are Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Virtual Reality (VR). Right now, the goggles required to tap into VR experiences are unwieldy. That will change. In the future, AI will become integrated within our daily routines and OOH ads will have the potential to literally come alive with VR interfaces.
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