OOH Insider - Episode 027 - Rick Robinson, CSO of Billups

Welcome to the out-of-home inside or the loudest voice and out of home where we're bringing you tips, tricks, and insider insights to make your advertising more effective and more efficient. And our guest today has no shortage of insider insights, none other than Rick Robinson partner and chief strategy officer at Billups.

Rick, thanks so much for. My pleasure, mate. My pleasure. Absolutely. We'd like to start off with everyone's origin story. You've got a unique origin story because you've been on the buy side and the sell side of this equation. And you've seen both at a really high level. Could you share with the audience, how you got into out of home and ultimately how you've gotten to where you are today?

It all started a long, long time ago in a land far, far away.

Honestly, since I was a kid, I, you know, honestly from the beginning I grew up in the central valley of California. Uh, my father built race cars. My stepfather had a steel fabrication company. In both cases, we actually worked on billboard inventory up and down the 99 freeway doing repairs. I drew fabrication plans for catwalks and heads and things on billboards.

So it was always part of me. After high school, I worked in a steel mill. I was a team. Did that for five years saved my money, went to school, studied fine art sculptor and a business. And then in 86, right. When I was ending my college career, I walked into a paint studio for Ganette outdoor in Berkeley and all the dots connected.

We had Teamsters, we had big hand painted signs. We were selling in a local business level. You know, it was media, it was. It all made sense. And so I harassed them and they didn't quite hire me, but actually airport advertising did. And so that was terrific. All over California, I had 13 airports and was sell the space, get it printed design the ads, work with the airport authority to move diorama's around, you know, pitch, the concession agreements, do public affairs, advocating and city council meetings.

It was everything. So for a young person in the business, I got very lucky and learned all of it all in, um, in short order, I did end up getting. And, uh, that was awesome. Big billboards. Right? And then along the way, uh, I dunno, maybe six, seven years in, I ended up in LA for ganache and you know, what had God makes first billboards or LA so big, giant walls.

We did the first ever projection media, and I think 95. Wow. Where we projected film, literally 35 millimeter film. Onto the side of the old Playboy tower on sunset strip. We had babes and toilet and doing a concert in the parking lot. And, uh, it was a big event with K rock, the local alternative rock station.

So, you know, always involved in those kinds of things. Um, RD Moreno bought out CANet outdoor in 96, I think. And from 96 to oh one that was a black. You know, it was a wild west, was the.com. Boom was really hard to make a mistake. Got into. I ran the creative team. I leased walls. I ran the wall at one time.

My card said tall wall sales manager on one side, and you would flip it over and just say national creative director. So look, it was a lot of fun. Uh, became a big vocal advocate for the medium. Then I started speaking at conferences everywhere. Everybody got to know me. And then in a one, uh, joined McDonald media, as it got off the ground, it was one of the first few employees there.

And we, you know, we built the west coast and built the agency together for a number of years, 13 years and 2014 jumped and joined Billups on. And that has come full circle recently as, uh, Billups just acquired McDonald media. So I've seen both sides of it and you know, I've always had a deep love for the business.

Uh, in my view, we're building public sculpture. In my view, we have an obligation and duty to the people space to add to it and to bring some level of utility, some level of time, funner money, earning our right to be there. And if we do that and create that perfect merger of content and context, you know, then we've nailed it and then it works.

Um, and life is. So there's my story. It's a damn good story. And art's still a big part of your life, right? That some of the pieces behind you you've created. Oh, sure. This is just my office and my studio is in another place. Yeah, I've been creating and showing and selling sculptures for 25 years, at least since really a lot more than that.

Actually I think my first show in LA was 96 and a now defunct gallery called half-a-dozen rose, which was on Venice beach. That was my first solo show. And I've been very fortunate there as well. You know, I've shown all over LA San Francisco, New York, Belgium. I had a dealer there for many years, Germany, so that's still a part of me.

It always is. And look, there's really not much difference between the toolkit for fine art and the toolkit for billboards. Um, you know, it's, it's, it's, uh, an image that's positioned for great viewing whether on the wall of the gallery or on the side of the four or five. Uh, it's in a frame heart, or some sort of construct, or, uh, it uses color, shape, space, words, lack of words, rhythm motion, mesons and balance all of those things that you're trying to create to, um, to deliver a, a succinct moment, you know, a message of some sort, some sort of connection.

So the only difference is is that. You know, advertising doesn't hide what it is. It just comes out and tell you, look, we're trying to get you to buy something and then fine art likes to cloak itself in this blanket of altruistic purity, but it's a hustle to, and so with that, with that background in art, how do you advise.

Clients, right. We, we, we know how powerful out of home can be, but how important is creative, it can really make or break a campaign. How do you, how do you advise clients on a thing like creative, that's something so personal to you? I mean, the brands we work with and the agents and the agencies, we work with our partners on both levels.

They have their own creative resources. And so our role is supportive when I do get brought into those discussions. No, we look for purpose. And of course there's a simple rules, you know, a few elements, high contrast, one dominant element. Um, some people like to say seven words or less. I, I don't necessarily agree with that.

I think it's one idea. One idea, one idea could be expressed to more than seven words. So it's really about the, uh, the intense. And then we help merge their effort, their content with the proper context. And so that's where being aware of the creative approach in general can influence and inform the out-of-home planning.

And whenever you see a killer campaign on the street, it's because creative media and now data have all come together. Every single. Right. And it's not just, Hey, sell some space and put something up. It really is a piece of art, you know, and my son's going to turn seven tomorrow. And as I've been in the space, he's gotten really into billboards and he's engaging with them and paying a little bit more attention to them and yeah, the ones that are the most creative and have that high contrast and that one, um, that, that one.

He, he, he they're sticky. My seven year old remembers them. He says, that's DJ marshmallow. I know him from fortnight. So, you know, for a kid to be paying attention to billboards and to take advantage of that sort of attention at such a young age where you can indoctrinate really the entire generation in your brand, what a unique opportunity that out-of-home has.

Like, I think people love a great billboard, like. A stunning piece of architecture or a elegantly plated meal at a nice restaurant or a ballpark on a Sunday afternoon or anything like that, wherever there's harmony of shape, rhythm motion, purpose, it's pleasing for us. And we're going to stop and look, I mean, we don't wake up with the sole purpose of consuming out of home, but we will, if it adds to our space, So that, that's what it's got to get back to.

Like, what's it purpose. And is it, is it adding to the environment? If it is, then it works. I used to have this theory called the face hurting theory where we would look at out of home layouts. This was years ago, the creative team again at, I was like, put it on the wall and if you look at it and you go, ah, that is great.

And if you look at and go, oh, or I can't figure it out, And it's not great. You and your idea have to work a little harder. Uh, I really think it's that simple, but of course I think we all find ways to make it very complicated. I was sharing with you right before we started here today that, uh, I took a different ride home.

And there's a lot of good, positive messaging up in the marketplace. And I saw one, uh, it was a small poster. I was like, oh, what is that? That was good colors. And it was engaging enough that it caught my eye. And then a little bit later on down the road, I saw the same color scheme, but like a little bit different design.

And then probably later on, I saw two people standing on that same design. So I'd seen it three times. I still couldn't figure out what the hell they do. So they got some of the elements, right. But definitely missed compelling. It sounds like they created intriguing, which is half the story. The thing in out of home intrigued is one part of it, you know, get me to look, then it's got to pay off quickly.

And so I always tell folks, chunk it up a bit. I mean, one of the best. Quotes. I heard years ago from somebody who had been in the business for many decades. He said a great billboard is the ability to punch a man in the face. And then pick them up quietly and dust them off. And, uh, which I thought was pretty cool.

Uh, the other one, what did he say his name was Jay Elwood? Again, this was a, just a gem of the business going back decades in LA Jay Ellwood would again, another thing you said that a billboard is exclamation, not explanation. So both of those work. And I think that that's, that's all still there as part of what we do, but now what's more important or what's acutely important, at least right now is the data play right?

Understanding where people are, where they start today, what trips they take, where they end their day, where do they frequent? That has become the new secret weapon for out of home and will become, I think the import of that. It has been accelerated because of COVID. I agree. And I've gotten a lot of questions about a topic that you're really at the tip of the spear on Billups is leading the charge on, on the idea of, of, uh, a hyper-local focus.

What does that mean? Talk to me about what you guys found and what hyperlocal means. Well, it really started with where. Because that's the basic point about have home, find my people put signs in front of them, right? Whether it's upscale, hipsters or Hispanic mothers or business travelers or blue collar workers or whatever, you find your people, you locate them on a map where they live, where they go, their habits, all those things.

And then you get the messages in front of them. And sometimes it's about where they live. Sometimes it's about where they spend their time. Do they go to ball games or they go to the mall or where do they go? It's all of that. So what we, the first thing we wanted to find out was what's happened to the people, right?

The assumption is everybody's staying at home, especially on the west coast. You know, it hit first in Seattle and then California, how the stay at home order in New York followed very quickly. Uh, and then it started spreading across the country. So immediately this created doubt and a question of accountability for the media is what I bought really there anymore.

Is anybody seeing the billboards? Yeah. Um, I want to keep my signs up, but I'd like a little bit of a make good what's that look like? How do we even know how much I'm missing or are there billboards that are actually doing better now than they were before? Like just what are the facts? So we didn't start out with the headline.

We really just started out with the discovery process. And what we found was which made sense after we thought about it is that people were making as much, or even sometimes more trips away from their house on a daily basis than they did historically. It's just that those trips were very. In general, they were closer to home.

So in sprawling cities and horizontals cities like Los Angeles or Dallas or Sacramento or places like that, it was a couple mile radius. It was, that was the orbit for vertical cities like San Francisco or New York or Chicago, perhaps? Uh, it was, it was much tighter. It was a couple of times. People were definitely getting out of the house and our data set allows us to track everything it's mobile devices.

So whether you're walking or in a car, what doesn't matter, we see the movement. And so that, that made the story pretty easy to follow that there was activity that was relevant for out of home on a hiker hyper-local level. So then it was like, Hey, let's come up with a headline. Hyper hyperlocal is the new high profile.

Sounds cool. Let's roll. So, you know, we started. Uh, pushing out that position and other people. I mean, we didn't discover that other people saw it too. There's a lot of smart people in our business and everybody started discovering that pretty quickly once they investigated the data. And now we're just continuing with the observation.

So we've created a map dashboard that shows virtually every fixed piece of, out of home in the U S and we can tell you week over week, if the activity on that unit is increasing or decrease. And these aren't impressions. They aren't in candid geo path. They're more about an impact analysis looking at exposure, but it's a good proxy.

And so we can go in and be very specific down to the unit and understand what's going on. So clearly that informs planning clearly that helps us when we're trying to understand compensation challenges. Do we need to do a little bonus to keep this on the street? What can we do? And we're going to track that through the balance of the year.

Uh, honestly, I hope we don't have to track it through the balance of the year. I hope it becomes moot much sooner than later, but until it does, until things look like they're back to normal, whatever that is, and it stays there a while and we get past any concern of a second dip, we're going to keep tracking it.

The bottom line is this is that we in the out of home business, we're the experts, the brands agencies. All the local clients, every, every business entity that spends money with us expects us to be very specific and know better than any other resource about what's happening with our offering. And that was our pursuit.

Let's be transparent. Let's find a way to be accountable. Um, and like I said, let's hope this ends soon. I'm with you on that. How do you, how do you see w w when you point out, like you just said, it could be a couple of city blocks, or maybe just a few miles in markets where maybe we don't traditionally have inventory in such a tight radius.

How do you start to approach that? Is it looking at different formats? Is it finding different ways to reach people without a home? Are you approaching that unique challenge of maybe there not being any inventory available? Well, sure. One leads to the other, you know, one leads to the other, you know, again, find out where your people are and put signs in front of them.

So the first thing was looking at traditional out of home is that suddenly posters and junior posters and shelters and things like that, and neighborhoods that were maybe more moderate demand type unit. Uh, and had lowered counts in general, suddenly become much more interesting. And so that was the hyper-local is the new high profile.

You know, if there aren't, uh, you know, hundreds of thousands of cars on the 4 0 5 freeway every day, but there are more cars on Lincoln Boulevard. Well, then we're going to look at Lincoln Boulevard so that that's the obvious piece. And then after that, it's a matter of diving into the non traditional out of home.

Everything from door hangers to wild posting mobile units, laundromats C stores, you name it anywhere. People are still going right. And we can get there and get the message in front of them because out of home is a simple construct. It's a brand in or something, the public, when they're out of the house.

And that's really what it's about in a visual way, whether it's a static sign or a digital sign. And so, uh, you know, this. Put some pressure on out of home planners to become more creative, find unique solutions and understand those better than before. And that's, uh, that's what we're working through. Um, so through that process, are you considering new media partners are our new formats coming to the surface that maybe previously hadn't considered.

I don't know about that. I mean, look, we work with, I don't know. I think it was like 1600 partners last year. So, you know, our scope and most, you know, you, you know, where all the traditional and we're most of the non-traditional suppliers are. So what you might be doing is using some of these non-traditional formats more often, and to a deeper degree, they're getting a larger piece of the budget and they're in the considerations.

Uh, earlier and they'll stay in that consideration set for a longer period of time. How would you advise, um, uh, an out of home company that traditionally has relied on highway bulletins to carry all of, or the majority of the revenue? Really be the, the banner players, um, within the inventory. How would you advise them now in best helping you at Billups and your clients?

Right. Traditionally, they would have wanted to present big bulletins on highway. How are you considering maybe more poster plays, um, with, with some of those operators that traditionally relied on bullets and this, I think so far, first of all, I, I think the supply side in our ecosystem has been awesome through this crisis.

The vast majority of the suppliers we work with, I've been flexible. Willing, um, reasonable and, you know, have not been in denial or anything like that. They've been super positive and look, all of us want the economy to be strong. So the suppliers, the demand side, like us, the brands and the wanting to keep it in play that she didn't want to pack up and go home and cancel everything.

So, so far so good. I think in terms of everybody being supportive of each other, now, if I had a plant. Um, that was, you know, 60% freeway bulletins was dominated by that. And I was worried about that. You know, I think you just have to approach it objectively. Let's truly find out what the exposures of this inventory right now.

And there's enough out there. We have unit data geo path has done a great job providing general guidance by format by market. There's other resources out there. So there's enough data. Now look, you can argue about methodology all day long. But the point is there's enough and it's all pretty similar and saying pretty much the same thing.

So you can have a pretty fair understanding of what the actual comparison is of now versus, you know, historical same time last year. And then based on that price accordingly, I think also understand that you need to be very helpful in, in. Showing ways to use the medium with the right tone, with the right type of messaging, the right empathy.

Uh, and I'm excited to see what's coming forward because look, our industry, our out of home is the voice of every city. It telegraphs what's happening in a city right now. And if you, you you've, you've seen it before. You can go into a market that's booming economically, and you can tell right away because of what's on the out-of-home inventory.

Conversely, if that market is struggling, you see a pretty quickly too on what's not on the out-of-home inventory. And right now, if you had been on a desert island for two months, and you just landed in a major market in the U S a couple of weeks ago, the first thing you would do is ask yourself what's all this COVID stuff, because it would be all over the out of home.

You know, thanking first responders, thanking healthcare professionals, uh, public safety messaging, all kinds of public information, the CDC campaign with the old AAA. So our industry always my definition reflects and communicates. And it's a mirror of what's going on right now in any city, anywhere on the planet.

So what I'm excited about is what's going to happen when we get let out of detention. All right. When we're free to go out into the wild, back into the world, what's that look like? And I really am excited to see what the brands are going to do, because what a unique opportunity for the brands to reach people out of home.

Right. At the same time they've been released. To get out of home and we're all having the same experience. It's not like what a brilliant friend of mine. Um, Chaucer Barnes, who I interviewed for my first podcast. He's a chief marketing officer at translation in New York city. He had this phrase, he called it concurrence and Chaucer.

Hello. I've been stealing your phrase ever since I did ask permission by the way. And he's right. It's the one out of home offers that concurrent. You know, we just had one recently on television actually, where, how many people were watching the NFL draft. Right. But 35% more than I think last year. Sure. So you knew your buddies were, it was a simultaneous moment.

Well, that happens in, out of home every single day. You know, if I'm known to the freeway, if I'm commuting to work, if I'm in the mall, the airport, the arena, if I'm in my neighborhood, Wherever it might be an office elevator gym, a sports club, a coffee shop. Doesn't matter. There's out of home there and it's a public intercept point.

I'm seeing it with everybody else. Seen it with me at the same time. And there's something powerful to that. There's something, uh, concurrent about that. And when, again, in our history, will brands be able to use out of home to reach people exactly when they're going out of home and at a moment. Of what will likely be amazing exuberance, right?

A feeling of, of optimism, of hope, all those things that are very attractive about our country and other countries, which is all right. We've been kicked in the knees. We've been kneecapped on this thing, but now we're out. Yeah. We're going to be safe. We're going to social distance. This might not be perfect.

I'm a little fearful, but dammit, we're going to work. We're going to rebuild this. We're going to restock the fires of our furnace economically, and we can do it and we've done it before and we'll do it again. I mean, that's an amazing collective mindset that most people will have acutely in their consciousness when they're out of home.

And when they're released back into the wild and the one medium, that's perfect to communicate that as ours is out of home media. So, uh, I'm, I'm tickled to see what's going to happen as that opportunity comes forward. Um, and you know, just standing by on that, right at the ready, the image that comes to mind when you were just talking about that, as we all returned to the world, is that very distinct image, world war two, the war is over the Navy sailor.

Gooping up the girl. And I think it was times square somewhere in New York city. Right? The psychotic image. We're all celebrating this thing together, except now the whole world's in on it. We've, we're all celebrating together. I think, I think it's going to be, so maybe the new version of that is, uh, there's somebody standing on a street corner, looking up at a billboard.

All right. Welcome back. Really. It's going to be a global, a block party. It definitely is. You know, so, you know, and until we get there and as we get. You know, we're going to continue like everybody else in this business monitoring where the people are and using the power of mobile data to prove it and to gain credibility, to be transparent.

Now, when it's important. And when we come back in September and say, guess what numbers are up 20% year over year, that's going to mean something because we were transparent. Let's talk a little bit more about that because the data conversation seemed, it seemed initially like a push poll. Right? We want it, we want it.

We want it. Hey, let's maybe not release it. There were some different opinions on it. My opinion is that it legitimizes out of home by leaning in and saying, yeah, look, traffic is down 50% legitimize that a home. Do you, do you agree with that? Oh, look, I don't know. I, I don't know. I'd rather focus on the go forward.

And I am not trying to be, uh, uh, give you a lay up here, but I think we were just finding our way. I think everybody's got the right intent. They're trying to understand. Some people are willing to jump in right away and start making statements. You know, Billups is an aggressive organization. So, you know, we came out fairly early with it.

Others are going to hold back and try to make sure they understand it better before they talk about it. Just the difference in approach in the end. I think we're all landing in the same place is that these numbers are helpful. Uh, they might come from different places and measure slightly different things, but they're all telling us more or less the same thing.

And they are now part of RNA. And they may be for ever, it may be coming of age if you will. Yeah. Look, there's always unexpected outcomes from every surprise situation. This was a big surprise. Did we expect that suddenly, you know, gut checking and guaranteeing, if you will, impressions was going to be part of this outcome going forward?

I don't think anybody said that right away. Right. Most of us were just panicking. Sure. So there's always unexpected outcomes and, uh, I think there's an opportunity for out of home to come out of this stronger than it did going in. You know, if you think about it, look at the last few years. I mean, I don't know how many quarters in a row growth, the old triple they reported, but it was 30 or 40 or more.

Uh, it was quite a lot. And then, uh, you know, everybody. Supply side demand side doesn't matter. It ad tech was realizing strong growth the last few years. And all of us came out swinging January and February, you know, on March 10th, right? When this all started happening and we were all killing it, you know, by April 10th, it was very different stories.

But those factors that we're creating that, that growth pressure, you know, population growth, population density, humans are visual by nature. Um, we have these phones in our hand that we use to buy everything conversion to digital hardware, which is dramatically increasing supply, uh, the power of mobile data to help us prove it.

The fact that out of home, A real catalyst for direct to consumer brands. Uh, that is great for tech brands who just want to prove a proof of life that they exist right before the IPO, the younger generation loves out of home. All of those factors, which are much bigger than the out-of-home industry, by the way, we didn't create them.

We were benefiting from them and making the most of them, but we didn't create them. Those factors aren't going away. No, there's still population growth. Young people still love out of home. CapEx might be held up for a year or two, but we're going to continue converting to digital. Um, we communicate mobily.

It might not be a phone. It might be a chip on our arm, but we're able to transact on the move. We're still visual by nature. What's interesting to me is that as we do all of these zoom calls, we have to see each other. I think about that before we started doing all these zoom calls, most people would just put their icon up there ever since we started these doing these zoom calls, everybody wants to see each other and people are nesting their environment.

Like I have now they have special green screen backgrounds and all kinds of stuff. Burger king just did the campaign where if you put a billboard in the back and killed it, Instagram it, so we need to communicate vision. And that's not going anywhere. So I see all those factors, just a in place, but maybe a little bit held up, slowed down for a moment, but it'll, it'll jam back up.

Things might be a little different. We may, um, have much stronger senses of hygiene, maybe a while before a bunch of people get on an airplane. Um, you know, big sporting events. But, but we don't know. One thing we do know people are going to get let out of the house. And we're there for the people are for the brand should be with arms wide open.

We're waiting. Exactly. What, what is it, what do you think out of home needs to do? The data conversation, I think is really important to attract brands that maybe haven't traditionally done out of home or just having considered it. What can out-of-home do as an industry? To have better conversations, better stories with those brands that maybe haven't used.

Uh, you know, I mean, this is, this is an easy answer, but we keep doing what we're doing. Know. We keep protecting our inventory, doing the right things legislatively so we can continue to be. We continue sharing the asset, the digital assets in particular, for other types of messaging, public service messaging, wayfinding, public safety, fine RPSs and so on, because that allows us to have multiple levels of utility with the public and with the cities we serve, uh, we continue to prove it with the use of mobile data and attribution modeling and all of that.

We continue to propagate it. Well, we make it available on automated platforms and programmatic and easy to use planning tools. And we continue to preach because we've got the gravitas of concurrence of the big, beautiful canvas on the street. That's nothing would advertising and zero editorial and nobody else really has that.

And so I think if we just stay after those four PS, right, um, protect, prove, propagate and preach, we'll be in great. I think that's a great direction to get to, to keep it going. It's probably going to be a little while before you're back doing, uh, any art shows or anything like that. But what are you, what are you working on outside of, uh, outside of work right now?

Oh, you know, I never stop when my mom says that my son, he does a lot and some of it's pretty good right now. The number one thing on my mind is. And, um, our recent, uh, joining forces with McDonald media, uh, our clients and what we can do to just make our business stronger and be ready for the bounce back.

So that's the number one thing on my mind, the art stuff has always there for me. Um, I've got two or three ideas cooking in my head for my next show. I usually do one show at here. I'll make, I'll make sure you're aware of the next show. Maybe you can come out do that'd be great. Okay, Rick, where can folks learn more about you?

You've got your own show. Tell, tell everybody about that and how they can learn more about, oh, thank you very much inside your head. Yeah, absolutely. On Spotify and on the Billups website. And I think on apple podcast, it's called in the world sponsored by Billups and I'm hosting. Uh, we've done about eight, nine episodes.

The next one coming out is an interview with, on a bar. From the old AAA. I'm excited about that. If you look on LinkedIn under Rick Robinson, I'm constantly making noise there. Then of course, Billups billups.com. Billups is on LinkedIn. It's at Billups for Twitter. We also have an Instagram account. Uh, you know, we're, we're active, we're visible.

We're always saying something and there's, it's not just me. There's plenty of people in our organization. Who've got a lot to say who are super smart and very articulate. Uh, keep listening. We, we love the attention and we like sharing you guys. Definitely. Uh, you set the bar very high. You are everywhere.

You're leading the conversation. And for that to say, thank you. Well, thank you. Our pleasure. My pleasure too. So we'll link out to all that stuff below for anyone that wants to go check that out. Definitely go check out Rick show, check out all the great stuff that Billups is doing. The ways that they're helping brands, Rick, any parting thoughts for the, for the folks that.