OOH Insider - Episode 028 - David Title, CEO of Bravo Media

Welcome to the out-of-home insider the loudest voice in out of home. We're bringing you actionable insights that you can actually use. And today's guest is going to just drop a ton of those David Tyler. He's the CEO of Bravo media, but CEO means something a little different in his room. He's the chief experiential officer.

David. Thanks so much for being here. Thanks so much. It's great to be around. Really excited. Definitely is we had a little bit of a hiccup earlier. I thought there was an EMP strike trying to take out the. But we're back on the grid, which is a good place to be these days. David talked to me about what Bravo does.

You do? Some really unique stuff. And I think that the audience would be really interested to learn more about what you guys do, and then ultimately how you got. Absolutely. So we consider ourselves a creative production studio. So there is a piece of us that gets involved in all kinds of creative development for video and animation and display and all kinds of different formats.

Uh, but then on the flip side, work completely operational production team. Uh, with our own soundstage facilities in house animators, modelers developers, engineers, AB technicians. And, uh, so we're not just coming up with the big idea and saying, good luck with that. Uh, we're making sure it's stuff that.

Actually created and then we make sure it gets done properly and delivered properly. I mean, it sounds, it sounds like you guys are like, like a movie production studio with, with all the things that you've got going on. How's that tie into. So our work really, uh, always is focused first and foremost, in the, in the kind of visual space we started off, we cut our teeth back in the sort of early, mid two thousands in the first big web video.

Boom. When suddenly every business in the world needed video con. Uh, for their website for YouTube, for Facebook and then Instagram and, and most companies until that moment really didn't have much video content. They weren't buying ad space on television because it was expensive and mostly targeted consumer.

And maybe that wasn't what B2B wanted, but suddenly everybody could have video con. And the world could see it, but they needed it to be something you wanted to see that was engaging and dynamic. And so we created our first team to really serve that growing need. Uh, and then through that, got brought into the kind of the trade show and conference world, and that got us involved in.

More sort of large format, uh, display. And we picked up projection mapping and, and doing content for giant led arrays and touch screens and all these kinds of, uh, more, uh, closer to out of home in a sense, uh, sort of content. And then as the out-of-home space became more and more digitized and more and more compelling in terms of the areas where you could create content and display.

Uh, the same challenges came up, which was, you know, if traditionally your out of home campaign was a, uh, static billboard, uh, and now you have this new opportunity. You need a different kind of content and you need a different kind of approach. Um, And so we began to work with various partners, uh, in some cases directly with brands, in some cases with folks on the, uh, on the inventory side, sometimes with the buyers, uh, always with the same goal, which was helping to create, uh, the sort of content that will be engaging and dynamic in that new format.

And that really is how we stepped into the out-of-home space. And since then, it's really expanded. And, you know, I think the biggest area that we. In, uh, exploring heavily, is it really the way which projection is becoming a part of the out of home? Right. And, and, and a little bit later on, I'm going to share some of the video that you shared with me.

Cause I thought it was really interesting. I thought that the audience would like to see it. And, and really, if you're listening to this on one of the podcast platforms, I encourage you go back and pull this episode up on YouTube as well, because we're going to show some of the stuff that David his team view, it's really impressive and takes advantage of.

Really non-traditional spaces. And you talked about it there for a second. You've got, you know, multiple different entities who engage you for the thing that you do, which is really bringing surfaces to life. So what is typically transpired along the brand's journey or throughout the campaign development that brings a brand, brings an agency to you, a Bravo media and says, Hey, we'd like to do this.

Yeah, it w what, what, what does that look like? So typically it's, it's when there's an opportunity to, uh, to capitalize on, on, on non-traditional inventory in some way or another, you know, if you're looking to fill up a bunch of, uh, highway billboards that are standard rectangles and you can't have much motion and you need, you know, a thousand repetitions of this sort of piece, it's probably not what we're going to end up being the shop for.

But when, uh, for instance, we worked with the T-Mobile arena, uh, who had all these unique opportunities to create inventory. Uh, That was going to get somebody to pay attention and have these giant escalators, uh, with fully exposed undersides. And we turned those into big, uh, pieces of out-of-home advertising for them, and then work with each of those brands to maximize the value of that new, uh, New space that they probably didn't have anything in the library that was built for, you know, something that was feet long of there.

That's the, uh, this is a little escalators there. Um, and so we're always interested in, uh, you know, and you can actually see a lot of the other signage that's in the space. Uh, in the more traditional areas and you can see why this became a really exciting and intriguing place for brands and for, you know, internally promoting, uh, what was going on in the arena from moment to moment.

Right. It's a super engaging use of the space. My particular favorite through those are the, are the rollers that kind of make you feel like you're looking up underneath an escalator. Cause as a kid, that's a kind of cool thing. Right. But there was a lot of different things that you use the space for the motion, the different colors and different schemes within that, that, that brand context there.

So now that, that makes sense. Right. And you know, using different spaces. How do you think that. That ties into this whole push for hyper-local right. I, I happen to think that we see more stuff like this, but as more brands are considering, how do I stay within this radius of this hot spot center place, where I'd like to be, how do you see those two things working on.

Well, you know, one of the things that's exciting generally in the whole digital out-of-home space is that you have all of these displays, which are programmable and addressable and, and, you know, can create these very dynamic experiences, but to make them work, it always comes back to the content. You can have all the screens in the world, but if that content doesn't engage the person walking by into the experience, then it doesn't really have a.

And so I think the real challenge with all of these projects is developing content. That's going to stand out against the, uh, you know, the noise that's all around us. And you know, whether that's taking advantage of some of the. You know, additional sensory elements that, you know, a lot of front facing cameras on these signs now, which can be tapped into in ways that aren't creepy.

Let's talk about that, because that was the, when you shared the story about Revlon, I was like, that's awesome. Without even having really seen it, just conceptually said, we've got to talk about this. We got to have it on the show. I'm going to pull it up on the screen here. Maybe. Talk through what you guys did with the front facing cameras, how that content really is the piece that matters most.

Yeah. And, you know, uh, we always joke about this one, which was, uh, you know, what a shock, it turns out people really love to have pictures of themselves. Uh, you know, it's, uh, it's good to stay, tried and true sometimes. But the idea for this was, this was in times square. Um, 43rd, I believe in Broadway. The, uh, concept was it showed nice Revlon B roll, cool stuff.

And then, uh, intermittently a front facing camera would come on and you would see a view of the pedestrian area that was right below the sign. And of course everyone would look up and see themselves and wave just like, uh, just like classic kiss cam, uh, at the stadium. But now you're in times square. And a model who was super imposed, walk in over the scene, look out of the crowd and wave and then draw a red heart around everybody.

And if you were in the center of that heart, there'd be a countdown in a flash, and then it will become a special up on the sign and hold long enough for you to get out your phone and take a picture and you'll see sort of the walkthrough of this. So there's the front-facing camera and the heart. And then that moment.

And that the photo, the money shot that everyone gets, they shared it on social. Like it was on fire, I'm sure. Right. You're on a, you're on a billboard in times square. And you know, it really, you know, there were a lot of lessons from that. Uh, but the core one is that people want to be engaged, uh, and want to have an experience.

And if you can find ways to deliver that, whether it's on a large scale or small scale, Uh, it's really, it can be really effective. Um, you know, I think front facing cameras, even, you know, getting not thinking about, you know, facial tracking and, and, you know, the complicated piece that you're knowing if a sign knows that I am present, that is, that is dynamic and interesting.

If my motion passes. Create something to happen. That's interesting. Uh, if there are ways for me to increase that engagement, uh, you know, via, uh, tie into a mobile application, that's that can be more exciting, but it's really trying to think beyond, you know, I think a lot of the digital signs I see out there are still being treated like.

Yeah, listen. And, and I think too, it's important to have this conversation around the content, around the creativity behind it, because so much of the conversation right now is data targeting measurement. And none of it matters for shit. If the creative isn't good and the content isn't engaging, throw all that stuff out of the window.

So. We have a constant conversation that we call data versus delight. And, uh, I'm always arguing with folks about, you know, the value of data versus the value of delight. And everyone likes data because it's just so easy to look at numbers and quantifying and, and putting it in the spreadsheet and putting it on a chart.

And you can look at it in a deck and everyone can agree. Like those are, those are those that look at that data. We have a lot of it. Um, the light data as big as yours. Um, but the light is really hard to treat them that way, but it turns out to be the thing that's got all the value. Um, you know, all the data with no delight is worth.

And the value of actually delighting somebody is, is exponential. It's like this, I'm drinking this delicious here. Here's a plug for a local farm Cline farms. If you're in Eastern Pennsylvania, today's episode brought to you by client farms, it's this like smoothie yogurt thing. And as you talk about like, I'm sure it's got healthy ingredients at right from the farm.

It's got this nice little cow on it. I'm sure that. The data points in this are great data points. Yup. The only thing I care about is it tastes delicious. That's it? That's it. That's it like? And no matter if it tasted terrible, no matter how good I told you it was for you, you wouldn't want to drink it.

Right. You could tell me it was me with the best strawberries and the best milk and all of the best stuff. But if it's trash, I'm still not going to drink it. Let alone buy it. And I think, I think there's, there's just a lot of, you know, sort of missed opportunity out there in, in general, in the marketing world, but in the, in the digital, out of home, it, it really is, you know, it's disappointing when you see, you know, a great piece of signage with, you know, I live in Midtown Manhattan, you know, literally thousands of people walking by.

Nobody's connecting to it because there's nothing there to connect to. I give me, give me, um, give me, give me an advertiser that you've seen recently. Give them a free idea right now. What's something that they could just make it so cool. Is that the m&ms doing something different? Is it what's one idea? I don't know if I can.

I don't know if I can give that away. That that's how we got into trouble in the first it's all right. Cause there's still gonna need to execute it and they have to call you in. I mean, I, I think it's, I think it really is looking at, you know, looking at the content that you're putting up and, and asking if it's something that you would stop and take a look at,

would you stop? I think, you know, so often we just, uh, You know, everyone goes, that's pretty, uh, well, that's on brand. I like those colors, the logos big enough. Uh, you know, but that's not what people care about. And so you got to really look at something and be like, what I, what would stop me? What would, you know, what would engage me for a moment?

And, you know, I think a lot of that is, you know, tapping into, into creatives that. Make things that look and feel, uh, engaging and delightful and it's not graphic design. You said something in there, like what would stop you? Right. So I want you to talk me through this last one that, that, that you share with me.

I'm like, I like gritty things. Right? I think that. The next video of how you use some sort of gritty surfaces and, uh, kind of gritty brand. Like there's just a lot of really subtle things that came together to make this powerful. And as we'll see in the clip that it makes people stop. So I'm just going to throw that up, but talk to me about the AMC projection project that you guys did.

Uh, if you're watching or listening this way, you'd want to go back and. Yeah. So we were asked to do what was, you know, at the end of the day, essentially a guerrilla campaign. Uh, there were, uh, some cases in which things were all done, uh, you know, fully, uh, you know, direct way and, and other moments that were opportunistic.

Uh, but the idea was, you know, again, a quick one night, To get the word out around the, the, uh, premiere of this show and to find services where we could take advantage for short periods of time of, of getting that message out and, and seen in, uh, unexpected locations and unexpected moments. And, you know, at the same time, all of the content for it is, you know, really big and bright and, uh, Short because your engagement moment is very minimal.

Uh, but very few words, very little to say everything based in, you know, bold color, bold image, and a lot of it was people in stopping. Yeah. And I think it's the same. It's the same idea. The thing that we love always about projection mapping is it lets you take advantage of the unexplained. To make content appear in places where you don't expect to see it in ways that you don't expect to see it.

Um, that's always what makes it most successful. That's why the escalators are so successful. You know, that's why we think it's such a cool, uh, you know, platform. And now that the protectors themselves are technically viable for longterm installation can do a lot more. And just to be clear, like, like this, this was one night, one crew, one truck, like one night, one crew, one truck, every single location you're seeing in this.

I think it's super cool. And like, I live in the suburbs, right. We talked about a little bit. I live like an hour west of New York city, but. Somebody that comes to the city. Like that's what that's, what I expect is my city experience is to see something that I'm not going to see in my town. Like, yeah, we've got billboards here too.

That's that's the kind of thing that for me, defines a city experience. When a brand comes to you and says, Hey, I want to do this thing. Um, and I want to do it in one of these main metropolitan areas. Why is that? Why is the focus in that market? I think it, you know, part of it depends on what the overall goal is.

A lot of the big outdoor projection mapping work that we've done, uh, especially things that are, uh, you know, full building takeovers and things like that are really being done for all of the long tail value of what that video behind it is going to get. In terms of sharing and everybody who was at the event and at the moment filming it themselves and posting it and sharing it.

Uh, so a lot of the value in some of the big kind of stunt, uh, projection mapping is in all of the sort of global social that you can get out of that and, and legitimate press as well. Uh, so it's a conversation. Yeah, a place where I can strike a match, light a fire and have it spread. Yep. And we get some crazy, I mean, you know, a lot of the requests we get are things you're like, you can't do that.

So we had a request from a, uh, unnamed brand to projection map onto the face of the statue of Liberty. Um, breast size aside from mentioning that the statue of Liberty faces out to. So nobody would actually see it. Um, it just be a cool thing to say you did, it would be, but, uh, the numerous reasons why that was, you know, not really viable, uh, were, were plenty enough, but, um, and there are certainly were, you know, some, to a certain degree, depending on the, the city and the what's happening.

Uh, you can get away with a fair amount of kind of very quick hit guerrilla projection mapping. Uh, you have to be willing to deal with the consequences. They're going to be fine. There can be summons. Uh, it depends on the brand's willingness to deal with some of that stuff. Uh, and there are some times when you will say it's not worth our risk.

Uh, somebody, somebody wanted to, you know, uh, project onto the facade of the Trump building, uh, on fifth avenue, which is literally surrounded by. Trucks with machine guns. That seems like a good way to get sent to Guantanamo bay. Yeah. So you know what? No, no. Um, I mean, I'm sure you'll find somebody who's willing maybe like do it at the golf course in Bedminster, like fix up it a little less.

Uh, you know, there were like, there was like these guys early on in the, when Trump was first watching that were projecting nightly right onto his hotel in DC. Um, and they finally got yelled at, but, uh, you know, so things, some cases you can get away with some of that gorilla stuff, it really is. It's a coin toss and you could get shut down and that's the end of the night.

I'm sure. On the other hand, there are lots of places where you can get permission to. And get permitted pretty easily and often, not at great expense to do these sort of stunt one night only or short term giant displays, uh, that I think can be extremely effective and generate all kinds of ancillary benefit.

And then, uh, you know, I think, especially right now with, you know, a lot of the social distancing and everything else. If you're looking to make a big impact, you're not going to be doing it at a big sporting event and you're not going to be doing it on a festival. So create your own moments, go big and then let that you know, ripple out through the, through the environment for sure.

Right. Tie it back into that whole hyper-local idea. How could you use maybe a space that isn't being used? But could be to keep that core audience in Brooklyn or, or it is a specific neighborhood that you're looking to spark that fire and back to how you guys started in the game. And I think it shows well with the videos, even the clips that we shared here.

There's such a content opportunity as a brand, just around doing this, the, the gorilla thing, the I, because it's the behind the scenes that we all want to see. It's the reason why we watch reality TV. Like we know what the finished product looks like. We want to see what happens to get there. Do you have brands that take advantage tag along, create more content from.

Oh, yeah. Well, we actually, as you know, because we really, part of our roots are in video production and we still have a full video production facility and team. We will almost always have a B crew that documenting the entire experience. And, uh, typically make that as either the client's looking for something elaborate.

That's kind of part of the package that's put together. And sometimes it's just a value add that we're able to give to the client. Um, As a, as a way for them to be able to share everything that went down. But, you know, there are definitely, we have worked on events, um, where it was very clear that the value in the investment going into it was in the shareable assets coming out of it, not in the 150 people that were at that moment.

That's so valuable because it, it creates this. It's really quantifiable value beyond just whatever the campaign is, is how, how, how much can you use of it? Right. It's harvesting an animal and using every piece of it to do something with, um, you know, if you think about it in, if you think about an investment, you know, if you're going to put a hundred thousand dollars into an out-of-home campaign and you could spread that across X number of boards or whatever, and this or that, or you could do a one night.

You know, extravagant moment that then actually gets you out into the wider marketplace through social. Uh, you know, I think there's a lot of value in considering those opportunities. It makes sense. So listen, if there's somebody listening right now in agency of brand, maybe someone who's got some property and they, they want to start respecting it and light it up.

How do they find you? Where should they go? Where are you going? So Bravo media.com is the website. Uh, you can always take me directly on my email, david@bravomedia.com and, uh, yeah, we'd love to a chat. Anyone who's interested in learning more or getting involved in some way or looking to be a partner or, uh, uh, just shoot the shit about projection.

Yeah, listen guys, we could go on for hours about this stuff. David has a wealth of knowledge and can pretty much turn whatever you're dreaming. Into a reality. So I encourage you go check out the. We'll make sure to put them in the show notes. You can just go back, look it up, click it and do whatever's most, most convenient.

But I want to say, David, thank you so much, man. Thanks for, thanks for being a part of this and doing it. And I've learned a ton. Um, often this has been cool. Thank you. I really appreciate you having me on and I've really enjoyed watching some of these. Awesome. We're happy to have you as not a home insider for all you insiders out there.