Some advice from Grace Outdoor’s Hal Stevenson and Huntington Outdoor’s Justin Powell on finding good out of home locations taken from In Their Words – Out of Home Executives talk about out of home.
Hal Stevenson, Grace Outdoor Advertising
You’ve got to start with politics. You’ve got to understand the way the ordinances have evolved over time, who the players are, what you might be able to do…I’ll give you a quick example. Indian Land, South Carolina is a suburb of Charlotte…which is growing tremendously. And I had a guy call me…who said can you get me a billboard. And I went up there and there were no billboards…except for one. And it was an old poster panel, looked like it was going to fall down. And I just kept getting calls from people looking for something in that area…we converted that billboard to a double digital…and it’s probably our highest occupancy most successful sign and the Indiana land council president called after we had put it up…and she said, “Hal that’s the best thing that’s happened in our community in years.”
Justin Powell, Huntington Outdoor
How do you find winners? I came up with a little system that’s easy to remember and might help you. First, unless it’s a very special case, don’t bother with a location with less than 5,000 a day traffic count. Obviously, more is better. Second, look for what I call “CISD” locations (I always say “KISSED locations”). Here’s what that stands for: you want locations that are either at the end of a Curve, at an Intersection, Slow traffic, or you have Demand from advertisers wanting a billboard at a certain location.
For more great advice like this buy a copy of In Their Words – Out of Home Executives talk about out of home. This 147 page guide has advice from 173 executives at 150 out of home companies. It costs $49.95 and is available in pdf and epub versions. To learn more and order your copy of the book visit the In Their Words page of the Billboard Insider website.
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