Breakthrough! The Official OAAA/Geopath Conference Recap with Adam Malone, David Weinfeld, and Amanda Dorenberg

Adam Malone (00:00:00) - Yeah. Do you wanna clap us in? Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Tim Rowe (00:00:02) - I got the audio going, so, yeah, just somebody in front of a mic, do a clap. I'll get, I'll get you 3, 2, 1 as soon as Amanda is here. 3, 2, 1.

Jean-Paul Gedeon (00:00:16) - Welcome everybody to the Out-of-Home Insider. Show a podcast like no other hosted by the one and only Tim Rowe. Get ready to have some knowledge dropped on you and to be entertained, because nothing's more valuable than food for your brain. So, sit back, relax. We're about to dive in as the best industry podcast is about to begin.

Tim Rowe (00:00:37) - Welcome to Out-of-Home Insider. This is the post-conference edition, OAAA/Geopath Breakthrough Conference. Just concluding, I've got Adam Malone, David Weinfeld, and of course, Amanda Berg. We're here at the screen verse penthouse live from the penthouse, which is pretty exciting. It was a, it, it was a, a much different atmosphere here last night, buzzing with all sorts of folks. I think you guys definitely turned into the, uh, the after party of the event. So congratulations.

Adam Malone (00:01:05) - Thank you. It was super fun. Absolutely. Thanks

David Weinfeld (00:01:07) - For hosting us.

Tim Rowe (00:01:07) - Yeah, you welcome. I had a great time, uh, and, and the great time here in Nashville all week. Uh, a question to, to start us all off, though, really is what excites you most? What, what was the most exciting takeaway this week? And Adam all started off with you?

Adam Malone (00:01:21) - Yeah. I think first and foremost, it's just great to get the band back together, uh, what that means for screen versus there were five of us here and we're a fully remote company. So any opportunity for us to get together and bond and have a couple dinners and have some, some late nights and some conversations, um, is always beneficial. And then that extends to, there were a thousand people here, you know, and we've been coming to these for many, many years. I've been, you know, probably at least 10, 12 of these Wow. Myself. Wow. Um, so it's great to see old friends. Uh, and then in terms of the content in, in the actual conference, I'm looking to be inspired and I'm looking to learn. Um, and I thought I did both of those things.

Tim Rowe (00:02:04) - I think that that's a great objective to come with and to be able to leave with saying that you accomplished it is, uh, congratulations. Or in order. Dave, how about yourself?

David Weinfeld (00:02:13) - Yeah. For me, I loved hearing, and this is always the case from brands, from the account executives at the out-of-home media owners, their clients, and how they executed successful campaigns. We heard from Gooder, we heard from an account executive at Lamar who did a campaign for, uh, a heating and air conditioning. Oh,

Tim Rowe (00:02:35) - Heating Malo. Yeah. Yeah.

David Weinfeld (00:02:36) - That's great. And then we heard from, uh, out front and Poppy, and that was cool. And it was kind of hearing

Tim Rowe (00:02:45) - About we gotta get matching sweatpants. I'm

David Weinfeld (00:02:47) - Just Yeah, yeah, sure. Next time. Next after, after party. Yeah. Everybody in, in screen versus sweatpants. But yeah, it was great to hear from, uh, those and really being able to reconnect. It's funny, even though a lot of people came from New York, or a lot of people come from a general area, there's something about being at a conference where it creates, I think that separation from kind of the office environment. It's a vibe. Yeah. It's a vibe's

Adam Malone (00:03:16) - A vibe. It's a vibe. Nashville is a vibe. Sure. It's a vibe. It's not a vibe I want every day, but it's, uh, no, it's cool.

Tim Rowe (00:03:22) - Three or four days of the week, uh, a year. And I think that, uh, we, we, it's like Vegas

Amanda Dorenberg (00:03:27) - Do it. It's, it's enough. Like a couple days, and then you need to go home.

Tim Rowe (00:03:29) - . Yeah, definitely. Well, Amanda, you've brought a bunch of the team here from COMMB. Yes. Yes. From speaking of coming from places. Mm-hmm. Uh, coming all the way from Canada. There were a lot of folks here. Thank you for making the trip.

Amanda Dorenberg (00:03:41) - You're hosting us

Tim Rowe (00:03:42) - . Yeah, of course. Why does, why does come participate in these, these international events? Uh, why is it so important to?

Amanda Dorenberg (00:03:49) - Well, we have a pretty big international presence, which I'm, I'm quite proud of. But, um, I think this, this particular event specifically, we wanted to learn from our, our counterparts. You know, we wanted to connect with our US colleagues. Um, you know, we're very close with Geopath, with the OAAA, so we wanna make sure that we maintain those relationships. And, and for me, you know, bringing my team down and bringing our head of data science and our, our, um, head of member engagement marketing, like the team needs to be here. We, we need to make sure that we're, we're a part of the industry. We've got a big voice, so  like to be a part of it.

Tim Rowe (00:04:21) - , and not to plug too early, but speaking, highlighting brands, you've got an award show coming up. We do. Just in a couple weeks.

Amanda Dorenberg (00:04:29) - Uh, coup a little bit. May 25th. May 25th. Pretty soon. Yeah. So I hope everybody comes up to Toronto for that. Cause it's gonna be a good one. Absolutely. We've got some, we've got some tricks up our sleeve for that. Okay. It'll be an experience.

Tim Rowe (00:04:39) - Looking forward to that.

Amanda Dorenberg (00:04:40) - It's not a conference, it's actually gonna be like a crazy awards

Tim Rowe (00:04:43) - Show.

Amanda Dorenberg (00:04:44) - It's just an award show. Yeah.

Tim Rowe (00:04:45) - Well, this whole week was about breaking through. David. I'd love to hear from you, what was your breakthrough moment? What was, what was the thing that really stood out, uh, as, as being that, that breakthrough or that innovative idea?

David Weinfeld (00:04:57) - Yeah. I loved hearing from, as always, the programmatic teams, the platforms, agencies like mankind, others talking about data, talking about audiences. Even the conversation around the MRC and purview and, and geo path and how do we normalize against a standard is all about, in my mind, how do you make the inventory more accessible on a platform basis? And to me, that's gonna be a massive breakthrough moment for the industry.

Amanda Dorenberg (00:05:26) - I have a lot of opinions on that. ,

Tim Rowe (00:05:30) - I'm sure Adam, add to that. What, what does, how, how does that all align for screen verse?

Adam Malone (00:05:36) - Yeah, so it's interesting because screen verse is we pride ourselves as, as being part of the growing part of the growing part of the industry. So it's about bringing net new, entirely digital, uh, networks of inventory to the marketplace, whether we direct sell them or sell them through programmatic exchanges. Um, so we're living on the innovation side of the industry. And what I love about coming to the OAAA and what's, so, in some ways inspiring, but also maddening for those of us that live this sort of innovation piece of it is, this is a Billboard conference. Right? True. It's, it is driven by the big operators. The big media owners. Um, they throw a great show. It's at the Grand Hyatt. It's a beautiful, you know, it's incredible, man. It is a spec. It's a spectacle. Yeah. Um, and it really shows you that the, the base and the power and the, the fact that Lamar's 120 years old, and you can really, you can smell it in a room like that. It's like, oh, money . It's,

Tim Rowe (00:06:39) - It's cool. It's special to be around. Like, I don't think that there's a lot of industries where you have generations Yeah. Of the industry. Yeah. In the same room.

Adam Malone (00:06:47) - I

Tim Rowe (00:06:47) - Literally met it's

Adam Malone (00:06:48) - Special. I'm, I, I was a part of a conversation where one, one guy was talking to another guy and they were reminiscing about starting in the industry together in 1984.

Amanda Dorenberg (00:06:58) - I was one year old.

Adam Malone (00:07:00) - . Yeah.

Amanda Dorenberg (00:07:01) - I was one,

Tim Rowe (00:07:01) - Like, nice flex.

Adam Malone (00:07:02) - Yeah. But that's not, that's not abnormal in this space. Know it's very normal in this space. So, um, so it's cool to kind of like, my every day is trying to be cutting edge. And then it's sort of interesting to come to a place like this and say like, okay, what are you guys experiencing? And how are you guys thinking about this? And yeah, we do wanna find places where we can say, Hey,

Amanda Dorenberg (00:07:23) - I think it's humbling though, things out. Like, it's humbling to be able to be in those situations where we can be the innovators. The disruptors, but then we can learn off of the history and the, the, the legacy, if you will. It's, it's not necessarily legacy, but we can learn from this. You know what I mean? And I love those conversations.

Tim Rowe (00:07:39) - So much experience just in that so

Amanda Dorenberg (00:07:40) - Much experience, literally. Yeah. Teach me , teach me,

Tim Rowe (00:07:43) - I, you've already tried. Teach me, help me to avoid those same pitfalls. And maybe

Amanda Dorenberg (00:07:49) - We can find, not make the mistakes way to

Tim Rowe (00:07:50) - Do it.

David Weinfeld (00:07:51) - Yeah. Well, it's great too. You're talking to the independent billboard operators who I love, because at the end of the day, they're all entrepreneurs. There's so many Yep. Founders and people who are building businesses from the ground up. And one, there's an eagerness to learn about the technology component and the programmatic side, but also I love hearing about what their challenges are. What does their day-to-day look like, and how does it fit together with what my and my team's day-today, and how do we possibly bring those pieces together. And it's really, you know, them taking the time to, to learn and, and hear from, whether it be Vista Place, exchange, um, you know, any of those companies. But also listening to fundamentally what their needs are, because you don't wanna break their core business cause it works.

Tim Rowe (00:08:39) - And then finding a way to align all that to, you know, who we're all trying to serve, which is with the brands with the money, right. How do we solve the independent billboard owner's pain point, which may or may not be aligned to the pain point that would make our lives easier. How do, how do we do all of those things? Amanda, not asking you to speak on, on behalf of anybody officially, but that's what you're charged with in, in Canada. How do you approach alignment of so many different stakeholders with different objectives?

Amanda Dorenberg (00:09:10) - I like to call it a political game of chess. Everybody has a different opinion, but everybody's opinions are rooted in a need at some point. Sure. So my job is to listen to what that need is and to try to facilitate. So on the buy side, they have different needs on the sell side, they have different needs on the tech stack. They have different needs. But fundamentally, for me, as a, an association head, my job is to try to facilitate. And whether that be facilitating standardization, which is something that we do productization, which is again, something that we do. Or whether it's just networking. Like literally that is the job of my, my association,  both on the measurement side as well as on the marketing side. You know, in, in Canada we're, we're a combination of the OAAA and Geopath. So it's a, it's a bit different. We do both where you guys have two, two separate associations that sort of, uh, operate independently. I, I like to say we're fortunate to be able to have both. Because any initiative that we're doing from a measurement perspective, we have the opportunity to market that however the industry wants. That's great. Us to market. That's great. There's, there's no competition in that space.

Tim Rowe (00:10:12) - So creating alignment between, and I think that the, the, the one speaker that was a, a, a great theme Yes. That he, he really drove home, which was aligning behind the shield, telling our, our collective story and how do we all get together? It's right. It's, we're all just individuals

Amanda Dorenberg (00:10:28) - Is transparency for us.

Tim Rowe (00:10:29) - At the end of the day, we could be a champion too, and, and pick up that shield and, and carry it ourselves. So I, I think that a little bit of that is the, the onus of each of us. That's so true. To do that and kind of have conversations like that and be able to do that. One of the things that stood out to me were some of the brand perspectives this morning, hearing from T-Mobile per hearing from the creative lab at TripAdvisor mm-hmm.  and hearing really a theme that I, I know isn't new to anybody, but to hear it continue to be echoed is exciting. And that is out of home, is grassroots at scale, and there's nothing that can do what out of home does. That's very true. That, that really stood out to me, Adam. Was there anything like that from a brand perspective that was a key takeaway that you're, wow, we've gotta listen to this, this is what the brand is saying. Y you

Adam Malone (00:11:18) - Know, um, I'm, I'm not gonna regurgitate what I, what I heard today, but I did have a conversation with somebody that, uh, there was an omnichannel marketer, clearly tons of experience buying in what we think of as sort of core digital, traditional digital mobile web, um, an omnichannel perspective. And one of the things that he said, and it was a kind of a breakthrough moment for him, is he thought that outta home, because it's so mass market and because it offers so much reach, he thinks a, a major blind spot with the traditional digital work that they do being so targeted. You're just reinforcing this. Like you're, you're, you're creating a segment and you're speaking only to that segment, and you're not allowing a broader audience to discover you. How do you find new reach? Yeah. How do you, and, and he was like, that is gonna be, you know, I'm gonna take this to all my brands and we're gonna think about, you know, basically expanding instead of, you know, we think a lot. And I think the industry thinks a lot about how do we target, how do we make it so that there's very little waste. Right.

Amanda Dorenberg (00:12:27) - I think it has to be a blend though. Yeah.

Adam Malone (00:12:29) - But I,

Amanda Dorenberg (00:12:29) - This is one of the things

Adam Malone (00:12:30) - That like, it was, it challenged my, you know, it's kind of like my brain was tailored to the, it has to get more and more and more precise. I think what he was saying to me was, it has to be, no, no, I don't think so. No. I think there's value in, in having that level of reach, that was

Amanda Dorenberg (00:12:47) - Kinda cool. I say there's all the time in the sense of like, out of home, it has to be strategic. So it's got a place at the top of the funnel. It's got a place at the bottom of the funnel. It just depends on what your, what your KPI is. Mm-hmm. . And I think that from a strategic perspective on the buy side, obviously, you know, they, they understand what they're doing. But out of home definitely has the mass reach. But it also has the capacity to be very, very specific, to be very niche, to be very targeted to a point where statistically it may not even be relevant. You're trying to be so targeted. Sure. You know what I mean? Sure. Like your audience is just segmented or fragmented so much.

Adam Malone (00:13:20) - Yeah. And, and Andy Cs from, from out front had a really great kind of tying in the, the role of, uh, data and analytics data Exactly. At, at each level of the funnel.

Amanda Dorenberg (00:13:31) - And Yeah. Well, he did well with

Adam Malone (00:13:32) - That. How you don't measure with the same data currency necessarily.

Amanda Dorenberg (00:13:35) - No, but it's interesting cause the same data is used both in digital as well, static mm-hmm.  like, and people always think, oh, okay, well, programmatic digital out of home. So that's like the, the high, high, you know, tech let's say it's like that's where all of the data and analytics are, but it's the same data is being used in the static side of things. It's same, same stuff being used in transit. It's just applied differently. It's executed differently. Programmatic might be executed systematically, but, but a static poster still using the same data is just, you know, applied in a physical

David Weinfeld (00:14:05) - Capacity. Yeah. You can still measure outcomes Course you can course you can still use it of course, to Yeah. Do attribution and bring forth the data that ultimately is what drives hundreds of billions of dollars of spend in digital year in and year out. And so the recognition that Yeah. Out of home in many cases is big, beautiful, creative. It's, you know, spectacular. It's times square. It's, you know, young and dumbest. It's, you know, nice, nice. Oh, you nice. Yeah. You know, given the, uh, Canadian shout out . But it's, it also fundamentally is a medium that now you can measure and you can drive against those core KPIs. You can use it as, you know, looking at offline to online and the, and the conversion

Tim Rowe (00:14:50) - Metrics. And

Adam Malone (00:14:52) - That can happen

Tim Rowe (00:14:53) - Static. Or did you, let me give you some stats that stood out to me from, from Dylan's speech today on the last day. And then Markman a little bit later out of home reaches 90% of the US population in one week. It just, the geo path audit, 90% of the US population, that's incredible. Geo path audited inventory delivers 60 billion impressions. The last channel with mass reach and to Mark Boyd's, uh, slides in that presentation, the last traditional offline channel that's continuing to grow

Amanda Dorenberg (00:15:28) - Constantly,

Tim Rowe (00:15:29) - Constantly. How do we use it? How do we use it? It's 10 billion today. How do we get this to 15, 20, a hundred billion? We're we're, we're, we're still a small piece of the pie. We've got so much ammunition, Adam, how do we get this to be so much greater that we can all get so excited about Yeah. Coming, coming to a conference and having more than a thousand people. Yeah.

Adam Malone (00:15:51) - . So you can look at the, at the macro, um, it still comes down to audience, right? Fundamentally, the, the media value of the entire industry truly is, you know, what's our opportunity to reach audiences? Um, and I think that one, one of the wins that are a little bit at our backs, you know, there's a technology wind, right? The cost of, you know, screens, the cost of, of connectivity, um, which would've prohibited supply growth. Um, uh, that's going down. So that's a force multiplier. So we're going to be able to get in front of even more audiences, right? So the, the total media value that we can reach through our screen networks and our, and our, our bulletins, et cetera, is gonna continue to, uh, grow. So the supply's gonna grow. And then, um, the technology and the data and a lot of the work that, um, that the industry is, is pulling together and doing, is really attracting, you know, more of this demand that's out there. Um, and that's really gonna fuel the demand side of things. And that's gonna be a wonderful thing when those two things come together, and that's gonna drive growth for the next decade or, or more. So, you know, I think everyone is thinking about the, you know, targeting the, you know, a hundred billion dollar digital ad ecosystem in the us. Uh, especially with all the changes in privacy, you can kind of project that that's

Amanda Dorenberg (00:17:23) - Gonna, from a privacy perspective, talk about privacy. Yeah. On a global scale, the privacy legislation that's like the changes in legislation is happening like exponentially.

Tim Rowe (00:17:32) - Are we ahead or are we behind in that conversation here in the states relative to the global scale?

Amanda Dorenberg (00:17:38) - I think we're a little bit behind

Tim Rowe (00:17:40) - . Okay. Yeah, that's all I, I think it's a conversation, but we're moving in the right

Amanda Dorenberg (00:17:44) - Direct. We're moving in the right direction for sure. But I mean, you know, we've got cpa. There's, it's, that's a one state. It's not like a, a federal legislation, right? There's federal legislation coming down the pipe in the Canadian space, GDPR in the, in the European space. There's a lot of legislation in the UAE and, and, uh, in Asia. I think we're a little bit behind. That said, I don't think that that's going to affect us. I actually think it's gonna be a benefit for us in the sense of, of what's happening from a digital perspective and like the cookie, cookie list world, that's gonna help out of home doubt. Like it's doubt it's truly going to help out of home. We're gonna grow, we're gonna grow really levels

Adam Malone (00:18:22) - The playing field.

Amanda Dorenberg (00:18:23) - It levels the playing field. What we're gonna see is a cannibalization of assets. So we're gonna cannibalize some of the static assets. We're gonna convert them to digital mm-hmm. . And then we're just gonna be a little more flexible.

David Weinfeld (00:18:33) - But it's, it's smarter though. Yeah. You know, that idea of accessibility and whether it be unifying inventory on a programmatic platform or making the inventory accessible via APIs. I mean, that was something that Sean Riley at Lamar said very, uh, clearly of, we're open architecture. We want our boards to be able to be found on any platform, any place to, to be bought. And so there's that element of buying shoe is getting easier, it's getting more efficient. But then the education piece, and it's educating, it's one thing the brands that have leaned into out-of-home, right? We all know the, the key brands, the Apples and the others who were spending an overweight amount of their yearly budgets on out-of-home relative to other channels. It's really about those brands and companies that are less than 1% or zero who have spent in radio, newspaper, other traditional channels. Who, to me, I see that as the massive opportunity, right? Is getting those types of brands to lean in. But that's gonna require education across the entirety of the industry, because it's not gonna be one company that unlocks it, or one operator or, you know, it's,

Amanda Dorenberg (00:19:47) - It's education, but it's also, we can't compete with the online space. So I, I, for me, fundamentally, I think we need to take away the term, let's compete, let's steal money from this or that. We need to be complimentary for sure. So let's shift the narrative. How are we advantageous to your overall holistic campaign to your holistic KPIs? Like, what is your objective and how can we actually help facilitate that in the out-of-home industry?

David Weinfeld (00:20:12) - Well, I'm a massive proponent of the idea of,

Amanda Dorenberg (00:20:16) - So I don't want to tell

Adam Malone (00:20:20) - Sitting on his hands.

Tim Rowe (00:20:21) - He's looking at me like to tag, it's like a WWE match. He wants me attack, man. No. Tag me on, tag me on tag

Adam Malone (00:20:25) - Me. No, believe it or not, no. I'm, I'm as your co-host, Tim, of the Home Insider podcast, um, actually wanted to turn to you self

David Weinfeld (00:20:33) - Appointed. I

Adam Malone (00:20:33) - Wanted to turn to, to Tim for this, actually tee you up a little bit because Right. You're in an innovation role at a major out-of-home specialist agency now, and we just talked about, uh, ways to unlock and make it easier for, make it more accessible. How do we make, there were some great case studies on social. Oh yeah, there was some good stuff. Oh, it was so good. Influencers were posting omni channel, posting Omni, and they ended up on screen networks and then taken pictures of them. It was TikTok and really beautifully done. Yeah.

Tim Rowe (00:21:04) - The integration, like the, the, the thoughtfulness to how are we going to integrate the influencers? I thought they executed,

Adam Malone (00:21:10) - I thought massive. It was great. Massive. So sitting where you sit, um, again, a major specialist agency innovation role, I mean, was there a thing or, or two that, that you're gonna take back home and expose your clients to?

Tim Rowe (00:21:25) - I think the thing that I'm most excited about were some of the folks that I met on the expo floor, there were a bunch of little companies that they, this was their first entry into anything out of home. They, they come from a completely outside industry and having conversations with some of the folks there and learning about their business and what's their interest in out of home and how did this, uh, you know, free ride share electric vehicle company start scaling in Florida. And they have a half million active app app users each month that are using their, their free ride share platform. And now advertisers can wrap the cars and have an internet, right? Like, it's, it's cool. I didn't know that that company existed. And now I do. And now I can take that back and introduce our brands to that when, when they wanna do something more grassroots. And how do I tie into the social good of the community? Well, in Southern California, there's a company that I can do this with. So for me it was, it was finding new companies like that that can add value to our brands.

Adam Malone (00:22:24) - Okay. So let me, you know, probably an answerable question, but I think if you look at the attendee list, there's a thousand people and 60 are agency buyers. That's not, or I mean, that is the ratio, whether it's good or whether it's not good. The, the clients and the agencies are not well represented at this conference. First you think it's a problem. Um, and if you do think it's a problem, then how do we get more clients in agencies to come?

Tim Rowe (00:22:51) - I think it's certainly a problem if the objective is to get brands and agencies to come. Yeah. . So, but, but, but

Adam Malone (00:23:01) - Wait, we dunno

Tim Rowe (00:23:01) - What the objective was, but maybe that's true in all defense. Maybe that's not the objective. It, it, it's, it's a great outof home conference and we talked about the people and, and so much, there's a lot of great that happens here. Yep. The objective is to reach marketers and brand decision makers personally. The, the, the, the program didn't resonate top to bottom. I think that for me, as an innovation lead at an out-of-home specialist, I'm far more interested in hearing from the folks that are six levels, deep pull lever. I wanna hear from the, the people that are at the brands executing the experiential campaign at scale that are going through, those are the people that I want. Because that's how I learn. That's how I can bring back more innovative solutions

Adam Malone (00:23:43) - We need to get them on stage

Amanda Dorenberg (00:23:44) - For, for our clients in order to get them to come.

David Weinfeld (00:23:47) - .

Tim Rowe (00:23:47) - I, I don't know where that stage is, but, uh, I would love to see them on stage. And I would, I would be, I

David Weinfeld (00:23:52) - Would be there with, with Beza. Well, I love the

Amanda Dorenberg (00:23:54) - Idea to Canada on May 25th. Yeah.

David Weinfeld (00:23:55) - Awesome.

Adam Malone (00:23:56) - Shameless plug. Shameless

David Weinfeld (00:23:58) - Plug. I love the idea of those hair presentations where you have an account exec Yeah. Maybe has never been at oaa before bringing one of their brands, whether it's a local brand, regional, national, and talking about why did this campaign work? Why did out-of-home get on the plan? And then at the same time, you want to hear from maybe one of the DSPs and their omnichannel agencies or buyers and hear about, okay, what are some of the challenges that you're overcoming to get digital outta home added? Because one of the things that I just see as an major opportunity and challenge is this idea of you're talking to a national brand and they're spending a ton in digital, and maybe they leaned into out-of-home, maybe not, or they go out of home's not on the budget this year. And you go, well, digital is on the budget, right? Like, yeah, of course you're spending in digital. Well, why won't you consider digital out of home in that same type of execution mindset? And I really like to have those conversations and to hear from those brands. I know, Adam, you loved hearing from some of those d TOC brands who, in my mind, they're spending thousands of dollars, tens of thousands of dollars day in and day out on performance media, on digital channels. Mm-hmm.  massive opportunity for our segment. So tell me what was most impactful from that panel?

Adam Malone (00:25:10) - Yeah, it's a really good question. I think, um, you know, the, so it was one of those breakout panels. Oh no, there's actually two super good D two C, the one that Nick Sharma did on the main stage, which was excellent. Uh, maybe even the, the panel of the conference. And then there was a breakout, um, that Brian Rappaport from Kwan and Ian Delamore sat on. And then, um, uh, person from makin that was talking about pharma and then, uh, and then two other brand marketers. And what I, what I kind of gleaned from both of those is, um, you know, there is a tried and true performance marketing muscle that gets, uh, built up over time. Oh,

Amanda Dorenberg (00:25:50) - They flex that  and

Adam Malone (00:25:52) - They get really good at that. Yeah. And it's a, but there's a, a, a one trick pony element of it too. And, and it, it works until it doesn't work. And, uh, there are certain brands that are, um, that might plateau. And they're looking to create, you know, more of a presence in the real world. Um, they recognize the benefit of being ubiquitous in a market, um, and, and being able to, to just have kind of like a, a, a persistent, uh, presence mm-hmm.  in a market and how that actually benefits everything in the funnel. And every metric is sort of, it kind

Amanda Dorenberg (00:26:29) - Of goes back to the conversation of

Adam Malone (00:26:30) - Like, and accelerated with that.

Amanda Dorenberg (00:26:31) - What is the kpi? Cuz you could be, you could be upper funnel or you could be lower funnel. It just depends on like what your KPI is.

Adam Malone (00:26:37) - Yeah. And, and, you know, with, but it's

Amanda Dorenberg (00:26:38) - Education, ,

Adam Malone (00:26:39) - Social media content and things like that. The best way to grow a following is consistency, right? Mm-hmm. , consistent quality, thoughtful. Um, and you just put it, put it out. And I think that there's, uh, recognition at some of these D two C brands where they need to be consistent in the way that they promote themselves in the real world, as well as being tactical. And then when, when there's an opportunity to be in the zeitgeist, right?  when something, when Wendy's is, is, you know, Wendy's Twitter account is trending. Like that's a really great time to go and blow out and, and spread that and, and really do, you know, something big and take advantage of that. Uh, and I just love to see how brands are thinking about, and the, the one other thing I'll say, and I, I don't remember if it was from this, uh, this panel, but, um, I've been just noodling on this the whole really since that time is the creativity starts at the idea starts at, then you can look to apply the tech mm-hmm. . And I thought that, I mean, I don't know if you guys were part of that, if you thought about that, but that, like, that's just been sticking in there for me is like, okay, for a lot of us that are in innovation, we think about our media or our tech or our solution and how can we apply it to places rather than start with what are we trying to accomplish and why, who are we trying to back to?

Amanda Dorenberg (00:27:58) - Basic, it's outta home. Exactly. It's

Adam Malone (00:28:00) - Back to basics. Yeah. But you have to start there with a client, get them bought into that, and then apply the technology and the media as a solution to it.

Amanda Dorenberg (00:28:07) - On the technology side, I would've loved to have seen something about out of home in the Metaverse. Cause it's big overseas, but there's

David Weinfeld (00:28:14) - Not, we've got that episode coming soon. Do so. Yeah. Right, right behind this. No,

Adam Malone (00:28:19) - Chad GT was No, Chad

Amanda Dorenberg (00:28:21) - Gt. I

David Weinfeld (00:28:21) - Was super not I know we

Adam Malone (00:28:22) - Didn't have

David Weinfeld (00:28:23) - All talked about it on the CEO panel. Oh, they did?

Adam Malone (00:28:25) - Oh, they did. It

David Weinfeld (00:28:26) - Came up the, the application of ai. They even talked a little about the last panel, a little bit about the metaverse, and they were saying, all right, how do you apply AI to your businesses? And Okay. You know, they started by saying, well, in some ways it's already being infused in, you know, sales management, sales coaching, infused in how we kind of create narratives. Maybe a little bit testing on the creative side. Again, nothing in true full application. Then there was a little bit of a, a back and forth about what it means for out of home in the Metaverse. And Jeremy May said very, I think, um, astutely that out of home in the physical world, there's a finite amount, and especially adding billboards in the physical world. There's regulations, there's costs, there's licensing. It's heavy. That flips on its head in the metaverse. And then the idea of what is the, is there ownership? Does, do you just mess produce outta home in, and it's just a totally different animal. One

Amanda Dorenberg (00:29:21) - Of the components where like, education is key because people don't understand this. It's a completely new world, particularly for out of home. Sure. Which is a very traditional media. It's so new to everyone. And there's, there's very few experts, let's say in this particular topic, whether it's blockchain, web three, metaverse, but overseas, like it's happening massively in Asia, in the, in the uk. Like there are major out-of-home companies, I will not mention them, that are actually running campaigns in the Metaverse where they have built and they own their own assets within a particular metaverse. So you partner with a specific metaverse, but it's education in my opinion. And so when we get on these stages where we've got an audience of a thousand people, and it's a topic that's so foreign, let's take that opportunity and break it down. Like, like break it down. What is this? How can we, how can we capitalize on it? How can we monopolize on this? How can we ensure that we understand, you know, from a traditional media perspective, how we can evolve into something that's 2.0, 3.0, whatever, . Well,

Tim Rowe (00:30:21) - What I thought was so interesting is Adam Achman from Wander Labs or TripAdvisor was talking about, that's what I was gonna take that example of, which is the trip Cool. TripAdvisor Overworld. Yeah, yeah. Experience the trip before you take the trip. That travel is one of the most expensive purchases we make without trying it. Hmm. And, and I, I, I think it's interesting. So selfishly from a brand perspective, I look at the Metaverse and there's an episode that'll be coming out on the podcast shortly after this with the founder of a a web three metaverse company. If I could create the advertiser's campaign and a Web three Metaverse platform and show it to them there first, how many more deals am I gonna, I don't need to, I don't need out front to go create more space than the Metaverse. But Paris

Amanda Dorenberg (00:31:04) - Hill, a

Tim Rowe (00:31:04) - Massive campaign, gimme with boohoo in the Metaverse, a platform where I can simulate my campaign in the metaverse before I say yes to it, right? If I'm a media owner, now I can create my markets as a, as a web three experience, where now the market ride has been replaced. Yeah. By the metaverse.

Amanda Dorenberg (00:31:20) - But you still start with the fundamentals of creative .

Tim Rowe (00:31:23) - You have to start,

Amanda Dorenberg (00:31:24) - You have to

Tim Rowe (00:31:24) - Start with that. And, and, and I think really choosing to, uh, uh, adopt it, lean into and say, this is something that we're going to incorporate into our business, and this is the next piece of infrastructure.

Amanda Dorenberg (00:31:36) - It's been done in North America, yet gonna bill, nobody's leaning into this yet in North America. I'd love to see who, who the first is gonna be from a media owner perspective. Who's it gonna be?

Speaker 6 (00:31:46) - Let's, right now who put me, I got

Tim Rowe (00:31:48) - My son is really the one who kind of got me thinking about is I'm watching him watch YouTube, gamers play grant theft auto. And I'm sitting there watching and going, this is the best way to sell out of home that you could possibly imagine. We're driving around the streets so I could see the billboard, we could swap creative video now. Right. . Right. And, and then really applying that as, as a metaverse. And, and the TripAdvisor conversation was really interesting because they, they, they talked about using out of home as as the moment, using the content to engage and initiate the customer experience. And using augmented reality. What do you do? Where do you put the consumer? Now I can put them in a virtual store. If I'm Calvin Klein, I can do this hand painted mural with a, with a flow code, QR code that tracks all the way through to, to, to buy completion. But now I'm shopping in the metaverse. Right. How do we, how do we start to have those conversations? Those are things that excite me when we talk about web three. Well,

David Weinfeld (00:32:48) - Really what you're talking about too is using out of home as a gateway to something bigger and broader. And that even was what Poppy did, right? The idea of Yeah. Connecting to the influencers, tying that back to their social, it resonated. And it was just like, in real life, back to social, back to in real life, turning around the TripAdvisor example is, you know, really creating that narrative and bringing it into the physical world, but having it extend far beyond. And Amanda, to your point earlier, the idea of, you know, it, it doesn't have to be like, this is better than that. Or we're, we're trying to, you can't it to wrestle money away from another channel, it's No, it's a force multiplier. It's, it's complimentary. It should be in every plan. Yes. If digital is on your plan and on your budget, then in my opinion, digital at-home, at-home should be part of that. Cause even if it is static, you can apply a digital strategy against that. Mm-hmm. , an outcome based approach, an audience based approach, and creating that flywheel, that ultimately to me is what drives exponential growth. And the more type of examples that you hear of brands actually doing those things and executing and how they think about it relative to all their other media spend, I think is really key.

Amanda Dorenberg (00:34:03) - Even on a 360 from an attribution perspective. So we were talking about this earlier before we started this podcast in the Canadian space, we, we've created these automated foot, um, view sheds, which will pass through, uh, as shape files to all of our tech stacks, all of our media owners. But the whole purpose of that is not so that we have control. It's literally so that we can actually provide some sort of baseline. So from, from your point, or to your point, the the 360 funnel. Yes. You know, there, there needs to be some sort of sort of standardization in the sense of like, okay, how are we starting from a data collection perspective, but then when we deliver the campaign, what happens after that from an attribution perspective? It needs to be grounded or rooted in the same fundamental baseline and kpi. And so that's where we, we came up with, okay, well let's just pass through these shape files. Um, and I think that that's gonna be a, a pretty cool big thing .

Tim Rowe (00:34:55) - And that's the thing that I get most excited about is, is seeing the industry get even better. Telling Yeah. The story of what happened during the campaign and how did we as

Amanda Dorenberg (00:35:06) - Free during and post,

Tim Rowe (00:35:07) - Right? How did we as partners help to drive the outcome that the brand set out to achieve in the beginning and getting away from, I have to prove what my thing did, right? How do we col collect? Because we know that out of home doesn't just operate in a vacuum. It doesn't. It's the one plus one equals three ultimate multiplier. Keep,

Amanda Dorenberg (00:35:25) - This is the same

Tim Rowe (00:35:26) - Thing. We, how do we tell competing

Amanda Dorenberg (00:35:27) - Stories cant competing? How do we, how do we be complimentary, right? So in order to be complimentary, we need to create some sort of standard and then pass that along and share it. Be completely transparent. Here's the standard, here's what we're gonna give you. And everybody works out the same baseline.

Tim Rowe (00:35:40) - That's it. These are the rules and you apply them how you

Amanda Dorenberg (00:35:43) - Would like to Yeah. However you wanna run your business. It's not up to me. ,

Tim Rowe (00:35:46) - We're going to San Diego next year. , I don't know how much time we have to, to, to plan for that trip. Adam, I'll, I'll start with you. Move down, move down the, the, the panel. But what are you most excited about between now and next year?

Adam Malone (00:36:00) - Um, planning the after, after, after party

Tim Rowe (00:36:03) - Probably. Yeah. If you weren't here, then have to finding, finding next penthouse, finding next

Amanda Dorenberg (00:36:07) - Pen

Tim Rowe (00:36:08) - . Getting that on the budget. Yeah,

Adam Malone (00:36:09) - Exactly. Getting, yeah. Trying to get that number approved by David is gonna be most of my next 360.

Tim Rowe (00:36:15) - We have proof of concept this year. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Strike while the iron's hot.

Adam Malone (00:36:19) - Yeah. Um, so it's a really good question. I think, I mean, I know what screen verse looks like in the next 12 months. I know what we aspire to be. I know. Now what is that

Adam Malone (00:36:32) - ? Well, we're gonna just pull out the strategic plan and, and read it. No, I mean, look, it's, the fundamentals of our business are not going to change. It's, it's about getting great inventory. Um, I talked about media value at the mic, at the macro level mm-hmm.  earlier. You know, we look at it, we try to evaluate potential partnerships, um, and try to understand the inherent media value of those networks and those screens, and then what we're uniquely able to deliver against those screens. Right. And then we try to promise only what we can deliver. And um, and so we're gonna stay true to that. So we'll probably grow. Our networks are growing, they're doing very well, they're continuing to invest and get bigger and serve more audiences so that, that will continue. We're gonna invest in great people. Uh, so we have a 20 person team right now. We're hiring three additional positions right now. Um, man, in 12 months we'll be, I don't know, 27. 29 probably. Something like that. Well done,

Tim Rowe (00:37:32) - Well

Adam Malone (00:37:33) - Done guys. And then, you know, and then the third thing is we wanna stay on the cutting edge and we wanna try to bring the future, the future forward as much as we can. And that means, you know, really trying to support those, those initiatives that we think are gonna really unlock a lot of new spend and a lot of new dynamism. So the, the, the super nerdy technical conversation about standardization, like we want to be helpful in that. Yeah. Like we wanna support that standard. We want to get all of our partners to have geo IDs to have com IDs. Right. I got you. And just sort of Yeah, just do that. You

Amanda Dorenberg (00:38:08) - Got an API for you, . Yeah.

Adam Malone (00:38:10) - Um, and then we want to continue to have those conversations with brands and challenge them and, and support them as much as possible. So that's what we'll do for the next 12 months. And then we'll host a really great party again and see everybody and celebrate, you know, another great year.

Tim Rowe (00:38:24) - Let's see if we can close save now, David. And we look forward to another screen version. Oh, for sure. Function of, of some sort. Next year. It's in the budget. It's on

Amanda Dorenberg (00:38:32) - Video. It's

Tim Rowe (00:38:32) - On video. It's on video, bro. We

David Weinfeld (00:38:34) - Did that for you. This is happening, you know, even

Tim Rowe (00:38:37) - The, you know,

David Weinfeld (00:38:38) - DPAA before the year's over, you know, it's kind of, it's a thing now. I'm happy with it.

Amanda Dorenberg (00:38:43) - Toronto, Adam, come on. Yeah. May Toronto.

Tim Rowe (00:38:46) - It's starting to get expensive now. Now David signed up for like three or four parties already,

David Weinfeld (00:38:51) - But you know, I look forward a year from now. So we announced a partnership with Apparatus in order to help independent billboard operators make their way in the programmatic world. Right. And again, these are companies who have historically sold a very particular way you think about their businesses and who have built great businesses, but also they're not getting their fair share relative to some of the largest companies in out of home, especially in programmatic. And so, to me, a year from now, I hope that I, we can, you know, speak about with some of the, our partners and speak about the success in getting them more of their share of the pie. Like to me, nothing will be better than to have an operator who really was kind of in the, in the weeds with DSPs, S P dmp, cpm. And we helped demystify that to the point where they understand it, but also where they're seeing the relative success, what they deserve. And to me, that's, that will be so fun. The other piece then, you know, I'm, I'm gonna be, you know, asking for this pretty heavily is, you know, we had these great breakout sessions, right? There was one with Place Exchange and the Trade Desk and Firefly, then there was breakout session with Vista and Mankind and, you know, other members, but they were programmed at the same time. Yeah. And in small rooms. And they were, I'm telling you, you had brain power in those rooms

Tim Rowe (00:40:16) - And, and pent up brain power wanting to get into the,

Amanda Dorenberg (00:40:20) - But you wanted to go see both and you couldn't, you're competing like, what am I going

David Weinfeld (00:40:24) - Tough? And so I'm saying put that on the main stage, give them more time. Let them, you know, talk about what's interesting, what the challenges are, what's opening it up. Mm-hmm. I love seeing more, you know, kind of DSPs like Stack Adapt was here basis was here. Yeah. Uh, you know, kind of growing that footprint. You know, when are we gonna see Critio? When are we gonna see more of the retail media networks? Harper style was here. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of opportunities for us to grow the space in a way that doesn't change outta home. Like out home is great for the core reasons for people that built businesses in 1984. Uh, you know, when, when, you know, it was predominantly static, very little, you know, to zero digital. But now we're in a space where the core things that make out of home great should always be front and center. But we need to also welcome and open it up and share that education and learning and have those sessions with PX and Vista and Hive Stack. Mm-hmm.  and Trade Desk and you know, Firefly and hopefully screen verse and you know, Amanda from COMMB and just kind of wax on how is this industry gonna evolve over the next year, three year, five years. And like, how do we bring everyone,

Tim Rowe (00:41:39) - Uh, Amanda, I'll, I'll I'll frame the question a little differently. , for you, what's the thing you would challenge us with taking away? Oh, with

Amanda Dorenberg (00:41:49) - A little bit. It's a loaded question. Yeah.

Tim Rowe (00:41:51) - It's a little bit of a loaded question, but we

Amanda Dorenberg (00:41:54) - My friend come.

Tim Rowe (00:41:55) - We've already cleared with pr. No, no, I'm just kidding. . No, truly. This is, this is a little bit of a loaded question. I am catching Amanda off guard here. We didn't, we didn't, we didn't talk about this.

Amanda Dorenberg (00:42:04) - Continue the question. It's good.

Tim Rowe (00:42:05) - But give, give us, as an industry at Challenge, what's something that we can focus on over the next 12 months to add more value as an industry?

Amanda Dorenberg (00:42:16) - That is a very good question. I think transparency and transparency and education. Frankly, one of the, the biggest successes, if we've done anything right in the Canadian space that's gotten a lot of international presence is full on transparency. This is what we're doing, this is why we're doing it, this is how we're doing it. And we socialize it. Like to the max, no

Tim Rowe (00:42:38) - Gatekeeping.

Amanda Dorenberg (00:42:39) - There's, there's no gatekeeping. It's literally like here, it's open book. You want the white paper, you want everything completely open. You want every level of measurement. I don't care. I'll give it all to you. Here, it's here. It's just full on. Transparency is what I would challenge. And education, I think is going to be key as well.

Tim Rowe (00:42:56) - And that's something that we can all apply to. We can all of our companies, it's not something

Amanda Dorenberg (00:43:00) - That we need to do this. It's . We

Tim Rowe (00:43:01) - Don't need the industry to do it for us. We can do that as media owners. We can publish our, our spec sheets on our website. Sure, sure. Make it really easy to go get those things for the amount of time that gets wasted on trying

Amanda Dorenberg (00:43:12) - To achieve spec. We're about a massive product. Literally. We're about to, to launch a massive product this fall. And for the last year, all we've been doing is like running around, educating, talking about what we're doing, showcasing the product to those who have invested in the product itself. It's not live. I'll show you a demo of it. You wanna see it, you wanna access to it, you can play around with it. You wanna break it? Perfect. Let me know that it's broken before we go live like .

Tim Rowe (00:43:37) - And, and I'll, I'll, I'll take that as a segue for the thing I'm most excited about over the next 12 months. It, seeing the collective energy here. The thing I see different this year that I didn't see last year is, is more willingness to have deeper, more collaborative, challenging conversations. Talk about the things that really hurt, right? Like, here's the pain. How do we all solve this? This is such a dynamic panel. I'm, I'm excited to be a part of it, but that's the thing that I'm excited about, is more willingness to solve problems. Um, I this

Amanda Dorenberg (00:44:11) - Level, you cant change the industry unless we have uncomfortable conversations. I

Tim Rowe (00:44:13) - Agree.  with partners. How do we all, how do we all make the, be open

David Weinfeld (00:44:16) - About the challenges, be open about the pain points.

Tim Rowe (00:44:18) - Yeah. Like this conversation. We've talked about some things that were warm and fuzzy and some things that made not work. A little bit, little bit prickly and, uh, prickly and Stickley. There we go.

Amanda Dorenberg (00:44:27) - Prickly and

Tim Rowe (00:44:28) - Stickley. Yeah. I think that's a, that's, it's not a thing. Should be a natural thing. It's a natural thing. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's what we're going with . Guys, I couldn't thank you enough for being here. This has been a tremendous honor for me. Adam. David, you're, you're the host here. Uh, this is your place. Why don't, why don't you take us out as the host. I'll leave it to Adam. He, he set this whole thing up. Thank you Adam for saying thank you,

Adam Malone (00:44:48) - Adam. Thank you guys. Truly thank guys. Of course. That was great. See everybody. And thanks Tim, uh, for the exposure and the opportunity again to talk to you. It's been great hanging out. And if we saw you here in Nashville, it was great seeing you. And, uh, we'll see you next year in San Diego.

Tim Rowe (00:45:03) - See you in San Diego.

Adam Malone (00:45:05) - Thanks. Bye-bye. Bye guys. And scene

Jean-Paul Gedeon (00:45:12) - Quarter. I finally came to my senses. I finally got my hand up on the tinted. I see real clear through my tinted lenses with the and drive possibilities. Endless. Now that all the way to Tokyo, take a trip down South Mexico. Next stop sharing how the world class trade show first class all the way. Cause that's how we roll. Yeah. Call us the rockstar business, man. Rocking shows we handle business, man. We got our own future in the palm of our hands. Cause divided. We fall in together. We stand old French.