Stephen Freitas is Chief Marketing Officer of the OAAA. He is the 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 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. He also worked at Chevron, USA for eight years.

Stephen, how did you get involved with the out of home industry?

I was working for a small agency in San Francisco when a search firm contacted me about a marketing job with a national media company. The interview was with Patrick Media Company in Oakland, CA. Mark Van Fossan had just become president of the company and directed the regions to begin hiring marketing professionals. I was one of the first marketers hired under this directive.

At that time, Patrick was strictly a billboard company, and I had never thought about ownership of billboards. I decided to have the interview, but I wasn’t really interested in working for a billboard company. After two hours I was hooked, and I’ve never regretted my decision to join the out of home (OOH) industry.

What’s a typical day like for you?

I usually wake-up around 6 am and immediately do email triage (after my first cup of coffee). I look to see if anything really urgent has come through overnight. Then, I quickly delete the spam. That way, I can skip the task of reading emails when I get to the office and focus on what needs to happen first that day. I address the remaining emails throughout the morning.

From there, the day can head in any number of directions; it’s never the same from one day to the next. I have conference calls on most days. Many calls are with members looking for information or insights. We also talk with investment bankers, agencies and brands looking for information about the OOH medium, and tech companies trying to understand opportunities within our industry.

OAAA is constantly executing multiple projects at any given time, for many of which I provide topline strategic oversight. For example, my team at OAAA provided oversight for the recent Feel the Real campaign from fruition to execution, with continued agency and membership engagement throughout.

What’s your take on the ANA study calling for greater media transparency in the US Advertising industry?

Credibility is important for any business or industry.  Several years ago, our OOH media company members adopted the practice of writing net contracts in an effort to encourage better transparency.  It’s a guideline we encourage all media companies to adopt.  To my knowledge, OOH is the only industry to use net contracts as a common standard.

What impact will driverless cars have on out of home advertising?

The functionality of autonomous vehicles will evolve over time, not all at once. Connected vehicles are already available with features that include lane assist technology, parking assistance, and more. My new SUV has Apple CarPlay, which turns the dashboard screen into an iPhone screen.

It’s not clear how onboard screens will evolve over time. A safe bet is the small screen we carry in our pocket will link with other screens around us, including inside the vehicle, but also with digital OOH screens.

In the future, OOH locations will be more than simple ad platforms. The distribution of OOH inventory is ideal for supporting the continued evolution of connected cities. Therefore, OOH locations will become an integral part of the infrastructure for connected cites by adding utility to the existing OOH footprint.

We’re already seeing this happen. Today, OOH locations are being used as WiFi hubs while others are being used as cell towers.

Ensuring the OOH medium is part of the connected cities infrastructure, as a conduit and as a content source, will keep the medium relevant in a driverless car future.

Name three trends you are seeing in out of home creative campaigns

• Data assimilation remains a transformational opportunity for the OOH industry, and that extends into the creative process. Today, data is commonly used to inform creative decisions. When data is matched with dynamic content, OOH messages can be personalized or made relevant to a target audience.

• A second trend is how common geographically pertinent campaigns have become. Although matching an OOH message to a geographic location has always been a tactic, it’s more common today because it’s easier to customize messages now more than ever before. On-demand computer printing technology makes one-of-a-kind ads cost effective, and digital OOH allows for nearly limitless copy alterations.

• Finally, there is clearly a renewed respect for the OOH creative process. Agency creative directors are extremely interested to learn all they can about how technology is broadening the OOH creative palette. As a result, an OOH strategy brief is the starting point for a lot of agency planning today.

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