OOH Insider - Episode 011 - How To: Know if your campaign will be a flop, before it flops.

Computer welcome to the out-of-home insider show. We're bringing you tips, tricks and insider insights, all about how to make your advertising more efficient, more effective. And my guest today is probably the most important guests that I've had on so far because it ties all of this stuff together.

She's laughing, she's too humble, but the importance of creative and getting your message, right? You got one shot. If you're making the investment, any sort of advertising, this is an episode you want to pay attention to. We're going to talk all things creative with somebody that touches thousands of pieces of creative every single month, across all different industries, across all different platforms.

Mediums. If there's somebody that knows it better, please bring them to the front of the line. I don't think that there is welcome to the show. Christie from Paragon printing. Christy. Thanks so much for being here.

For sure, for sure. It's a lot of fun connecting with people, sort of in this online, offline format we've connected via LinkedIn. And it's been really great getting to know you on there, but if somebody listening right now may not know who the heck you are. So tell us a little bit about yourself, how you got into the out of home space.

You have a very non-linear tracked out of home, which I think a lot of the brightest minds in the business do right now. Why don't you tell, tell us about yours. Yeah, thank you. Um, so actually I, I came to this, to this field, um, kind of by accident, but I've always been very, very much in love with advertising creative, um, creative things.

I spent 10 years, um, in education and I worked for the government, uh, part of that time. Doing statistical analysis on datasets. So I think that I carry that skill with me in analyzing and just being such a voracious reader and being able to kind of spot trends, um, and to look at data from a different perspective.

And I hope that I bring that to the table. Uh, I went to school, I went to college initially to be an archeologist because let's just be honest. Um, I watched a few of the Indiana Jones movies and that's that literally is I couldn't think of anything that I wanted to do more. Um, I'm in love with history and I think that that adds another layer as well, um, to what I can bring to the table.

Maybe it's a little nerdy, but I don't, I don't think so. I think it's really, really fun. It's passionate. It's about exploration and it's about, um, kind of looking at things. Uh, how, how things have happened in the past. And I'm seeing it kind of in the larger context. Uh, so long story short, I, I left teaching and went into sales and I was the sales rep or one of the sales reps for the company that I'm with now.

And I just fell in love with the people, the people, I didn't know a thing about printing. I thought I really did think that there was one type of printer. Okay. A printer that does business cards. And that was pretty much the extent of what I understood. And, um, because they were so much fun. They were so down to earth, they were, um, they really just drew me by their personnel.

I decided to, to after three years of industrial sales, um, I decided to apply vase. They took a chance, uh, from, you know, with me having no industry experience. And it's just been such an amazing ride sense. That's a heck of a ride. I think there's this pretty cool, consistent theme throughout all of it that you really do have this sort of forensic approach from data analysis to why to understand how things work together from the archeology interest and history and knowing sort of where we came from to get where we ultimately are.

And the teaching thing puts it all together. It really makes sense when you plot it all out, how you could be where you are right now and how all of those things tie together to, to really help you out. Talking for a moment about the, on the history side, right? So here we are, it's 2020. Um, we've seen the introduction of so many different modern mediums, if you will, with the advent of the internet and all the different ways that we can interact with the internet for cell phones, to laptops, to televisions and connected TVs.

I'm not sure if that's vibrating super loud, but I don't see it at Sandbrook my phone, the other day, Christie. And now I gotta, I gotta, I gotta adapt to a new one, staying on the track of, uh, if you want me to do is I'm gonna toss this on the replacements. Sorry. I'm taking everybody off track there for a second.

Just didn't want any distractions. Um, as we, as we sit and talk, but to talk about history for a moment, knowing where you came from to where we are, we're talking about the diverse selection of mediums and how those all play out today. And there's different ways to spend money and easy ways to spend money.

What have you seen most changed the most? You've been a Paragon for a little bit over three years. It sounds like three. No, actually, no, I'm sorry. I did industrial sales. Um, and I've actually only been, um, at Paragon for a year. Oh God, I got it. Okay. Track it. Okay. I'm sorry. No, no, no line that all up. So, I mean, a year is still a long time to look at how much things change.

What have you seen change even in the last 12 months from a creative standpoint, what have you seen as the biggest change? You said, wow. That's one thing is glaring. Is it style? Is something stylistic? Is it a medium selection? What are you seeing change at the most rapid pace? Hm. That's a really, really good question.

I honestly, I, I see a couple of. A couple of themes and one of which is like the 3d and the soft sign 3d. So there, there is actually, there's actually a company out of Canada called 3d soft signs or soft signed 3d. Um, Eddie is going to kill me because I didn't get it. I just totally botched his name. He, I mean, they, they are doing miraculous things with billboards, with static billboards, adding 3d elements without the weight.

So it's actually inflated, oh my gosh. Like there's, there's this wine that there's like an entire shark that if it were, um, you know, uh, if it were. Created and sent and shipped and all, I mean, it would be like 6,000 pounds. And I mean, th there's no, there's no right way to, to pitch that to a client. Okay.

I'm sorry. It's going to be 6,000 pounds. Um, and there would be no way to do it. I guess that's what I'm saying. This, this absolutely just knocks it out of the park and it can be, I want to say he said he put this entire billboard up in 16. So we can take a static bullets in size billboard and add 3d elements to it where we're traditionally we've, you know, we've thought about extensions being really scalable down to the local level of being affordable and accessible, um, through local advertisers, from what you just described, I can take that static image and essentially take elements of it and turn them into three dimensional shapes and figures that protrude off of, I guess, horizontally laterally.

Um, the sign is that about right? I'm going to send you some pictures because it just, it's just mindblowing three days off science. Yeah. If I, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah. I don't know why, why I'm going blank, but yes, I think it's 3d soft signs. I get up. We'll make sure that it's in the show notes down below.

So if that's something that you're not exploring, it sounds like something that I'm going to explore as an option to clients as a way to bring their creative to life. Because when we think about. We're going to talk later about some, you know, maybe some, uh, some dirty words that are in our business, but we think about static inventory.

These days, digital is all the rage, right? Programmatics, hot dynamics, high that's awesome. We can do so many cool things with it, but also we still have static inventory and it's still really powerful. Posters still have the highest retention rates amongst, you know, 25 to 34 year olds trying to reach a younger audience poster campaigns all day long mini saturation campaign, where you can own the market for a fraction of the investment.

Static is still a great value. Play still works. It didn't ever not work. It still works. And now we can do some pretty cool stuff and make your creative three dimensional, really pop off the, off the structure we're talking about. It's something we're talking about. So you touched a lot of creative and you see a lot of stuff come through.

Um, what mediums do you guys work with? It's not just billboards, right? You guys do a lot more. Oh, abs. Absolutely. I mean, I, I think one of the, one of the passions that I have is seeing how many ways that we can bring somebody's idea and, and give it, give it physical presence. I mean, we, we actually make this stuff into existence and we're part of that process, something that just started as an idea or a conversation.

So we do, uh, we do signage. We do, we do banners. We do. I mean the wall scapes that are as big as a building. Wow. What's the, if you had to pick one, what's the coolest project you've worked on. Oh my gosh. It's I'm sorry. Yeah, I know. It's probably impossible to pick one. So give me a few talk about some fun projects that you've worked on in the last.

Things that like your friends, your family, when they're like, what the hell do you do? And you're like, this is what I do. And it's awesome. Yes. Um, so I was not a part of this. Okay. This was, um, but when we have, we have a very large clients and they've been around for a really long time. They're very established and they have fantastic creatives.

They just, they just blow me away. Our listeners, our viewers, it's a brand they would probably be familiar with. Um, so they, they, they did like sunset Boulevard and times square at the same time they did this enormous, um, wallscape of, was it, uh, it was final fantasy. Oh my gosh, but it just, it was just fantastic.

We, we just did some extensions where we use reflective material on like, so it looks like it looked like the, kind of the old carnival lights Christie real quick, just in case anyone listening doesn't know just, and I know that I used it before, but just explain to everybody what an extension is, makes creative come to life.

Yeah, absolutely. So, um, so an extension is just a, a protrusion. It is, it's going to be a. That's outside of the board. It can be on the top. It can be on the side, it can be on the bottom. Um, but it's basically anything that extends that board, uh, put a bow on a box. If you will. We're going to put a bow on top of it and add some, add something to look, add some depth and flavor to yes.

So yeah, Reagan in Chattanooga, Reagan outdoors in Chattanooga. Um, they did this, um, this whiskey bottle, okay. For Tennessee whiskey and her Chattanooga whiskey. And they had, so it's a normal, regular static board. And then they have this enormous cap and it's on top of the board and it looks larger than life and it looks like a huge whiskey bottle.

You can't tell. But you're not going to notice that and that's going to stick in your brain. Um, they, I mean, they're just really, they, they they're really great about that. So an extension, and then you have embellishments as well that are often 3d, um, three atomic signs in the U S is just phenomenal at, uh, 3d, um, you know, anything that enhances.

And then we have kind of this more like embellishments, that of materials. So we, we use this reflective material that when you go by, uh, when you shine your light to it, it looks like lights going off. And it sounds like what you were starting to describe it. The final fantasy was an extension with the reflective material.

Um, yes, it was actually, yeah, it was, uh, it was, uh, for Venice and Hollywood. So it was like the Hollywood signs and then it was like little bulbs in the middle with reflective in the middle. Yes, exactly. And I, I mean, it, it it's, it really is. It's, it's, it's phenomenal to be in our industry fun, right.

Because it's not just advertising. Like we get to have fun. We get to it's entertainment in a lot of ways like you and I, and we're in this and we touch it every single day and we've all probably worked in a job or a career or an industry, whatever. Or we do it every day and eventually it just becomes sort of Anella.

But considering what we do really is entertaining. Mm, something new to look at every day, we get to touch it, feel it, smell it, love it, fall in love with it, with the clients and Christie. Do you work with mostly agencies buying services? Do you work with a lot of clients direct? Is it a mix of all of those things?

What what's sort of that looks like in your world? I mean, the simple answer is yes. Um, we, we, I, we pride ourselves in not going direct to a customer. Um, if we have an established relationship with the agency, we would never do that. That's just absolutely egregious. But the, um, you know, we, we work mainly with advertising agencies, marketing agencies who buy on the half of their clients.

Um, but we also have brands that come to SRO. So by the time he gets to you as the creative, pretty much well ironed out and you're executing or are you critiquing and giving them some feedback, Hey, this is, this looks great on a computer screen, but it's not going to translate well to a printed service.

How does that back and forth? I'm so glad you brought that up because I think that's one of the reasons why printers sometimes are undervalued or that relationship is undervalued. If your printer is not making suggestions or doesn't catch things and lets you put a board up, um, that has so many or so, so, so much copy that you really can't read it.

If they don't work with you using the. Their expertise. You know, I think that, that that's, um, they're doing a disservice or you're doing a disservice kind of not using that because they are able to work with the materials. So I, I do feel like our company does, we, we try to always have our customers back because at the end of the day we work for them.

We want to make them look good so that it all works. It all looks good, you know? Um, yeah, no, I think it's it. It's very much in line with, as getting to know you over the last few weeks is you're somebody that just, you keep it real. It seems like I'm going to tell you that your baby isn't necessarily ugly, but your baby's to be superstar.

Baby might be better off going to school for accounting than doing their singing or acting career. But you're going to give them that feedback because it's a significant investment. And I'm sure that the work you do is not inexpensive. It costs money to do these things. And by the time it's gotten to you, the advertiser has made a significant investment working with an agency, immediate buyer they're they're employing planners and, and creative teams.

And all sorts of people have touched this before it gets to you. So to have that last line of defense that is really there to protect the investment is incredibly invaluable. So if you're hearing this in your agency, if you're a planner, a buyer, if you're an advertiser that does outdoor, whatever that is, whether it's a billboard wallscape.

So you guys do like transit. Do you do things like that? Yes, we absolutely do all day every day. And we, I think we make it look good. I think we do local, like, like what's your, you're in your, I know you're south of may, but do you guys work with everybody all over the country or is it just mostly? Yes. And I've been under the radar, but we, we do, we have agencies all over the country and we ship all over the world.

We should all over the world. And so I really love kind of when people think that we might just be a print shop down the street, I really do love that because that's that ultimately isn't who we are. And then when they get to know us, they go, oh my gosh. You know, but we, we aren't, um, we really don't self promote a whole lot.

We, we tend to do word of mouth and nose to the grindstone and just focus on quality right now. We are kind of expanding that, but that that's been our. Well, huge shout out to Paragon printing for letting us borrow you for this conversation tonight. I know you got some staff, some people helped put some thoughts together.

You want to shout those people out. Yes. Um, so

I'd like to thank the academy, but hold on just one second. Okay. So I, I am able to, to meet so many amazing people and they, they really do challenge me and they, they bring me back when I kind of go off the deep end. Um, and the people that have been really instrumental in helping me formulate, um, some, some really key ideas that I think are, are pushing our company and us to be better.

Uh, Andrea Mecimer Henley. Is just rocking, rocking the outdoor world. Exactly, exactly. Uh, both bows from Vincent printing guys are, I love how you love hunting. Um, Mo from outdoor nation, Jason Henley from primal and Spratlin Theo Gifford from kg three mobile advertising, Alan Atkins from independent James Heller.

We both, we both are sorry. Hang on. I got a prop from the James Heller episode right here, here. It is at about minute 15, my six year old walked up behind me holding a grenade. So that was, that was a pretty impressive way to be in out of home. As my son shows up and presents the grenades, James. Well, I, I mean, I'm, I'm a little disappointed that he hasn't shown up right now and, you know, and offered one to me,

but no. And, um, Keith Lloyd and April Steele from paradigm practicing also my main squeezes from the O H world right now, Tim and Brent bear. So you work with Brent on some other projects. Do you guys, do you guys ever do some stuff? Yeah, so I, I just, I just met Brent and he knows as anyone in the entire world, I think.

So you go into an airport and there's somebody there just random or some random person, and they probably have a connection to bring beer, Kevin bacon bread bag. I think I really do think he is, but, um, I love how, like, on, on his LinkedIn it says infectious love of all things. Oh eight. And that, that just got me.

Um, I, I really, I really love that. I love how he's. So to the point and he just doesn't be asked and I just, yeah. And that's certainly exciting, you know, and it's exciting coming into this space sort of as an outsider, right? Ironic the out of home insider and really I'm the outsider to this. Cause I was a digital marketing guy a lot like James is and was, um, you know, and coming into the space with a little bit different ideas and it's fun to see how rapidly it's changing.

It's fun to see advertisers coming into the space that, you know, traditionally only ever looked at TV and radio as the core components of their media plan. And now seeing how fractured and fragmented it is hard to buy, frankly. Um, you know, especially in really undervalued markets like I'm in Eastern Pennsylvania.

And I would, I would be remiss to say that I believe is the most under valued market in the entire country. There's a few reasons why. But this is why it's so fun to be an out of home is where an hour and a half Western New York city, where an hour north of Philadelphia, we make up 10% of the Philly DMA make a pretty significant portion of the Wilkes-Barre Scranton DMA.

We've got some in New York, we've got a lot of transient New York population that lives in our market, but works in the city. Our average commuter spends 300 hours a year just on their daily commute. That's 37 work days. 37 days of work. You want to talk about out of home, a market that out-of-home can move.

We've got higher household income. So it's really to be an out of home now because we can have a conversation like that and we can have it across the country with each other in real time, discuss what makes Paragon so awesome. Discuss what makes our market so special and really there's so many cool connections to make across the industry.

So whether you're an advertiser, an agency, you're a planner, whoever you are in this ecosystem, the ability and opportunity to connect with people has never been more present. I think it's exchanging ideas like this that really gets the ball moving. And then we can look back in a year from now and go, wow, like that made a difference.

That made a difference that helped advertisers to be more efficient and help them deliver more effective campaigns that they can actually measure. Now. With a lot of the measurement tools. Let me ask you a question in terms of creative. Cause this is something that's been asked to me of advertisers before.

Do you guys do things like, like I'm thinking like a direct response type money range, like political is a really hot topic right now. Do you ever see creative that includes like text to donate campaigns or things like that? Do you, do you see much of that coming across the wire now? Do you think it's an opportunity?

Does it make sense and out of home, what's your opinion on like a text to donate or a text to sign up?

I think that that absolutely makes so much sense because you, it it's interactive. And what is, what is the, you know, 83% don't don't, don't quote me on that exact, but it's it's I think it's above 80, the eighties, 83% of all people that saw an out-of-home advertising, uh, you know, campaign of any sort actually, when.

And followed up about that. Um, don't, don't quote me on

Okay. The level of, depending on the audience and what you're looking at, whether it's posting or, or bullets or whatever it is, the activation for out of home is significantly higher than TV and raise low dollar per dollar basis. It's more, it drives a ton. So, so, okay. So from, from the printer's perspective, it could be an opportunity.

So if you're a business. I mean, what better conversation if you need more, first party leads. You need more people in your database. You need those names in your database. Now more than ever, because as privacy laws continue to get stricter and stricter and restrictions on third-party data becomes tighter and tighter.

Google's doing away with cookies, right? The Google Chrome browser is going to be done with cookies in the next 24 months. What's your plan for that? How are you going to grow the number of people that voluntarily raised their hands? Say yes, I would like to be marketed to, by you come. So an activation like text or driving them back to a dedicated landing page, something that gets them engaged with the advertising.

We know that it creates engagement, but it's up to you as the advertiser to decide what do you want to do with that? And then it's something to hold your agency accountable for. Don't just, don't just place advertising and hope people do something that's hope has never been a strategy. You need to be very clear in your creative of what do I want to be the outcome of this, but is this a branding play?

Is it, is it a, is it a do, do you see that? Do you see creative, great creative? You know, it compels you, it moves you, it makes you feel something. Do you see a lot of advertisers? Maybe it's not the texting thing, but do you see them with a clear call to action or what that thing is next to do? How does that, how does that shake out?

Do you think that it's being utilized enough? Hm I, wow. You know what really? I think what you just said. It's very powerful and needs to be. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure that I could give an educated, an educated answer on that. But I think just like, you know, the preacher in the pulpit, I think, I think that you're completely right.

I think that a call to action is going to take it to the next level. And I think if, if somebody is not utilizing that, I mean, why, why not really top to bottom? You can, you can get a great, a great agency that comes in and does the best market research ever right. Comes up with this is going to be our brand statement.

This is going to be our campaign. This is the product. This is what we know. This is the message we want to deliver. Here's how we want to deliver it. We want to do all of these things. And then when down, when we get down and Christy sees the creative come across her desk, she's going to be looking at it.

She's going to be. Really running through that filter of, is this going to move somebody to the next step in whatever your process is? If it's designed to, maybe it is maybe it isn't, but as an advertiser, it's something to really consider in sort of the litmus test of are my dollars being invested in a way that's in alignment with my, with my company goals here.

Um, I'm, I'm looking at my notes here off to the side here, and I think that it's, it's a really good time for a transition. You shared a super cool story with me about a household brand. We all know and can talk about that goes back to your lineage in all of this. Tell us the story about everybody's favorite grape jelly, right?

Yeah. Well, so, so my, my grandma, my grandmother, um, she, she was, she graduated from college when she was 16 years. Okay. She moves to New York city. Let's take a second. Grandmother graduated from college when she was 16 years old, which was circa. Oh my gosh. I have no idea. Uh, I would, I would say probably, yeah, I would say thirties because by the time world war II hit.

Okay. So she was, she was almost like mad men. So she was a copywriter in the empire state building. And so, and actually, you know what, um, if I'm not mistaken, there was a plane that hit the empire state building in the thirties and she was there. So, or she, she like, it was some crazy story about that. So I think, yeah, so I definitely know she was, she was there.

Um, so she comes up with this advertising slogan. That's that is with a name like Kohl's it has to be good. I think that I'm remembering that correctly, then Smuckers buys. And so every time I, every time I hear it, I'm like, ah, because I, I didn't know her, she passed away maybe a month after I was born. So yeah.

I, I mean, I feel kind of a little bit more, maybe connected, connected. I think that's a pretty cool thing. And hopefully you get to do a speckles campaign one of these days. Cause that'd be pretty fun to tie together. How, how awesome is that? And it's just sorta like the thing that, you know, something I thought that I shared yesterday, uh, on LinkedIn that we shared a little bit about, um, with just creating something like once in this, like create something because what a beautiful story like here you are now as a grown woman in the out-of-home space in advertising.

Really your grandmother was a trailblazer doing this when there weren't a lot of women in advertising, let alone a lot of women coming up with a household brand tagline, decades, decades, decades before her time. And if she hadn't done that, you wouldn't have that to tie to get. I think that's really special to have.

It's pretty cool. Thank you. I, I mean, I, I think this, this is really, it's just fun. It really is fun. And there, there is some drudgery because you know, you, you deal with people and you deal with, with, um, real life situations and cranky personalities. Okay. You know, but this, at the end of the day, it really is about the creative and, and I am thankful for my team.

'cause we, we really do help bring that to life. Um, we, we very much bring that to life. Um, yeah. Now it's cool. You do, you bring, you bring that creative vision right. From here to the payment and you bring it to life and it's it's as tall as the empire state building is. It's a wallscape that a little kid walks up to it and it's just so good-willed and amazed that you could bet anything that big and it matters.

It makes a difference. It's it's fine. I have a six year old and um, the first time I realized he was, he was consuming advertising. He was about four and I had a mountain doing the cup holder and he goes, That's got the race car. What are you talking about? That's got the race car. He goes the race car commercial.

That's the race car commercial. My four year old son had made the association from the mountain Dew commercial that he saw on TV with the race car, to the bottle of soda in my cup holder. You don't think that the creative matters? Let that be the story. I'll give you the follow-up to that. A few weeks later, we were at the movies and one of the real people, Chev Chevrolet commercials was playing.

And he, at the time I was at an automotive ad agency and he said, daddy, that's a car commercial. It's a car commercial. I said, yeah, how do you know that? Well, obviously there's cars in it. Um, but he said, this is real people. This is real people. He didn't know it was heavy, but he knew it was a real people camp.

It was the real people campaign and the creative matters and the commitment to a message. I mean, how important is that? Like BA it was not the first time. It was nothing. The first time McDonald's made the commitment. Nike made the commitment to the swoosh spotters, made the commitment to all, if it's that right again, uh, with a name like Smuckers, like smokers, it's gotta be good.

Right. But it was the commitment to those things. So, uh, don't, don't be too trigger happy. Don't we're in this so close, especially from the client's side, you're seeing that every day, you're excited to see it go up. You're so excited. And then it feels like, all right, it's time to change it. You know, if it's still selling, don't change it.

That's an old Ogilvy, uh, thing, right. It is is if it's still selling new stuff, then why would you change it? But I think it goes back to what you're saying. You know, you mentioned. The, you mentioned the kind of call to action. Um, and that may be a way that traditional and more modern modalities marry.

That may be a way that they kind of have like this one, two punch dance. So, you know, maybe one is the static you have just, you have, you have one part of your campaign and then you follow it up with a call to action with it, with a digital component. Yeah. I mean, I, I really do think that, that, um, I'm seeing that as a, as a definite trend as well.

Um, and it needs to. I really do think that it needs to be, cause there's sort of been this hard pivot that's taken place where it's like a digital, because it's easy. We can buy a programmatically. I'm just for my own testing purposes, I'm running a campaign with flip. Right. And just to see what's the process, like I gotta be honest.

It was so fricking easy that I can understand why it's so attractive, especially for a big brand, specially for a big agent. It's easy to execute. It's pretty easy to, to measure. We can do a lot of different things. We can do the fun dynamic stuff, but static still carries the campaign. And the way that you just described the two working together, I think is pretty awesome.

When we talk about the competition for attention. Right. Do you think that because so much focuses on digital, what do you think about the opportunity. In the static realm right now. Right? There's not as many people competing advertisers for static, right? It's not the new fancy thing. Do you think that there's an opportunity for an advertiser to double down on static and potentially win out?

Is that, is that an opportunity that you think exists in the market right now? Well, I am a little biased. Okay. I am passionate about print. I see. I mean, I really do. I think it, it depends on the execution and it depends on, on the creative, you know, you, there there's a right way. There's a time and place for digital.

There's a time and place for traditional, uh, or, or static or, um, it just, it just depends. I would say, let's look at the creative, let's look at the, the, the, the goals of the client, the goals of the client are paramount. They're going to tell you. Which type of advertising, which type of mode you should use?

Honestly, what are the three things let's say, let's say there's an advertiser listening who traditionally works with an agency and the advertisers that one or two degrees of separation from the printer. What should an advertiser who's spending money and out of home, what should they be asking their agency?

What should they be asking their out of home care? What should they be asking to make sure that the printer that's on the other end, that's receiving the creative or bringing it to life? What things should they be asking or qualifying? What would be some helpful takeaways for somebody listening right now to make sure that the printer on the other end is if somebody like a Paragon?

Yeah, I mean, so I hate the word. I hate it. I think vendor kind of denotes this, this subservient or, um, supplier, or like, you know, a telemarketer. Okay. We actually have, we have so much more value and we have, we, we have so much value to bring that I think is often underutilized. And what I mean by that is a printer has the ability, a good printer, a good print partnership, a partnership, a true partnership has the ability to be so much more of a consultant than I think, um, than, than, than people realize.

So we actually touch the material. We, we manipulate the material. We actually work with manufacturers who are telling us about all kinds of new materials. So Y so I would, I would advocate that if you're going to be a stellar buyer, if you're going to be, you know, at the top of your game, you would work with a printer who maybe knows both who knows digital, but who knows what to use when, and to be able to, to offer some suggestions of real life experience, because they've manipulated that material, you may be buying something at a brand name that you really can get by without generic.

And then there are some things, if you go with the generic, you're going to be peeling off PSB from your, you know, from your tribe vision for three weeks. I mean, that legitimately is, is, is the case. To utilize to utilize a true partnership. That's what I would advocate. Um, so that, I mean, I, I really wish that everybody knew everybody knew we, uh, many of the printers that I, that I've talked to you and, and definitely our company, we love to help you have a problem.

We want to solve it. We, that that's actually, actually, I went there too. I just found it on the same page, probably. So, so right. There's a ton of value that the printer can add. Do you think that the printers should be involved with an agency's creative team should be involved with the client level, a planning process?

Hey, here's sort of what we're thinking. Here's different ways we can execute it as a printer. Like, is it, is it really creating more of a collaborative environment? It sounds like, uh, that, that is, I will preach that and advocate that. I mean, I, I can't see a way that, that, um, that, that backfires and that, that that's not beneficial.

Uh, the, the. If, if we use the numbers okay. From oh, AA, which I love Anna, by the way, I think I kind of have a little girl crush on her. Gotta get out of here next. I'm sorry. I gotta get it on here. Oh my gosh. If you do, I mean, I'm, I'm gonna push like a lot. Okay. I'm just going to push, right? So of all of, all of the, you know, if you, if you compare how many digital, how many static, how many things have to be printed?

Okay. I'm just gonna I'm. I just want you to get the gravity of this. Excuse me. Um, 164,370 statics as of January, 2020. What is that? Um, uh, I'm sorry. Oh, AA. Those are, these are like the numbers of the formats that are happening. So. So compared to, so you have 164,370, you know, uh, known statics in the U S right now, compared to 9,000 a little over 9,000 digital.

So you can see just in that there there's, it's it's top heavy towards print that has to be printed posters, a hundred and forty seven, a hundred and forty 7,000 junior posters over 20,000 while murals over 2000 bus shelters, almost 70 or 65,000, um, 65,000 as compared to digital street furniture, which is less than 6,000.

Okay. So, well, it's like almost 4,000 static sessions across the country to like 1500 digital. And my, my clothes. Uh, hold on. Say that one more time. Like there's like 380,000 static structures to like 15,000 digital. If you're playing along at home, you probably got them. But now

just go with the Tim. It sounds right. So, right. So there is definitely bias, right? So let's just say let's, let's pretend that right. We've got 9,000 digital billboards, right? They D they've each got eight flips. So we'll, we'll give it 72,000. We've got room for 72,000 advertisers versus almost 380,000. If we looked at it on a one-to-one basis, right?

One advertiser location. So eventually there's going to become I, so this is, I don't even think I have a hang up. My, my degree is in finance. Cause that makes any sense, right? This what? I'll give you the supply and demand conversation here, because as an advertiser, it's something you need to be aware of supply and demand, right?

If there is more demand than there is supply, then you are going to pay a lot more. For again, a very isolated piece of the attention. You can own the static inventory for pennies on the dollar, in a place where you're not competing with another advertiser. Now you need to know that I'm a huge advocate for both as I know that Christy is as well, but there's such a great opportunity in static structures to own attention for such a fraction of the money.

When I look at like a static campaign, we almost got Yankee on camera yank. Okay. You're going away. When I look at like a CPM basis of a, let's just say like, uh, a 50 showing and I'm, I lay a two to $3 CPM. When I know just to play on digital I'm somewhere between five and $7 and that's right now, that's in the current climate.

And wait until that, wait until a few things happen, people wake up and to steal this from, from our man James salary. Out of home is the most under priced medium in the world right now, eventually that market will correct itself and it will get to a place of efficiency and the market will be efficient and you will not be able to buy in at the level you can today.

So one buy in at the level you can today also be aware of static and how to use a great printing partner like Paragon, like Christi, be aware of how to use them as your pre is part of your creative process. I mean, just from this conversation, I can tell you that. This is something I'm going to explore for me personally, the accounts I manage my clients.

We have a great creative team. Who's got a really good relationship with the printer and they're always checking new materials and what's coming and they give us this sort of download on a one by one basis as we're going through a project. But it would be great to have conversations like this with the printer on a weekly bi-weekly even just, if it was a monthly basis to know, Hey, what's, what's coming out.

What can we do? What's different. What have we done before that? We could spruce up and add a different material or, or do something like a 3d soft side and, and bring that same creative that the market already knows and loves and blow it up. And then you have some fun on digital than, and do a really cool campaign.

So there's a great opportunity for you as an appetizer. Again, theme of the show efficient and effective. What Kristi just pointed out, the huge disparity from static inventory to digital means that you have an opportunity it's really, really unique in the marketplace. And so you had used one of the, uh, one of the, one of the dirty words used vendor before, and we've talked about the vendor and how to really go beyond that and create a relationship that adds value majority paying for you might as well get the value of professional feedback.

What are some other things that you think the industry gets wrong in terms of, uh, in the way that we would like to assign buzzwords to stuff? What do you think we can do a little bit better at? Um, so. And this, it may just be me. It may just be me. Um, but I tend to the word traditional. It can. Okay. It can kind of signify this stability and longevity and, um,

substance, but then if we're not careful, traditional can also have a connotation of being stale. And I, you know, I really am. I don't, I don't want you to hear from me that I don't don't love digital too. I think I think digital is absolutely. I mean the, the way of the future and it's, it is it's flashy and it's sexy and it, it really is needed.

However, Don't hate on the traditional don't, don't call it traditional. Like I, I did a search just in the, like the two main blogs that I, the, the, the websites that I follow. And I mean, I love these they're, they're really fantastic, but just, just to kind of give you an idea. Okay.

And I'm sure that for digital, there were 2,214 posts. Okay. Two, 2,214 articles for static traditional. Cause it's, it's just, it's just kind of the way, the way that it goes, right? You want the flashy, you want the sexy, you want all of that. For static or traditional 594. So, so already we want to have to want to labor the point, but I just, I just want to advocate maybe for, for a shift in our thinking, if that has creeped in, if we are thinking about traditional as being less than I think it's, I think it's time to elevate.

I think it's time to realize that, um, you know, the Taj Mahal is still around the, the, the Coliseum is still around cause it's made of good stuff. And I think traditional is made of good stuff. It's just made of. And I can tell you on the results side, I see it. Um, we have an advertiser who, all they did was change their creative.

They've been running the same creative for a couple of years now. And I personally love it. It was the first piece of creative that I recognized in the market long before I even got into the out-of-home space. So when they became my client, it was really, really cool to come full circle on like, oh my gosh, this was like the first piece of outdoor creative I can actually remember seeing.

So they're going through a little bit of a rebrand, some different colors and new font and things like that. And we, all we did was just measure year over year, Google analytics, organic search, right? What does that at home drive? It drives organic search people looking for some cases would drive people right back to your website.

If you tell them that's where you want them to go. But if it's a branding play ever talk about this, we look at analytics for our game. Lifted. We looked at the same time period last year versus this year, one could argue that last year, um, that know maybe the economy was a little bit stronger than it is now.

It's, I've got a whole episode on election year economies, um, which by the way, secret tremendous advertising opportunities. Spending's up in election. He's always up in election years, but the point is all we did was we changed a little bit of the branding. If you will. And we saw a 20% lift in organic traffic, please tell me out of home, doesn't work.

What business wouldn't want, 20% more people going to their website, finding out more about them, calling them, scheduling appointments, spending money with them for guess what? This advertisers spending the exact same modeling they were last year, but because the kid so well executed by the agency, by our creative team, they're benefiting from a 20% higher return on investment.

That's significant who wouldn't want 20% more. You're already making money. Now you're getting 20% more for the same dollar spent. And that's the opportunity that outdoor offers. Yeah. If I'm getting 20 more percent or 20% more of a chocolate bar, like I'm going to get it. Yeah. You're not mad at me. You're not mad at me if I gave you the king size versus the regular size, but at the same dollar, right.

Yeah, that's awesome. So traditional, we, we got a F I agree. I think we do, we have to find a better way to almost rebrand traditional, like traditional, I dunno, whatever you come up with it and, uh, and I'll back it, but yeah, it does. It's sort of carries this negative connotation, like, oh, it's traditional.

That must be mean it's old and doesn't work as good as the new thing and tend to hear that there's, you know, on that particular website four to one, it sounded like almost four and a half to one. The amount that people are talking about digital versus we just heard that statistic, right? 385 versus we're going to say 72 ish thousand flips, um, where that's open.

That's a four to one. So you've got four to one. Static inventory to digital, but digital is being talked about at a rate of four to one. What an incredible opportunity back to the undervalued standpoint, everybody's talking about the thing that there's limited supply on this, creating the demand. And yet we still continue to have so as an advertiser for you, listen, I just want to see great creative up in the market and have clients that really love us and think we're doing a great job.

Well, what a great opportunity for you as an advertiser to negotiate a better deal for yourself, knowing that so much of the attention is on digital, knowing that there may not be as much tension on static. It's a great opportunity for you as an advertiser to see what opportunities are out there. What's my competition doing?

Could I do the opposite of them and beat them up? Because I know it's twice as effective for half the money. Could you, I don't know. Maybe it's a conversation that you should be having with whoever you're working with in any of your advertising. You've got a bonus, dirty word. Am I correct? There was another one.

I think it was my OPIC. Yes, my OPIC and yeah, I mean, that, that I think is, is a dirty word. And I think we, I think we touched on it, you know, you can, you can, you can give a blow to somebody with a punch, but isn't it so much. When you follow it up with, with a hook or an elbow, right. It is so much more effective as we said, to get out of our comfort zone and to use multiple modalities.

If you haven't used both simultaneously, if you haven't tried, you know, um, if you, haven't tried to use digital and traditional, if you are so focused on just doing the new best flashy digital thing, and haven't like you said, done something different. I mean, I, I really do think that that. Um, that that makes it stale.

It's not traditional. That makes things stale. It is just getting stuck in a rut and doing the same thing and being narrow-minded or narrow-focused I guess this is the better word it's traditional thinking. That makes exactly that's been a theme, right? Traditional thinking, disrupt the thought process.

There's so many, the fun part about what Christy's described to you today is that your imagination is a reality. When you have a partner like Paragon, like Christie, that can bring your vision to life, you have that access and what better, medium than out of home, where people can look up to it, they can touch it.

They can feel it it's real. Chad Holmes, author of the ultimate sales machine and a guy way before his time. He said, if you can see it, it's. Hmm. And the fact that ads on our phone or a $10 cost per thousand, or pre-rolls a $30 cost per thousand that's carets 0 cents. How you could be on a billboard 14 foot tall, 48 foot wide for a $5 cost for thousand.

Use a partner like geo path to plan your buy, to target your target demographic so that you're not just placed in any old location you're placed in a place that's reaching the audience that matters to you. You can be 14 foot tall, 48 foot wide for $5 cost for thousand, or you could be on someone's phone getting ready to get exed out.

As soon as they get past that 5, 10, 15, second mark for $30, you can't not drive past the bus. Unless you have a flying car and then still you'd have to fly over it. So you'd probably see it on like an approach or something, but you can't avoid a billboard. You cannot avoid a billboard. I can X out. I can scroll past your display ad.

I can X out of your pre-roll ad. I can scroll past your Facebook ad. All of those things are very real threats. As more people are using ad blockers, half of millennials, I guess, lectures, you get a kick out of this and tie it back into creative. I guess last year at a digital analytics course, these are college students paying money to go to school, to learn digital analytics.

And the first question I asked being the out of home guy, I said, how many of you guys use ad blockers? These are digital advertising students who I guess on a percentage basis, how many raise their head? No, I I'm. I would be, I would be scared. I, um, I know that this is going to be painful to hear it's real, and it's going to be painful for any advertiser listening.

Who's spending money, trying to reach millennials online. 50% over half of the hands went up in the classroom. These are digital advertising. Students who are paying, or their parents are paying 30 to $40,000 a year to learn digital marketing. And they are openly telling you they're blocking your ads and all the money you want to get access to.

And they have the highest retention rates of static inventory, static posters, posters have the highest ad recall. For millennials, 25 to 34, not digital billboards, not digital ads online, not Facebook, not Instagram, not Snapchat. That what the smartest digital marketers want to tell you, because it's what they say.

Listen, most of the people hearing this are in a market that I cannot help. I couldn't sell you a billboard there. If I wanted to, I've got no incentive in this other than to just bring you information. That's why Christie's here as well is to cut through the clutter that cuts through the noise of a lot of what's out there.

So if half of them are using ad blockers and we know that out of home reaches them. So what brands do you see that are. Trying to reach that millennial crowd, or if you can't say the brands or what sort of campaigns are you seeing that are effective at reaching that really valuable, hard to reach audience, are you seeing cool creative come through?

That's really targeted or brands that are just aligned with that generation in their, in their, in their brand. What w what are you seeing? Are you seeing brands even maybe make a shift?

You know, that's a really good question. That's a really good question. I mean, I would, my knee jerk reaction is absolutely. Yes. Sure. But I'm trying to think of a really good example where.

Right. And one that comes to mind. And it's funny because they come to mind because they do digital outdoor. So well is, um, voodoo ranger brewing. I don't know if you've seen the creative. It's so good. It's nominal. And they do a great job with digital out of home. They're so on target with their creative, their colors are strong.

They use, you know, a negative space really well. They stick to core, simple colors. You don't want that. That's a good one. What are some things you see as ways to get it right? Or the ways that sort of missed the mark? Like what are the, what are the things you see that do good creative. And what do you see as the most common mess?

I mean, simple. It always, always wins out it's it is the, I think what was that commercial a long time ago? You know, all of these, all of these people in red are walking one way and you have one person in white, that's walking the other way. And that is, I mean, simplicity to me is the ultimate sophistication.

Uh, it always has been to me, it always will be. Um, I, I think that millennials are so bombarded with, with information and the S the simplest is going to win out and it's going to be easily retained as compared to something that is, that is, that is over oversaturated with content. Um, and then let them do the digging, let them do the digging, uh, let them, let them explore.

That's how they're going to connect it. You just said something there. Did you say. And I got to make good on my promise to tie the whole millennials using ad blockers back to creative. So we'll do that. Oh my gosh. Do you see, at least in my limited experience of seeing this, do you see from a local level people trying to run, what is really like a print ad as a billboard?

Do you see, do you, do you see that where people it's too many words it's there's you've got, you've got eight seconds right over at seven, seven words or less. You've got that. To make an impact. Do you see people just using too much, too many words, too many pictures, too many things going on? Do you see that happening?

Uh, yes. And, and I mean, I, I do, you know, kind of tying it back. I think that's where your, your print partner is, is kind of that save. Okay. So they're the last line of defense to saying, okay, well this really, isn't a practical. It's really cool. And we've, but just use it in a different way. Um, so yes, absolutely.

Absolutely. Um, but the, the, the simplest is often the, you know, the, the things that are the most memorable. That's awesome. And that's Dyke you, cause you teed me up for the segue back to, how am I going to do this digital advertising ad blocker tie into the creative. There is a, so I asked this question who uses an ad-blocker half the hands go up.

One of the hands that went up, I had interacted with the student previously in a different class. Um, so I felt comfortable asking her the question and I asked, you know, does, has anyone here ever really paid attention to a billboard sort of expecting them that it's like for your dad? Or like something like that's pouring, like sort of expecting that to be the response right back to the word traditional I'm expecting that to sort of be the response and this one student who I sort of interacted with before she piped right up and she goes, she goes, oh yeah, Yeah, good guy vapes down the street.

They've got a billboard right there at the corner of so-and-so and so-and-so, and it's awesome because they have different color, like, and I went and drove it later to see it. And it was just, it was simple. It was a lot of white space, lot negative space, bright colors, simple message brand. So here is somebody unsolicited.

I didn't pay her to say any of this. I use ad blockers, but I remember seeing outdoor for brands that are relevant to me. Here's what important is that, that individual, we continued to have the conversation offline after the class turns out she's actually like a Tik TOK influencer. She's got hundreds of thousands of followers and she's, but she was like the quietest person in this class.

So here's somebody that actively blocks your ads online notices, outdoor, and has the ability to influence over a quarter million. Wow. If you could show me a better opportunity for an advertiser, I'd really like to see it because I don't think it exists. You could buy the attention for $2 cost per thousand $3 cost per thousand.

You influence this person who has access to a huge audience that you would like access to, or maybe you can't because maybe you're local and maybe whatever. Maybe it's just a hard to reach audience and that's how you tie them all together. So pretty cool. If it had been a digital billboard, I don't know if she would have recalled it, seeing.

You know that actively, um, she's used to driving past and seeing the same poster every day and it's, and it's all making sense. Christie's fantastic. I'm so glad you got to do that. It was another kid. I, I, he was sort of the slouch one, you know, hanging out and I said, Hey man, would you pay attention to billboards?

Like, like if it was something and he goes, yeah, if it was something relevant, he finished my sentence for me. I immediately thought of our friends at geo path, Kim Frank scat, AIG, Chubb, shout out to everybody over GOP. You said if it was relevant, I would pay attention. Well, just prove that she's paying attention.

I said, well, what are you interested in? And we started talking about some different things and I'm immediately going through my head of all the different behavioral targets that I can use in geo paths. So that as it, as a good partner, I could make that recommendation of, Hey, you're this? And you're trying to reach this type of person.

Here's the best way to do that because I know that if you show something relevant to that individual, they will act on it because the guy told me, so, and the other one told me, so, and the whole room told me that they're not paying attention to you online. So it was pretty cool. So Christie, this has been a lot of fun.

We should do it again sometime. Absolutely. Absolutely. This was cool. I said, we'll have to do it live and in person and we'll roll out big cool creatives and maybe a. I yeah. I've, I've already planned it. Yeah. It's going to be fun. Well, cool. Is there anything else? Is there anything that I maybe ran too far past or too quickly by that you wanted to spend more time on?

I want to make sure that you've got the opportunity to talk about everything you want to talk about. No, I am. I'm just, I'm just blown away. I, I really appreciate your enthusiasm, um, your, your commitment to excellence, but it just, it's not everywhere. It's not everybody has it. And when you find somebody that does, when you, when you really do get to connect with somebody, um, that has your passion, it just, it really it's.

It's motivating. It really charges me and it makes me want to do a better job. And so I just wanted to say thank you. There's no, there's no, like you're not paying me at all to do that, but no, I appreciate it. Thank you so much because it's eight o'clock on a Wednesday night. Christie has spent over an hour and a half with me here this evening and the ton of time getting prepared for the show.

So special. Thank you to Christie everybody at Paragon printing for making it possible. Everybody that's been an influence in both of our professional careers. If you've gotten value from this, I ask that you share it with somebody else that could benefit. This is the out-of-home insider show. Bring you tips, tricks, and insider insights of all things.