"It's Just Good Marketing" (NYC Adweek Replay) with Bob Gruters, Loop TV and Brian Rappaport, Quan Media Group

Tim Rowe: I don't think it's going to take that entire time, obviously, but this way we've got time left and right. And if at any point there's like a weird road bump or connectivity gets strange, all good. We can call a timeout. I can edit anything out that that is weird or funky.
Brian Rappaport: All right. Awesome. Awesome.

Tim Rowe: Awesome. Cool. So, Bob, Brian, it's exciting to be able to get together again so quickly after Advertising Week. We were together just a few days ago on a panel called It's Just TV. How do you feel like it went? I thought it was a cool conversation. Bob, how do you feel like it went?

Bob Gruters: I was, you know what I loved? I love the fact that we started this, you know, we could get ready for these panels and you're like, we're all going to go over some things that we want to talk about. And I think we all got to do that for about 90 seconds. And then the questions rolled in. And I think you did a, I was happy, Tim, you've just put us right into the questions versus going through our rhetoric. They, the audience wanted to know stuff and we were there to tell them. So you were sharing what we thought about it at least. So I, that part I love, it was very interactive. I thought it went, that part of it went great.

Tim Rowe: Very interactive. I went back and looked. It was like five minutes in. We got through introductions and then the questions started flowing in. Brian, I know you were excited to be at Advertising Week in general, but especially so to be on the panel. How did the experience, how did that go for you?

Brian Rappaport: Yeah, I think it was great. I mean, I think that ultimately, you know, we had a really nice turnout in the room based on how many people we were. And I think the conversation really flowed well. I think that we touched on so many things from a digital standpoint. Excuse me, that was a good hip-hop of a podcast. But like, yeah. I think we didn't really just stay in 1 lane, which I think made it more engaging and more exciting. I found it so interesting that we had a script and didn't even have to stick to it within 10 minutes. We were fielding Q and A's all over the place. And just like personally, I mean, I think for all of us, like the ability to get to speak at EdWeek, which is such a staple in the media and advertising industry is super humbling. I think it's pretty incredible. I mean, there seemed to be such a nice flow of people in and out of the space over the course of the week. And it just was really awesome to get the opportunity to do that. So yeah, I thought it couldn't have been better.

Tim Rowe: Brian, I'm going to ask you. Are you having bandwidth issues on your side, Bri?

Brian Rappaport: Am I? I don't know. In my office, is it bad? I could try to hotspot it. If it's not, I'm in like a weird room.

Tim Rowe: All good. Why don't you do this? Why don't you just kill video?

Brian Rappaport: Yeah.

Tim Rowe: And I'll just, I'll do something.

Brian Rappaport: Okay.

Tim Rowe: Is this better now? Let's see if it's any better. Uh-oh. I don't know, Bri. I don't know.

Bob Gruters: Go ahead. Sorry. Your audio is just in and out. Mine was like that on a call I just had before too.

Brian Rappaport: But can I try for a second to hotspot it and see if that makes it any better? Absolutely. Because I think that may actually do it. I don't know. It's like I'm in a weird room. The office is being used by people today. So hang on one second.

Tim Rowe: Somebody got something more important than whatever they're doing.

Bob Gruters: No, I'm just kidding.

Brian Rappaport: I am the most important person in the world right now. Let me know. Yeah. Is this any better or?

Tim Rowe: It definitely looks better. It looks and sounds better. Do you want to just retake that?

Brian Rappaport: Sure, yeah. And then let me know. If not, I'll move out of here. I don't want to kill the podcast.

Tim Rowe: No, that sounds significantly better. It's really clean audio.

Brian Rappaport: Yeah, so if you want to ask me about last week again, then I'll just I'll give the same answer. Yeah.

Tim Rowe: Cool. And Brian, I know that you were excited, obviously, about last week. How was the experience for you?

Brian Rappaport: Yeah, I mean, for me, I think it was pretty incredible. The opportunity to be able to speak at AdWeek, which is such a tentpole event in the advertising and media industry, was super humbling, first of all. So, having been in this industry for, I don't know, 16 years now, that was the first time I ever got to do that. So, it was amazing. And then I just felt from the turnout at our panel and the questions that were flowing in, it felt so much more interactive than an actual Fireside Chat panel. I mean, there was genuine interest in the realm of digital out of home, in what is going on within that specific channel. We didn't even have to stick to our script that we had planned out. I mean, within 10 minutes, we were already on to 15 Q&As. So I loved it. I couldn't have been any happier with it.

Tim Rowe: Yeah, that was and really good questions to like meaty high intent questions, not just like, hey, can I do a billboard like this? It was like, how do I resolve you know, identifiers and how can I execute with programmatic in real time and take advantage of moments. So we're going to recreate some of that. We've got all of the questions here from the audience. Bob Gruters, CRO of Loop TV was at, led teams at MTV and Facebook when it was still Facebook. Chilt Revolt Media with Diddy. Brian Rapoport, of course, Kwan Media Group, working with Mischief at No Fixed Address, VaynerMedia, Skims, Olipop, PrizePix, lots of great brands. So we're going to have a conversation that is entitled It's Just TV, but I think you're going to find it's really a break from the norm and a pleasant interruption to the status quo. So, Bob, we started the session off with a question about context, and specifically we called out how the audience was there in person. Some folks were at home listening. Obviously, now this is being consumed by a global podcast audience. How does context shape the way we consume content?

Bob Gruters: Well, I think we've gone, and I'll even change my answer up a little bit from what we talked about. I think what's interesting is if you remember, we used to be told what we could watch, right? What we could consume as media. Go back to TV Guide, the Sunday, or the newspapers that told us what was on, magazines that were available maybe in our local area. billboards that were limited in scope but around us so we were told here's what's available the difference in context is we now know what to seek out we know to find what we love we find our passions and we find that ability to consume media in ways that's convenient for us if you ever told me. 30 years ago that i'd be able to do i'd be able to watch tv on my phone or i would be you know i'd be i'd be at a college and i'd be able to like watch a football game or i'd be doing these things like i just told you probably not just seems very different. And what I think, what I'm happy about, I've always been kind of like a tech nerd. I think what tech did for media is one of the greatest, scariest things in the world. It's like super powerful. It just created a more ubiquitous nature for all of us to kind of consume what we want and where we want. For me, context really, really matters in the sense of you need to have the right thing at the right time to appeal to the right person. And so it really does matter if like for our business, We talked about this on the stage. If I'm buying pet food and I walk into Petco, I probably want to see something that's a little bit relevant. So maybe it's pets doing things, right? Like really cool, funny little videos. Who doesn't like to watch a puppy? We all went to the DPAA event. What did Barry do? Barry had puppies out there for us to watch. Back-to-back puppies, yeah. So I think that context actually matters. It draws you in. It makes a moment of, hey, this is for me, or this appeals to me, so I love this. So I think context allows us, as a publisher or a media owner, to earn attention as opposed to just expect it. And so we always talk about earned attention in other forms of media, not so much in the world of OOH, digital OOH, streaming OOH, whatever we call it these days. But I think that allows us to earn the attention because it's relevant. And relevancy will always be, for me, one of the linchpins of media success.

Tim Rowe: Beautifully said, beautiful opening. Brian, how are you seeing brands apply the use of context to the overall media strategy?

Brian Rappaport: Yeah, I mean, it's about being in the right place at the right time. And I mean, it's like, what Bob said, be where your core audience is and showing up at different moments. And I had mentioned on the panel the other week, what PrizePix is doing, how they're solely focused right now. I should say solely focused on a digital out of home strategy, blending programmatic with traditional digital out of home. Whether that is being inside sports bars between the hours of 6 and 12 from Thursdays to Sundays during peak NFL timing. Whether it is being on every screen surrounding Crypto Arena in LA Live to capitalize on the start to both Lakers and Clippers season. Really showing up at moments where their core audience is going to be not only sports fans, but that Gen Z audience. Same thing when Drake and Tom Savage are playing five nights in a row in L.A., changing their creative to feature lyrics from a Drake song, you know, to kind of speak to that Gen Z audience. And I think, you know, it just continues. utilizing digital street level throughout Chicago for their first major brand campaign, and focusing obviously on key neighborhoods like West Loop, like River North, where there's going to be a heavy flow of traffic, but consolidating their presence outside of the major Whole Foods in River North, where obviously they are very heavily featured. So things as simple as retail presence, things as simple as being contextually relevant with your placements for a given brand, I think it's important. And I think brands that obviously hone in on doing that the right way or the ones that ultimately is a success.

Tim Rowe: And we hear kind of the application of different types of content, even just within that one use case, Brian. Bob, this question for you, how as a publisher, how do you think about acquiring and clearing not only the content being played on the screens, but then integrating the media from a brand into that content?

Bob Gruters: Yeah, that was important for us at the beginning. When we first got to the company, we probably had about, I don't know, maybe 50 channels. And then we were building and building and building. And all of a sudden it felt like cable of long ago, where it's like 300 channels, right? We've got so many different channels. But I think it was important to allow a lot of choice for a business, right? Streaming kind of hit us all as consumers, but never hit the business community, the retail community. So we gave them that choice. I think we got smart pretty early on. So, okay, let's rein this back in. So too much is not good. Too little is not good. We want to be like Goldilocks. We want to be just right. And so we've worked on that, listening back to the retailers of the content that they want. And then we have a really smart content team. I think, I mean, these people came from Sirius, MTV, you know, in the music industry specifically, in the streaming industry. And so we called our studio and we mean that very specifically because we want to do, excuse me, we want to find the best content. But again, I can't be, if you go back to that example of Quibi, who spent billions and billions of dollars on short form content. And it failed for probably a million reasons that none of us will ever know. And it probably doesn't matter. But the model of paying too much for content was their Achilles heel, right? You couldn't get over that because no matter what you did to monetize it, you were going to be losing money in perpetuity. What we think about is we think about what we call a fairness act. What is good for the content producer? And then what's good for us? And then we have to get to an understanding of, we're going to curate this content either on our own or with you, because we want to make sure the content's about three minutes or less, because that's how people view streaming content from a fast platform in an OOH environment. So we want to make sure all that works. We have to have a very special relationship with the content provider. We have to have that relationship where we can be honest about what we need, that they can be nimble and flip it, and that we can have the ability to kind of customize on the fly for what we may need to do. And so I think that that's worked really well, just being open and transparent with the provider. And we've really kind of changed those relationships over time. And I think the relationships by change, I mean, they got better, they're stronger, they understand more about what does it take to thrive and really do well in an environment like retail. And so in doing that, it's allowed us even to go back into like our standard lineup and say, I think we could do better. I think we can even do this like in a different way. We always have to think about how the advertising is going to come in. We have to think about if we're signed with a major chain, how do they bring their content in, right? They don't just want us. So you put in a digital signage package, which has to be robust and nimble and really malleable. And so you do stuff like that. But for us, I promise you, we're constantly listening and saying, okay, what else do we need to do? We're going to make an announcement about our digital signage sometime in 2024 that I think is kind of revolutionary. It's going to be great for businesses. There's lots happening, but we're always in a state of change. We're always evolving this. We're always looking at what could be better, but we also, we're a company, right? We're a public company. We think EBITDA at the same time.

Tim Rowe: How do we do it responsibly in a way that we can predictably and sustainably continue to scale this business? Brian, this question for you, traditionally out of home, we think of as a really an ad first channel, but with video content, with programming, that conversation is changing. How are brands receiving that? Are they leaning into opportunities that are surrounded by the content or is that still at the beginning stages?

Brian Rappaport: Yeah, I mean, I think that taking advantage of branded content is a key thing for brands now. I mean, it kind of elevates the OOH experience up a notch. I look at gas station TV, which I think is a great format in the digital OOH space where you'll be able to do a line with specific content at the pump. based on what type of audience you want to reach. So whether you are running branded content with sports or pop culture or something along those lines, you can do that. So you can truly go after the audience you're looking to go after. I mean, Outfront Media, who has a subway system in New York, I should say the MTA, they have This feature on their digital live boards is Subway platforms called So Yummy, where they feature, you know, different recipes of different, you know, dishes. And we work with FreshDirect and FreshDirect, you know, kind of took this up a notch where we actually were putting recipes that you can kind of cook up via FreshDirect ingredients on these screens in branded tandem with the Sony on these series. And then there would be QR codes where you can go up, scan the QR code. And all of a sudden, all the ingredients for that meal were in your shopping cart. So it was kind of like taking what was a traditional line of home ad placement and elevating it a notch. And I think that when brands start to think about that and find ways to align with the right branded content or the right content partners, that's really, truly resonant with their audience and build up brand legitimacy.

Bob Gruters: And I think, Tim, I would just add just building off of what Brian said. It's like, we also have to know the kind of content that the advertising community finds acceptable, right? What do they want? Because I think if you call content a sandwich board, right? Two slices and a Coke for five bucks and you say, oh, that's content. I'm going to put your ad right next to it. I'm a former advertiser. I'm a former media director for Sony Electronics and an agency guy. I'd be like, nope, that is not the content adjacency that I'm looking for. That's not the context. I think back to Brian's point, there's a lot more work on the media end in the planning and buying of media today than there ever has been because you have to take all of that into account now across the board in a medium like out of home that is so dynamic and changing so unbelievably fast that I think all of us are like, I think our heads are spinning a little bit. But I look at the work that our agency partners are doing and the way that they're navigating this, it's smart. I think they're really thinking this through, but there's a lot more to it than just saying, oh, we'll just take this market in this type of retail environment. So much more to think about now.

Tim Rowe: And it would seem like there's an opportunity to even center around the content and how that content parlays across different contexts. If I'm not mistaken, Bob, that So Yummy content, that's part of the Loop TV network, isn't it? Absolutely. So now you can create that.

Bob Gruters: Yeah, I think about it this way, right? So just imagine, I always say this, brand X, right, comes in and says, I want to have my own network in my 10,000 stores. Could you imagine the undertaking a brand would have to do to make something like that happen? I mean, seriously, it's years, it's content right negotiations, it's tech creation, or purchasing and alignment. There's a lot of work that goes into that. And right, the startup would be insane. A company like us with 200 channels can come in and say, what content do you have? brand accent. And then here's our kind of, tell us about the brand essence, right? What is it about your consumer and your brand? Where's the alignment? And so it's almost like the brand brief that agencies prepare for their clients. We can actually build a bespoke channel for somebody utilizing our content, their content, anything that they want to bring that to life. To me, that's kind of cool, right? And that's something where Brian mentioned before branded content, That would be the ultimate branded content example for me is like having a bespoke channel that is actually super appealing to your customer base, but you know people want to watch it.

Tim Rowe: It's interesting, Brian. I know you do work with John Boy and what an incredible story that whole media enterprise is. It would seem like there's an opportunity there for these kind of independent budding media creators to find new distribution in the real world, create alignment.

Brian Rappaport: Yeah, it's kind of funny that you mentioned John Boyd because I had a conversation with them literally last week about finding the synergies between what they're doing and out of home. And what I mean by that is they're not just a Yankees podcast. They have a ton of incredible different sports content. content, sports podcasts, different shows. They've obviously brought in ex-athletes. They are incredible and they're a rocket ship. And they have such a deep fan following, almost in the vein of a Barstool Sports, but a little tamer, a little bit different. And they want to offer up brands an opportunity to align with what they are doing to reach their audience, but maybe add an OOH spin to it. Is there going to be some sort of fun whiffable game taking place during MLB All-Star weekend in Texas this year that they're going to be doing. And they want sponsors involved, but maybe on top of sponsoring the actual whiffable game, there's the opportunity to brand a coach bus, to do aerial banners. So where can you blend content, things that are on the periphery of OOH with actual OOH? I don't know. I mean, I'm always constantly trying to find ways to look at out of home, outside the realm of the traditional balance. And I think that was a question. I mean, that was a question that we were asked last week. And, you know, it was kind of like, budgets and out of home and working in holding companies and what should be considered digital, what should be considered video. And ultimately, I just think that like there's too much attention being placed on these different channel silos. And I think it's ridiculous. I think that's, you know, ultimately, you're not going to, you're just going to convolute things. I don't know. I don't want to stand on my soapbox here and talk about why I think it's a little insane, but you get where I'm going to.

Tim Rowe: Well, let's just take the question. Here is the exact question from the audience. Give you an opportunity to answer it. Should brands be bucketing their OOH ad dollars differently? Out-of-home usually falls into the traditional ad bucket. Should we be looking at programmatic, digital OOH, place-based? Should we be looking at those spends differently?

Brian Rappaport: Yeah, I mean, I don't. I think OOH is OOH. That's what I've always believed in. And I think it really drives media partners insane, as well as other providers, programmatic partners insane. When you're working with a holding company, and if you are building a campaign for a client and you have a programmatic component to it, you have to bring in a whole other department that deals with programmatic. If all of a sudden you wanted to deal with like a sponsorship at a music festival, that kind of skews the outside realm of like out of home. You have to go and bring in a central team, print team, because there's print components. And it ends up being a four-month lead time, then legal gets involved. It's crazy. It is insane. I'm not saying that you need to start rules and do things half-assed, but all I know is that on the independent side, and I'm sure a lot of my other fellow you know, friendly competitors would agree like programmatic sponsorships come to us, we'll make it happen. We look at everything like one way in one way and it makes clients lives so much easier. But I mean that therein lies the difference between I guess like holding companies and independent shops.

Tim Rowe: Bob, what are your thoughts having sat on both sides of this conversation, lead teams? What do you think?

Bob Gruters: So I think I'm going to tell you this because Brian, I'll jump off your soapbox and jump onto mine. And I do. I'm so sorry. I am so freaking annoying at this point lately with this. I think we're robbing outcomes from clients by putting things into buckets. Because when I was a client side, my strat team would come in at my hold co and tell me, this is your media mix strategy. And we all believe in the media mix. Everything contributes. But what happens if they didn't write in out of home? But that was the perfect way to do something and the technology allowed it like it does for digital out of home. Even at my side, you have no idea how much work that would have been to go ahead and say, no, no, I really want this. I really need to do it because now there's a creative fee. There is an out of home team fee. And all of a sudden, well, you're not contracted for that. You didn't contract for that in your master agreement. And again, I've been out of the client game for a long time, so I don't want to speak that that's still how things go. But I'm going to assume that as an industry, we freaking love buckets because we charge for buckets. What I would rather do, and I literally jump over to Brian's side, Brian is dealing with the outcome the client wants to achieve. And he's going to make that happen through his strategy, his planning, and then his execution. What I would love to see us all do is love to see us focus on client outcomes. And that's how we start to do things. So the budgets are a bit more fluid and we think about what are the right touch points. When I started the business, we always talked about touch points. Where is Tim Rowe right now? Where will he be later? And how do I engage him? Because I've identified him as a prospect. Now, if I have to follow a bucketing strategy, I'm probably going to miss you in three places because I just didn't think of that when I did the budget parameters. That's a miss, right? I say it this way, we're stealing from clients by not allowing them to be able to go ahead and forage the most strategic, in-your-face media effort that hits their goals, because we as an industry are so focused on making sure that the swim lanes are well-defined and that the measurement is well-defined. I believe in measurement. I believe in all of that. But I also know intuitively, we know how to get in front of people, we know how to engage customers, and we know how to drive outcomes. That's what we started to move away from. And I really do believe in a big way. It's because of the bucketing of budgets and fees. So that's my gigantic soapbox that I have never… I love it.

Tim Rowe: It's like a Costco sized soapbox.

Brian Rappaport: I support Bob. I'll never forget. It took me my old agency. I had a sponsorship opportunity with a great music festival in New York for a client. And like, I think it was like a three or four month lead time to make something happen. It really was not the most like… It's a quarter of the year, a third of the year rather. And then literally, I don't know, fast forward like three years later, I'm at Kwan and like another client comes in and like we get a last minute opportunity to like sponsor a major music festival in Atlanta that's about four weeks out. And like within a week, we get everything locked and loaded and signed. And like, we're there developing, like, illegal and everything like contracts reviewed every day. And it was just like, it's night and day. I was like, this is, this is crazy. And that's just like a microcosm. But again, I'm not holding companies are important. I understand the need for them. I have a lot of friends there. I love them. That's why I'm here today.

Tim Rowe: But that's, that's Yeah, you get had a great finance professor, then he said to look at the incentive structure. If there's ever friction in the way that things are being done, take a look at the incentive structure. Let me give you some stats here. One in 10 people are using a VPN to mask their location. 50% of the population are using some sort of ad blocker. The cost to create content is up 20% to 40%. All that to say effectiveness, advertising online down 30%, the cost to acquire a customer online up 50%, yet 80% of retail is still done offline. We're going to give $395 billion with a B to Amazon, Google, and Meta this year. How is out of home, how is the real world enabling brands to better connect with Gen Z who are really the leading driver behind this avoidance of ads online. How is OOH enabling brands to better connect with Gen Z? Brian.

Brian Rappaport: I mean, again, I just think, you know, I use this example when we were talking the other day, like the Taylor Swift movie that's out that everyone's in love with, like NCM was a major, you know, media partner who sells ad space in cinemas, like offered an opportunity to align with all Taylor Swift movies, which, you know, there's nothing more Gen Z than that. I mean, granted, everyone loves Taylor Swift. I love Taylor Swift. But like, that's an example. I just think that The vastness of Out of Home as a channel now has allowed you to meet specific audiences in specific places where they are. If you want to be a governor's ball in New York City because that is a Gen Z audience, you can be a governor's ball in New York City. You can either have a sponsorship there. You could have a digital truck drive around Flushing Park and be present there. You could brand a bus and have a contest and give people free rides to and from New York City. And that's your Gen Z audience. And at the same time, if you want to align with Gen Z branded content, you know, I don't know, at doctor's offices to make things a little bit more lighthearted before going to see a doctor through digital out of home. You can do that. You can go ahead if you're a Gen Z brand and do that. So it's not just about throwing up a digital ad in Times Square, throwing up digital ads on the subway. It's where's my audience going to be? How do I effectively purchase my digital out of home to align with the times that my audience is going to be at said location, whether it's doing it programmatically or doing it traditionally?

Tim Rowe: Throwing something up in Times Square, that's the 2023-2024 version of just mailing it in.

Brian Rappaport: There's better options. Yes, mailing it in, unless there's a reason to do it.

Tim Rowe: unless there's a reason to do it. Bob, any thoughts on that?

Bob Gruters: Yeah, no, I'm going to give you two thoughts on this one. One, again, is I think the fact is we all knew that mass media, scaled media, linear TV back in the day was such an amazing thing to turn on because all of our retail partners would say, I don't know why, I don't know how, but when I flip a switch and TV goes on, all of a sudden my store is flooded with people and I'm selling things. And when it turns off, I kind of stop. Now, the truth is it was never just the TV. It was all the media in the mix. It was all their retail billboards. It was all the stuff that they had done in radio. Everything contributed to it. But what we've lost, what we have lost is this mindset of what is wrong with reaching awareness? We have to reach people. We have to get them in unexpected places. Years ago, when I worked at Gannett Outdoor, we had an expression that said, the last unavoidable medium. And that is very, very true in my opinion, right? You have to really go out of your way not to interact in the world of out of home or digital out of home, because it's so in your face and so prevalent, right? And in technology, at least in digital out of home, really make sure that you've got proximity and you're being counted if you're in that area, because it's a valid impression delivered. Now, I also think that we have gotten so good at narrow casting audiences and advertising. I've identified six people over here, and they have a proclivity to buy Doritos. So I'm only talking to those six, and then I want to know every outcome and everything that they did. So we've gotten very good at bringing things down. I think there is a world where things live in more of a scaled bottle of reach and engagement. Again, I believe in data, I believe in measurement and all that stuff, but I don't think we ever throw the baby out with the bathwater. And reach and awareness are still very important components of advertising. I'll give you a quick example. When I was at Facebook, one of the categories I managed was entertainment. And the studios were really a big focus for us and we did so much. So we said, we've got all this data. This is obviously before a lot of the PII concerns were like, all these people interacting with movie trailers, going to pages, following the stars and doing all these things. It's amazing. We're going to be able to predict and show how to open a horror film because these people all went to horror films. So they're going to go to the next one. So here's what we found out. The more narrow we got in our focus, the more targeted we got in our reach, the less likely people were to go to the movie. And here's the reason why. Because today, right now, I want to laugh, I want to cry, I want to swoon, I want to get inspired, and I want to get excited. Those things happen when they happen. Just because you wanted to see or you saw a comedy yesterday does not mean you will see one today. So the truth is, our mindset plays a really big role. Out of home, whether you're Gen Z, Gen X, or a boomer, your mind is still going on your own, right? We have to have the ability to reach you where you are and then spur you to an action, spur you to a consideration, spur you to just be aware and see it. At a Home does that exceptionally well without really invading your privacy. It's not getting in your face. It's not invading your devices. It's not invading your living room. It really is pervasive, but in a very, in my opinion, very respectful way.

Tim Rowe: Quite. And as a consumer, the ability or the opportunity to consume content, even if it is an ad, to consume it passively, that's the highest level of opt-in that you could possibly want to achieve as a brand who's considering all of those elements. How can I do this in a brand safe way and not get myself in trouble? And look, at the end of the day, you want to be targeted, you want to be measurable, and you want to do it with an efficient cost profile.

Bob Gruters: Out of home does. Efficient, efficient, efficient, right?

Tim Rowe: Efficient, efficient, efficient. Out of home does that. Bob, the one technical question or the most technical question that we got on the stage last week was one of the biggest challenges programmatically is passing the correct identifier so that buyers know what they're getting. How as a publisher, how do you think about resolving that challenge?

Bob Gruters: So we think about it constantly. We're like, we look at all the companies, the four squares, the live ramps on how much data can we actually pass? What can we make available? Because everybody is talking about the utilization of data. I do find that not everybody, they make, I'll talk about it, but not everybody uses it. But our goal is we want to pass as much as possible. I want to pass venue type geography, like lat long and then content type right now. Now, and as I get better in determining the demography of the people that are in the locations where my screens are, I want to be able to pass that as well. I want everybody to be able to buy us, plan us, and execute against us the way they want to, right? And this is where if somebody wants to call me digital out of home, awesome. I'll give you all the tools you need for digital out of home. If you want to buy me a CTV, I will give you all the tools to buy me for CTV. And if you want to create a hybrid of streaming out of home, I will give you all the tools there. So the ask I always do is when we talk to partners, what is it that you need? So if I don't have it, let me work on getting it. Let me figure it. Let me just really figure it out. Right now, the end all be all for me would be like a UID and to be able to find that and pass that back. And we're working on that in real time. I want everybody that utilizes digital out of home or streaming out of home. I want them to feel really confident in what they bought was exactly what they thought it was. It did what it was supposed to and it reached the people they were supposed to in the time it was supposed to reach them. And so that information and passing all that data back, that is number one, two, and three of what we care about every single day. We've got the content game. We've done a killer job on premium curated content. Now I want to make sure that the data we're passing back and forth meets everybody's needs. And if it doesn't right now, work with me. Don't just not buy us. Tell me exactly what it is you need, and then we're going to work on it together. And you know what? These are all going to be firsts because this is all new territory.

Tim Rowe: And I think that as a user, as a marketer, the opportunity to have such a tight connection and provide that active feedback loop to craft exactly the product that you need and want, that opportunity has really never existed before. It's always just been, here it is, right? My son says, you get what you get and you don't get upset. That's pre-school, baby.

Brian Rappaport: That is pre-school.

Tim Rowe: That's what we teach them. That's it. But now you can be an active participant in shaping what the media experience looks like, ultimately shaping the ad experience that your customers are having and the outcome that you're trying to drive.

Bob Gruters: We're working right now. It seems to be like we've got betting and online gaming really coming on in mass. And so we're working with a lot of those partners. You know what we have to do in something like that is we're actually building out the content for them. Okay, because let's be honest. If you're gambling or if you like that, you like to do the betting, online betting, watching the stats and stuff on a board is really interesting, but it can't look like everything else. So when you start to talk to one of these online betting companies, like, Hey, what is different about what you, this is just another example of it. What's different about the way that you engage with the people that use your service? How do you do it? That's different than other people. Okay. Let's build that into a content experience. Let's make sure that that resonates exactly with your brand and the people you're trying to attract, and then we'll really, we'll promote it like crazy. And it goes back to your first question about contextual relevancy. It goes back to what Brian talked about, about finding the right fit at the right time, reaching the right people. And I think what it comes down to is that is a collaboration. That is not me just throwing out a one-size-fits-all. Help me understand what you're trying to accomplish and we're going to get her done. But it only works when I have somebody who's super collaborative and really wants to lean into it versus just booking a bunch of spots and dots, which we can do that too. But boy, can we be more effective if we lean in together. That's a whole lot more fun too. Absolutely it is. That's ownership.

Tim Rowe: That's ownership. And frankly speaking, you have a fiduciary responsibility to whoever gives you money to do that. So that's my hot take.

Bob Gruters: Yeah, no, you're right. You're exactly right.

Tim Rowe: Brian, we continue to see the rise in digitization with out of home. Bob talked there about the data, first party, third party data, the crescendo, the question I'd like to bring us home on Why should we be taking out of home seriously in 2024 and beyond?

Brian Rappaport: Well, I think measurement, first of all, I think from top of funnel to bottom funnel, there are so many opportunities to understand the effectiveness of this job. Look, Out of Home is better than any other media channel for awareness. That is just a simple truth. I mean, if you want to blank in a city, if you have the budget, if you really want to go gung-ho and your goal is to be felt anywhere, or everywhere, I should say, even more so than a Super Bowl commercial, and you can quote me on that, I think Out of Home is the way to do it. But that's not the reality right now. You have brands that want to understand that their dollars are working for them. So whether you are doing an in-depth brand lift study with competitors, with understanding intent, awareness, et cetera, you can do that. Then you can kind of move down the funnel and do a web attribution dashboard. And through anonymous mobile location data, understand who came into contact with your OOH placement, who then went ahead and took action, who went into a store, who downloaded a number. And then you can also run a sales analysis and understand how adding out of home into a media mix led to whatever the KPIs are increasing sales, site visitations, et cetera, by looking at historical sales data and then understanding, you know, how adding out of home, you know, into your media mix kind of like change, change the game up. I mean, there are so many ways to see that it is performing for you. And I think performance ultimately is why you should take it seriously. And I think, you know, at the same time, that unblockable nature, which we have been saying for years, it is unblockable. It is unskippable. People aren't buying ad-free versions of their life. You can't walk around and see, you know, an out of home placement. So if you have the right creative and you do things the right way, you are going to be an Ollie Pop. who just dominated Chicago and has gotten nothing. And I'm not saying it because I worked on the campaign, but everything I've seen has been like amazing, creative, amazing placements, contextuality. You're going to have that opportunity. It's not going to be, why is a brand all over the place? And why is it like invading my life? And sometimes you get that, you know, when you're served an ad on your phone, after talking about a brand, you feel like you're being followed. It's a little creepy. And out of home just kind of is a little bit more natural and endemic.

Tim Rowe: Bob, same question for you. Why should we take out of home seriously?

Bob Gruters: I think Brian said it actually exceptionally well. I think the tech companies and the local governments are not going to allow this massive privatization as much longer. I think your own personal rights to privacy, we've seen this since Cambridge Analytica, we've seen GDPR and then CCPA. That's not going to let up. It is not going to be an easy thing to go ahead and grab your information. Right. So we're moving sort of kind of away from mobile phone IDs, mobile IDs. And then we're going back to back to the future with email. At what point is all of this going to be off the table where we just simply can't do what we used to do? I think contextual targeting, which out of home affords in a very good way. geographic targeting, which is its mainstay. I think there's a lot of things that we're going to be able to do that are going to be largely unaffected. I think my favorite line today is that nobody's buying an ad-free line of vision, right? You just can't do that. And Brian nailed it. It's like, so what am I supposed to do? I'm like, I'm ad-free, so I'm going to cover my eyes when I go into a bar or somewhere. The world doesn't work that way. So I think it needs to be taken seriously because there are so many other inhibitors that are happening to traditional, and I call traditional media, what's going on in digital. Digital's been around long enough to be a traditional medium now. There is no new walkers. What about the made for advertising sites, right? Where it's just like, these are not even sites for God's sake. And so I'll guarantee it's billions of dollars are being funneled there. And it just doesn't make any sense. So I think for us, we offer an honest exposure to a target audience based on the terms of the advertiser. It's very simple. It's very straightforward. In the case of digital out of home, It's an extension of TV. And that's why I keep saying it's just TV. In the case of out of home, it's an extension of engagement with a message, right? Which is always the most simple message in the world, but it conveys what you want it to convey. And all of this is measurable. Can't sit there and say we're good with out of home being 4% of the overall U.S. advertising spent. That's just crap. It needs to change and it changes when the buckets go away. It changes when we focus on outcomes and it changes when we literally kind of figure out what is an invasion of privacy and what is allowable. And we are not there. Now is the time to put your eyes back on digital out of home and out of home and say, I can figure this out. This works.

Tim Rowe: Beautifully said. Gentlemen, I can't thank you both enough for being here a second time for recreating this. I think it's even, I think this was even better. I think this was more raw. I think that we were able to not only revisit concepts, but build upon them, which hopefully has been really impactful for the audience.

Brian Rappaport: We're going to take this on the road, right? We're going to do the sphere next.

Tim Rowe: Take it. Take my talents to South Beach.

Brian Rappaport: Thank you guys so much. This is a blast.

Tim Rowe: Absolutely. We will be doing this again and we'll be doing it more often. Something that wasn't a factor last week that is today and I'll just add it as a bookmark for the next time. You might have seen the news. It was in the New York Times yesterday, I believe. Google, Facebook, Twitter are no longer going to be promoting news. in their platforms. Why that's a problem? Well, there's a lot of advertising dollars that go to news sites. In 2020, 11.5% of news media traffic came from those three platforms. As of September, before this went into full effect, it's down to 6.5%. It is about to be a bloodbath out there. It's going to get a lot worse before it gets better and out of home. We have a solution for you.

Brian Rappaport: Absolutely. Yes, we do. Brian, thank you. Yes, we do. Thank you, guys.

Bob Gruters: Yeah, thank you. Thanks, Brian. If you found this to be helpful.

Brian Rappaport: Thanks, guys. This is fun. Yeah, this is awesome. Sorry about my technical issues.

Tim Rowe: No, you're good. You're good. I'm just going to put the outro right on top of it. If you found this to be helpful, please share it with someone who could benefit. As always, make sure to smash subscribe wherever you're listening. Make sure to leave the podcast review. That's how you help us grow. We'll see you all next time. And then stop.