OOH Insider - Episode 018 - Stedman Cleveland, CEO of Tadaw

Welcome to the out of home, insider the loudest voice in out of home. And today we've got a really special guest, somebody that I connected with not too long ago. And he's a relative newcomer. Like a lot of us are to out of home, but he's not a newcomer to technology user experience. And he's absolutely changing the way that we interact with out of home advertising.

I've got none other than Steadman Cleveland from to Stedman. Thanks so much for being on the show. Thank you, Sam. I really appreciate it for sure. Man said, as soon as I saw the write-up on your tech, I thought this makes a ton of sense originally described as the Shizam for billboards, for anyone that remembers this Shizam app, right.

I'm in the bar. And I hear my favorite song come on and I go, ah, who's this artist that I could just play. And listen to the song and it tells me who the song is. You've got an app that's sorta like that for billboards, but to understand what you've got and where you're at today, I think it's good to start with where you came from and your life's changed a lot over the last 10 to 12 months.

Is that a pretty fair? Yeah, of course. Um, yeah, just to go back to the origin story of kind of where we started, um, it was actually a trip that I took to New York. Uh, I was kind of taking a sabbatical if you, if you can say of, uh, discovering what my next project would be. Um, and from doing that, I decided to take trips.

I went to Columbia, New York, a couple of other places here. In the states and, um, that's kind of where it's at now. It started from there. Um, I was interested in going to a Broadway show because that's what you do in New York. So yeah. What show are you going to go say I know nothing about Broadway, so that was, I decided I'm going to step outside of my hotel, walk down and see what they're advertising on the billboards.

You gotta to go from there. Um, and so as I was walking, I found one that I thought was interesting or something that I could, uh, was, was interested in watching. Um, but I couldn't find more information about that billboard itself or the outdoor advertisers once a Google, uh, once a fan Diego actually originally, because that's where I buy movie tickets.

Um, and you know, couldn't find any information about that show and I thought that was. Uh, weird or interesting to say the least in terms of, um, not being able to access information from outdoor advertisement.

Yeah, no, just in general, just to add on to that point. Um, the, the, uh, time period that I took spending, looking for the information that I eventually did find it, um, it actually came from. The hotel concierge that told me this is where you go to purchase Broadway show tickets, or get discounts and stuff like that.

And so all that fragmented information, um, that was out there, it was, it was, you know, disconnected and I'm a product technology person by trade. And I had this. It's a topic that we've covered on the show, you know, and I'd say extensively, but the way you just described it, and what we're going to get into today is I feel like we're just scratching the surface of, we come up with a great campaign.

We've got great creative, the messages on target. We love the format and everyone's excited and we don't look at how the pieces work together. We forget about the user experience of all right. So now you got somebody to think about coming to your show. You've got a multi-million dollar production and you're spending tons of money on advertising.

But you made it impossible for somebody to do business with you. You didn't make it easy. And how many businesses do we see today that their entire business model is built on making it easy. They may not be the best at what they do, but they make it very easy to spend money. So for an advertiser, being able to connect the advertising with the potential user, that's interested, it's pretty important to the process.

Right. Yeah. Bridging that gap right. Between the point of interest where that viewer saw that outdoor advertising. And then what, what types of information that they're interested in, uh, companies let's take, uh, for example, uh, Netflix, uh, they ha they ran a campaign with Netflix as a joke, right? Um, is that for, let's say a TV show or is it to download the app?

What is the call to action from the outdoor advertising? That's really what we focus on is kind of bridging that gap in between the point of view or interests in the advertising. Makes sense. So, so does somebody need to have the app to sort of access the way you, you tie an advertiser to a consumer? Or is this something where I lock up and I get pinged with an ad?

Is this, how, how do I, how do I start to interact with a billboard? Yes. So there's a gamification portion to the application. Um, so the users or the people who have downloaded the app, you do have to have the app downloaded. But from there, we actually guide you to the nearest, to non enabled billboard in for getting within a view of that billboard.

Um, you're able to earn points for doing things like watching product videos. Or shopping for items, even if you didn't make a purchase or I'm looking at any other product related materials that the advertiser, um, was trying to advertise to you. Um, the whole concept was kind of flipping the outdoor advertisement industry on its head, so to speak, um, meaning we're changing passive, uh, advertising or passive awareness of outdoor advertisements into active engagement.

By gamifying that experience. So it is so it's a really interesting concept, right? So let's say I download to die and I can go on the app. And I see, Hey, there's 11 to dot enabled campaigns in my area, and I'm going to be incentivized as a user to go see these billboards is that's. That's fundamentally.

Correct. So I'm there. I have, I can do things. I, I, don't just, I can't, I can do more than just look at the. Right, right. Yeah. So you could watch 'em, you could watch a video, um, from the advertiser. Um, there could be exclusive content that you can get that every day. Then we, we, um, we S we give you prizes, right?

We select random people that says, Hey, you earn five times the points you'd have normally earned or tickets to a movie or tickets to a show. Um, there's, there's a lot of different ways we want to. Uh, kind of give out prizes. We kind of think of ourselves as Willy Wonka in a way we, we want to give out golden, uh, dig it.

So you're incentivizing users to get people onto the platform. Right. You want to get as many users on there and do, do you have a defined target audience for that? Do you, do you have an understand? Like, okay. We think it's going to be this segment of the population and here's why that segments important.

Or do you think that this can be a mass market? Well, the, the get paid to market isn't, isn't something new. There have been other applications, let's say a shop cake where you scan items in the store and you earn points and they can be converted to gift cards and things like that. So there's already in also, I bought it is another one, but there's, there's already a segment of the population that do like to get paid to market.

Um, we like to think of tonight in two ways, one, there is a get paid to. Um, segment to it, but then there's also the utility of it. Right? So for instance, going back to my story, I wanted to purchase tickets to the Broadway show and I wasn't able to purchase those tickets. So, um, or at least in enough time that could have converted me to a customer.

I actually had to go talk to the concierge for the hotel to understand where to purchase Broadway show tickets. And so, um, the utility I B and the gamification portion of it, I believe that. Yes, there is a segment of society that likes to get paid too, but there are people that may just be interested in what is this TV show or what is this movie?

Um, I'm located here in Los Angeles, California. There's always new TV shows and always new movies coming out. There's a lot of different mediums on how you want. Right. And so it could be on Hulu could be on Netflix. Oh no. And so we kind of guide that, that person, um, in terms of utility, to being able to figure out how do you actually engage with that?

I love it. So let's say, let's say that Netflix as just released their next original series and they've got a billboard up in LA that's, that's on the top platform and I see it. And I see on my app that it's, it's a Dabo award, or maybe there's something in the corner that tells me, Hey, downloads, DOD to get exclusive early access.

But I see this, I go onto my app and maybe I get exclusive trailers, or like you said, that, that, that exclusive content bonus content in the case of being in the city and seeing a show, maybe I would be able to see reviews from other people, you know, video testimonials from somebody that says, Hey, I just saw the show and it was awesome.

And my wife and I had a great time and I recommend you go see it. And you could also sell tickets, right? Yeah. So, okay. So that, I mean, I think it just makes sense for everybody to do on every campaign, but you're in LA right now. And I know that you just did your first, really your first probably full campaign and.

Got some pretty interesting insight that you're able to put a case site together. Let's talk about that. So you worked with a, I guess for lack of a better word, like a boutique boutique type shop in LA, is that yeah, so there's, there's a, um, here, here in Los Angeles, there's a kind of bastion Boulevard, uh, Fairfax district or a streetwear brands.

We find your Supreme. Um, you can find your, uh, One hundreds. Um, there's a, there's a lot of different brands on the sugar. One of the brands, there is a golf swing, um, created by Tyler, the creator. He has a giant mural that spans one of the walls of his store. Um, and that mural attracts a lot of people, um, to take Instagram pictures, right.

Uh, in, so, you know, utilizing him was, or at least that mural was, uh, interesting in the sense that. How many people are actually coming right. To take pictures with that mural or, um, or were they interested in purchasing products? He literally has a line out the door waiting for people to get in there most Saturdays and Sundays.

And so, um, you know, we, we thought that was. Uh, interesting case study for us, one with a toddler, the crater being so multifaceted is an he's a music artist. He's a fashion icon. He has content creation, um, in terms of his music videos. And so it allowed us to have a lot of different data points that we could collect, um, and kind of, you know, broadcast at, uh, broadcast that data or showcase that data, uh, to advertise.

And what the data tell you, you got a five tool player like that with an engaged audience across multiple things. Really, as we've seen modern brands that are transcending the product and becoming part of our lifestyle and they, you know, brands are almost more representative of our values and what we believe and where we spend our money is, is sort of that testimonial.

So what did you find in terms of insight from the campaign in this case? Yeah. Yeah, no, it was, it was, it was interesting at first say it was kind of, um, like you said earlier, people had to become aware of tobacco in itself and sit, download data. And so, um, we did do some field work or kind of guerrilla marketing in terms of making sure that people were aware of to be able to download it and where they could actually access that one.

Uh, interesting back in the beginning was kind of the. The virality capability of it. Um, we kind of track people, sharing the app to other people and incentivize them with points from there. And so, um, it was interesting to see the people that we did talk to through our guerrilla marketing campaign, sharing that with other people so that they could all be entered into this sweepstakes that.

Um, when we did select one winner who will be announced later on today, um, to re receive a $100 Amazon gift card for entering in this case study. Um, but yeah, no, it was, uh, some of the data that we collected that was, uh, pretty interesting was the time of day that people were actually engaging with it, which I thought was, was interesting in terms of maybe.

In-person or physical campaigns around, around that, or around that time for advertisers, what'd you think the time was gonna be and what time was it? Um, so Saturdays and Sundays, at least on this street are pretty popular. So I knew it would be a Saturday. Um, it was 2:28 PM. That was the time I thought it was going to be a little bit later in the evening because there's a lot of, you know, restaurants and things like that on that street.

Um, that attract a lot of, uh, you know, people passing by. But, but, um, but 2 28, we, we honestly didn't know to be honest, we, we kind of were just, let's see what we're going to get from it. In any kind of information that we can wrap our head around it, because we hadn't seen anything like this done in that way before.

So we had nothing to base it on previous. And you had a lot of stuff that to die. User could access. You had video, you had other types of content. You had the ability to purchase merchandise. Is that correct? Right, right from the doc experience. What did you find from those other? So, all right. We know Saturday's 2 28 highest rate of engagement was around that time.

What did engagement look like? Was it, you know, view, length of videos? Was, were there any purchases made through the process? Did you sell stuff? Yeah. Yeah. So we actually, you know, there's the aggregated data in terms of, and we, we, we exposed a sample size of a hundred people, but, um, but there there's, there's aggregated data in terms of.

Um, you know, on average out of those people, 60 of those people watch. So 60 out of a hundred people watch about four minutes in, I believe, 45 seconds with golf swing itself. Right. So that could have been across the board watching videos or shopping for items. Um, and yeah, so we did get, uh, three cells out of a hundred out of those hundred people at an average of $125 per.

Um, so that was, that was pretty interesting, uh, to say the least that people weren't making purchases through today. Right. And the fact that you're able to get 60 people to view content for let's call it, you know, you could call it almost five minutes, um, just for easy math, because I'm not. So you got a half hour of additional content beyond the exposure of the outdoor, beyond the social sharing of me taking a picture in front of them, Euro.

Beyond me going to the store and buying stuff. You had people consuming in weight content, you had people buying stuff. So for a store that's can only be open so many hours a day is to die. Something that would work 24 7, and I could still interact with the advertising and potentially buy stuff after hours.

Um, we really focus on the, the. The idea that outdoor advertising started with passive awareness. Um, and to kind of go into a little bit of the features of the app, we actually saved the billboard. So if you're driving by it and you just saw it and you're like, Hey, I'm interested in that, but I want to watch it later.

Right? We saved that billboard as you pass it within the app. So one, you can earn your points later and then you can engage with that content in a safe place. Um, So, so, all right, so, so now, now you've got the wheels started. So I'm in a market where it's primarily that it's secondary roadways, you know, main thoroughfares.

We don't have a lot of, um, pedestrian, uh, you know, structures or formats. So if I have a, to die user in my market and I have. Quiet, who's running a campaign using the technology. They could potentially just pass this billboard on their way to work each day. And, you know, ah, you know, that looks cool. That creatives core, you know, I'm due for new shoes, I'm due for new tires.

And then when they get to work, they could open up the app. And there's that doubt, billboard that I passed on the way to work for. This off-road tire company, and I can look at it and I can engage with the brand and the content. And I can view, you know, videos of cool trucks doing, you know, off-road adventures with these sweet tires.

Th, I mean, that's a tremendous advantage for anyone we've talked on this show before about, you know, concepts, like geo-fencing a billboard and continuing to serve ads to people that pass it. That's just good fundamentals. This goes a step beyond that and really creates a brand experience around that outdoor.

So you're in LA, we've got one now what's next for, to doc. Cause I sorta need this. Yeah. So we're, we're actually going to introduce a hundred billboards, um, within the month. Um, we're hoping to get about 2000, uh, by the end of this year. Um, we just want a lot of ways for people to earn points. Uh, access points for people to engage with and in really to refine the product based on a lot of different levels of engagement, we spent a lot of time making sure that the app was functioning properly and talking with, you know, maybe hundreds of media operators and advertisers in different spectrums, either that visa.

Or the, the media operators in terms of created, what we focus on is, is the ADA model, um, where the attention and interest is gotten from the billboard itself. I think the creative behind the billboards and outdoor advertisements is amazing. Um, what we focus on primarily is the desire and the action, right?

So we want to increase that desire increase the amount of time that the consumer is spending with your advertising. And then increase the likelihood that there is a conversion or, or an action taken from that.

I love it. I love it. I think it makes a ton of sense. It's a great way. Especially in a generation where we see ad blocker usage north of 50% for millennials and younger, we know that outdoor does a great job of connecting with those hard to reach audiences and that those hard to reach audiences have come up in a world where social interaction is just the normal.

This is how we interact with the world. So being able to bridge those two things, right. That the challenge of how do you still get to these people with socially relevant things that they give a crap about and in a way that converts to dollars and cents and my bottom line, but how do we do that in a way that.

You know, is, is scalable. Um, and it can be deployed anywhere. So, so if you're a brand listening to this and you're chomping at the bit, like I am and chewing on ideas right now, is this something where I have to wait until the rolls out to my market, or if I have an advertiser wanted to do it right now, would we just need to get adoption of users in our marketplace?

How, how easily deployed is this in a market where you're. Yeah, so we can, we can deploy anywhere here in the United States, um, you know, at the drop of a hat, um, it, it wouldn't require too much, at least on our end, on the back end, we spent a lot of times and make sure that that was puzzled, um, in terms of our technology stack.

Um, but yes, adoption in terms of centralized areas were Brent we're right now, currently in Los Angeles. Um, we're going to start opening it up to other major markets. Um, by the end of this year. So New York, Chicago, Texas, Florida, um, other major markets by the end of this year. But right now we're kind of centralizing our efforts here in Los Angeles.

I love it. I love it. So, and then in terms of, and you don't have to give away any of the secret sauce, but how, how would I go about pricing? Something like this into a campaign? Is it, is it a cost per thousand type thing? Is it a platform. Is it access? What, what, what, what's sort of your model? How would I consider this as part of a campaign?

Yeah. So we want to, one, we want to ensure that people have actually gone to your billboard and we wanted to tie that to the specific cost. So we call it cost per engagement. So you will only be charged one time per user, per engagement. It's not like for each individual piece of content or anything like that.

Um, pay if someone shows. That's it that we work for you so that that's. That's our pricing model. Oh, my friend, we call that minimizing downside risks. So, uh, I think that's a pretty hard value proposition to say no to. You're only paying when somebody shows up and does the thing that you want them to do.

Right. So many times we, we put money out there and, you know, there's the old adage that, you know, at 50% of advertising works, I just don't know which half in this case, Hey, listen, don't pay me. Unless someone actually shows up at your billboard and engage in. Yeah, that's, that's five in my entire life and my entire career, um, is, you know, the proof is in the pudding, right?

And so you want to prove that, that we can work with, I love it. It's refreshing. I think the concept makes a ton of sense hearing that, you know, 60 out of a hundred people went to this, this, you know, outdoor mural or billboard, whatever in your imagination, whatever you want to be in this case, it was a mural.

A hundred people showed up 60 of those people consumed four minutes and 45 seconds of additional content, right? So it was my target audience. I got them to take an action, which was, go see my creative once they were there, they engaged with the creative by consuming additional content, 60% of the people that showed up consumed additional content.

And three of those people actually made a purchase. Of $125. So to be able to extend a retail location, right. Which is so heavily measured on sales per square foot, how great is it to be able to increase or maintain your sales per square foot in times when you're not even open, create that affinity with your target audience in a way that they've gotten benefit and value from by.

Approaching out of home in a way that I haven't heard discussed. And we certainly haven't discussed on this show. So stem and kudos to you and the team. I think that this is killer. Is it available for Android coming soon? I know it's, it's available for apple. If you're listening to this download to die.

If you're listening on a apple device, uh, what what's, what's the deal for us Android? Yeah. So we're, we're, um, we've gotten a lot of requests for Android, so we are working, um, you know, kind of pushed up our timeline to get Android out as soon as possible. It will be out, um, very, very, very, very soon. So, um, right now we are available in the app store under ta-da, um, for.

T a D a w in case you're not a magician and he didn't know how to spell to that's T a D a w uh, if you're watching, this is, this is the download screen in the app store, and that's what it looks like. You already got a ton of great reviews. Um, so clearly people are digging it. I've got a broken old Samsung.

So, uh, you know, I'm chomping at the bit to, to get this myself the step. If someone wants to get in touch with you. Learn more agency contacts, media owners. What's the best way to get in touch with you and get that type of information. Yeah. So you can reach me at Stedman  directly and, um, that's the best way to get.

Cool. And what we'll do is we'll include that in the show notes below for anybody that wants to get in touch with Stevan, learn more about to die, talk through some different ideas. I'm sure you're getting a lot of requests on, Hey, can we do this? Hey, can we do that? So there's probably not a request that Steven hasn't heard yet, but I would, I would venture to say.

Anything you think he hasn't heard moves to the front of the line? Cause this is a guy who clearly likes to solve problems and find creative solutions to do just that. Steven, thanks so much for being on the show, man. So a lot of fun. We're going to continue to, uh, to monitor the growth we're connected on LinkedIn.

You've got to die. Uh, you got the email. Is there any place else that we should be following to die or you guys on Instagram, you active on any other social media? Uh, yeah. So you can find his fun Instagram in Facebook, uh, at ta-da app. Um, so it's at T a D a w app, um, on most social social media channels, that's Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, um, all below wishing nothing but success.

Thanks so much for spending some time with us. If you found this content to be helpful, share it with someone. I know Steven's going to go back and share it. I'm going to share it. We're going to get this out there. And hopefully how a few people on the way to become more effective and more efficient with their advertising.