Unlocking the Value of Transit Advertising: A Discussion with Intersection Media CEO, Chris Grosso

Tim Rowe : 0:01

Chris Grosso, I'm excited to talk all things transit. We connected a few weeks back around the idea of transit ridersship. And how does that impact the value of transit inventory? kind of at large as we see, you know, now a few years post Covid, what does post covid recovery look like for transit? And that's certainly something that I'm excited to talk about today, but can't thank you enough for being here.

Chris Grosso : 0:26

Tim, and thank you for having me very excited to be on and listening to the podcast a lot, so I guess I'm a long time listener first time podcaster

Tim Rowe : 0:34

Well, we're honored to have you and a great place to start. That we like to start with all of our guests. Is kind of your origin story. How did you get into out of home?

Chris Grosso : 0:42

Yeah, I'm a relative late comer and out of home. I've been in the industry about seven years, which makes me call it a nube. spent first big chunk in my career as a management consultin, working in digital media, then spent a bunch of time in digital media at N B, C, a L, and Hurst, working in various parts of digital media And I was finishing up. We launched a streaming service at Hurst, and we were figuring I was figuring out what to do next because we were too Early about twenty thirteen. Which we done the streaming.

Tim Rowe : 1:15

That's pretty early.

Chris Grosso : 1:16

Yes, but we. so I was looking for what to do next at some opportunities there, but I also was always passionate about cities and met Dan, Doctor off, who was setting up sidewalk labs and this company Intersection at the time, and reached out to him and ended up coming over to Intersection to run corporate development right after the company was established through the merger of Titan and Control group. That's how I got into the home industry. Really start as a digital media person, But I was also interested in cities, and what was great? What I always loved about intersection, which I could talk a bit about in a second. Is you were a great place for people who are passionate about cities, passionate about media and passionate about technology, were kind of sitting in between all of those three things.

Tim Rowe : 2:04

And how do you see as talk a little bit about post Covid recovery? How do you see the city landscape changing And you know the future of cities has been a hot topic. Um, in a lot of main stream publications, What do you see changing most?

Chris Grosso : 2:19

Well, what's become very important is you need. cities need to have both be very livable and be multi used. So I think cities where the downtown is just commercial have a harder time right. Because of hybrid work, You've got less commuters. But where cities where that have vibrant residential areas vibrant downtown with a lot of people living there, like downtown New York City. The financial district is a great example of that. They'll do fine because there's a huge amount of Who like living in cities like to live. You know walk, being able to walk to places. I live in Manhattan, and can walk to work sometimes, which is great, and my kids go to school in Manhattan were really happy to be here, and even if I didn't have my job here, and I think so, I think the the ability for cities to be livable and be great places to live has made that when you look at a place like New York City. Well, maybe there are fewer people on Mondays and Fridays, in the office districts in Midtown. There Many more people on Mondays and Fridays and all the residential areas, and I think the cities that the traffic flows within cities are certainly a little bit different because of hybrid work, but the fact cities are alive and well because I think there's millions and millions of people who love living here, and you know cities that can have lots of activities and reasons for people to be in the downtown area, and you know, going out to shows and going out to bars and restaurants, and that kind of thing are doing really well, Seeing that in places like New York or Philadelphia or Chicago, there's just a lot of activity in these cities beyond just work, And you know people are coming back to work, but they may be coming back three days a week, and that's okay. if there's a lot of other stuff to do.

Tim Rowe : 4:02

And being in the business, we see transit advertising, we see out of home advertising and we appreciate it because we're all so enthusiastic about out of home, but Transit specifically plays kind of an unspoken and unsung role in in the partnership between public private entities within the city and being able to provide access to a common good. That being transit, you know as as a form of transportation. How important is transit advertise, And from that sense for rebooting cities and playing that role,

Chris Grosso : 4:38

It's huge in a couple of ways and you know trans, it's a bit of a misnomer for a lot of these these contracts. Um. but cities need amenities and in many cases these amenities are things like a bus shelter street furencer program or the Link N C program that we built in New York with wyfikiosks and cell phone charging and real time information. Cities need these amenities and they have no real way. they know. The experts are the financing way to pay for them, so when you can put together Public private partnership to bring assets to street level like a bus shelter, like a Wyfikhiosk, Um. that allows the city to get the infrastructure and the support that it needs, and the tools that needs and doesn't have to put money out, and may not have the experts to do that kind of work. So you know we've had a lot of success. An intersection were really focused on bring consumer mentis content and data driven advertising to big center cities. In many cases, that, through a partnership with us To bring an amenity that the city might not otherwise be able to get, and so intersection s really built a strong business doing that. You know. The other companies have also done really interesting things as well, like Jacetoco, An out front with these public private partnerships that are important to you generate revenue for the city, but I think more important, ly bring the amenity to the city, because you know in the grand scheme of things in the budget of New York City, the amount of money that they get from Link is, you know, Good, but it's not huge, but they would never be able to put the wifikiesks up, or you know, or never get the bus shelters up and in transit. So that's the deals we do with cities. We also work a lot with transit authorities and the transit authorities. Frequently. They like the revenue because they needed it. It's a source of alternative revenue on top of Fair box and they need to figure out how to have a diversified revenue stream to support the transit authority, But they also need the amenity because they need to drive wridership. So a lot of what we've done with our transit partner Like places like the c. T. A in Chicago or Ceptin Philadelphia. Now Marta in Atlanta, Is we roll out the we do the advertising, but we take some of that money. Some money we pay to the transit authorities, Some of that money we re invest back into the system through things like real time information systems. Tell me what time my train is coming. Tell me us is coming,

Tim Rowe : 6:58

M.

Chris Grosso : 6:59

Tell me what's happening on the system may be promoting ways to drive wridership, and using us using our our medium, which we're using for sale Advertising on, but we're also using to promote the system and drive wridership on the system. That actually has a huge impact in a lot of times. The ability to improve the rider experience to the transit authority is more important than the revenue. The revenue is really important, too. They want both. But those two things together are important and I think well, we haven't probably done as much as we should is advertisers. Not only are they getting the benefit of reaching this great audience and driving their business, but they're all Aligning themselves with you, supporting these these government entities that that need their support, And you know we've done a lot of that as well where you know, we've had brands you know. Adopt stations in places like New Jersey Transit or Philadelphia that have long term deals that can help finance the stations, but also build their brands as you socially responsible way.

Tim Rowe : 8:02

And that really seguetes nicely into one of the Cor themes of our initial conversation around the context of transit advertising. that could be everything from a bus interior to transit shelter to a link. Ceos. There's a lot of different you know for mats available to us in that in that tool box. How how do you think of advertisers using transit advertising to create the most engagement in that contextual Meant,

Chris Grosso : 8:32

Well, a lot of what we can drive is location, so particularly again around the street furniture programs that are done where you have, but shelters or keosks that are really at your urban panels that are really at street level. We can hyper target individual location, so you can reach reach audiences at the neighborhood. So that might be, you know if you're a quick service restaurant, putting a putting a Geo fence around restaurant and saying, Hey, go to Myra, Trying to get chicken sandwiches. Um over here because we're having a Sandwchicken sandwiches and that can run at eleven o'clock to one p M. You leven am to one p. M. And you have go get lunch. I guarantee you, every time we've looked at the data on this stuff, you'll see foot traffic because people say, Oh yeah, I'll get a chicken sandwich for sale. You go get a chicken sandwich Is the right context. You're hating people at the right the right time and the right location. So I think time and location is very powerful tool for us. You can do that, you know, and in digital. And then you can also do that with some of the more traditional Four mats as well, So you know, we sell ads on the sides of busses. Those can go deep into neighborhoods, reach people in their neighborhoods And that's another form of targeting. That's that's that's pretty effective way to target a mass audience in a in a neighborhood in the city.

Tim Rowe : 9:53

How do you think about that from a you from a company approach, even just holistically, as as as an advertiser as an advertising enthusiast, the digitization of inventory, taking what has traditionally been static, turning a lot of it into digital plug into programmatic pipes. What do you have a thesis on it to do? Does intersection have a thought to all of that

Chris Grosso : 10:18

Yes, um, you know, I think it's really important to digitize the right assets, and at the core it has to have enough audience for the digitization to make sense, Because if you're going to put a digital sign somewhere, you've got to bring power and you have to bring pay for the sign. So it's a lot of capital and if you don't have enough audience going past that sign, you're never going to have the amount of ad impressions necessary to make that pay off. So we're very selective and increasingly more selective. On what do you digital? What do you leave? Static Both for the reason that you want only invest in places where it's going to pencil out. But then importantly what we found over the last few years I got here. I thought everything should be digital as a digital media guy thought everything should be digital, but I realize the traditional static advertising is still very, very valuable for a lot of reasons. You know, some advertisers want one hundred percent of your voice and that's really important. Sometimes the art looks really Good. if it's printed properly. Sometimes you can do really cool things and static with props, Um, all of the advertising now with q r codes, but we found is Q codes are a lot more effective on a static sign than digital sign, Because you got to get your phone out while it's flip in.

Tim Rowe : 11:31

Interesting

Chris Grosso : 11:32

it's there

Tim Rowe : 11:33

right?

Chris Grosso : 11:33

and that segues into what I think is also important point, which is a lot of the goodness you get out of digitizing a sign. You can still get out of a static sign because you can get that inter activity through people's mobile phone and mobile device. In some ways, that could be better, And a lot of the measurement techniques that we use, whether they be geo path or cubic or four square, because it's based on a digital device graph within the view shed of the of the of the sign. That measurement and attribution doesn't matter whether it's digital or static, so effectively what we're doing is taking our digital technologies and overlaying it on the static inventory. So you get a lot of that goodness you want out of digital without having to, You actually put up the capital to do the digital. Because those two things are are separate, And that was a realization that took me a couple of years to sort of think about, because when you come out of this from digital, you think it's all about the digital screen. It's not. It's about the data and what you can do with the data and the mobile phone around the sign is just as important as what you do on on the screen itself.

Tim Rowe : 12:41

It's really interesting thinking about that through a by side perspective. It's It's so hard to keep up with who's doing what? An, who's got. what, and what are the methodologies and what's the technology available? And that's something where Odin. I'm personally super grateful for our friend Justin Lit, and the opportunity to collaborate with partners who know the inventory so intimately, know the capabilities so so intimately. What's your take on collaboration? Is it? Is it something that there's an even greater opportunity for? Maybe what's the right way to go about it? How do you? How do you think about collaboration?

Chris Grosso : 13:21

Well, I think the the agencies particaly, the specialist agencies are critical partners and making this all work because historically out of homes been very fragmented, and the ability for the agency to help the client navigate these different for mats as really important. So I think you know the channel partnerships we have with our agency partners is crucial to gain that right. Thanks for the compliment for Justin. these great.

Tim Rowe : 13:45

Shout out Justin

Chris Grosso : 13:46

Yeah, and were excited by partnerships we've had with with And your team as well, but I do think that that that need for the ecosystem to work to gether is important because you know if you look it out of home, we're in nine billion ish industry in the United States media. You know, we're not that big compared to the rest of the the rest of the industry, So to get the attention and being able to get the budgets that we want to be able to get, which we think we deserve, given the value of the imagery that we can bring, none of us, not even the biggest out of home companies Having a Ump, to be able to have the conversations with the huge advertisers in the way that a Google or Facebook can can do, or even the big T V networks where we're not a big industry right, so so we need to band together to be able to you know, get the get the types of budgets that we all want to get. I mean you, you look at the geopath numbers on the amount of impressions in out of home, you know, we're nine billion dollar, ten billion dollar industry in the United States, we should be a twenty billion dollar industry, but we're not going to get that. All of us working together, all of us working separately. We got to work together. It's kind of you. you know. It's kind of like the ancient Greeks, Like all the city states got to work together to.

Tim Rowe : 15:00

Right,

Chris Grosso : 15:01

We're that were a fragment and industry, and none of us are that big. Even the big guys we see as big guys aren't that big in the grand scheme in the media business.

Tim Rowe : 15:09

Great point, a good dove tail into this question of what would you like to see more of from the industry?

Chris Grosso : 15:16

I think we got to do a better job and we're doing a better job on measurement and standards. We have to make it easier for non um out of home buyers to buy out of home, and we need to do a better job or continue do a better job of telling the story of how our media is very valuable. not visaveother out of home media, but viso the other media. Um, If you, if you look at buying, for instance, the Linknetwor in New York City, Um, you know, Think our reach is we reach almost all New Yorkers, Um in New York City, With with the Link network that's really powerful Like there's not a lot of media that can do that. The Super Bowl Pro, I don't know the exact numbers, but probe forty percent of New Yorkers right, And so trying to get like as a mass reach medium in these major cities we have a lot of power and there's not a lot of places where you can go outside of out of home to be able to reach a city, And and blanket a city and have that kind of kind of scale that's hard to do. Even online. It's hard to do because so much on line is hyper targeting, which is great for certain applications. But if you really want to reach the city of New York or Philadelphia or Chicago, or any of these cities, doing the at home advertising and and with with one publisher of multiple publishers is the way to be able to do that in a way you can't do that in any other sort of media. So I think I think at home is the best media. Um, particularly if you want a location target or reach a city of across the entire landscape.

Tim Rowe : 16:54

All right, here's the singer for you. Do you have a favorite out of home for mat, or a favorite market? Or is there a piece of the portfolio that excites you most?

Chris Grosso : 17:05

Well it all excites right, but I think look, I'll say two things. I think Link N C is the best media in the best in the best city in the world. I'm saying that is a New Yorker, so I'm gonna gain,

Tim Rowe : 17:18

Maybe a little bias. But

Chris Grosso : 17:19

but I think I think

Tim Rowe : 17:21

but we like it too. Yeah,

Chris Grosso : 17:23

Link links a great product. You can reach. You know you can reach of New York, and you can do that in fabulous city, And I'm sure if you know there are folks in Chicago and Philadelphia say they've got great cities. I think the other market, But we have a lot of great markets. You know what we're doing in Philadelphia is interesting because we have. we work with the transit authority, but we also work with the city. So we have the bus shelters and we have all the mass transit in Philadelphia, and what we're starting to do is build an integrated communication system that's both above ground and below ground, or the city to be able to use to start to communicate with citizens on things like when is my train coming, emergency massaging citizen engagement, Um, and being able to have that cohesive experience for Uh, for citizens is pretty powerful, and we can even now extend that to the mobile phone, because we put where we don't have digital signs. but we have but shelters. We put r code so you can scan your code and get a lot of the same real time information on to your phone. So we have that cohesive experience for the for the citizen, and you can really help both rebut Philadelphia and help Philadelphia make this transition to a multi modal transportation system. But at the same time and we also have Lincoln, we have linkin Philadelphia to bring free wife, But at the same time you also can start to do really exciting things for the advertisers, because we can give you an above ground and below ground experience that's cohesive where you can get people on the train on their way home on the boss and get them at all stages of their journey and be able to you know, reach pockets of the Philadelphia audience where you might want to want to reach them. So you know Philadelphia. I love A market for us because we have, you know, the whole, we can give people the entire experience, both on the advertising side and the consumer side and the government side, because we have both of the contracts together and I think it's really powerful, particularly for the cities themselves, because the the ability to have you know cohesive experience for the user when you get off the train, connect to your bus. connect to your connect to your bike share. Have that all cohesive is really important.

Tim Rowe : 19:33

And from an advertiser standpoint we appreciate creating that much attention for the screens for the format right? It's not just these are screens that run advertising all day, because they're providing this public good. They've got engagement. they've got eyeballs.

Chris Grosso : 19:49

For sure.

Tim Rowe : 19:49

People are relying on them as a valuable resource in their in their daily journey.

Chris Grosso : 19:55

Yeah, for sure. we've done some research on this that the, you know, the engagement. you know, we have real engagement On these screens people look, people look at the screen, but it makes sense. I mean, when I, when I was first came to New York, you sit on the platform. We don't do New York subways out front. Does they do a good job as well? But like you're on the, you're on the New York City subway. You didn't know when the train was coming, and that was very frustrating to the writer.

Tim Rowe : 20:18

Right and it's kind of like a table stakes thing. We say it kidding now, but it's like all right.

Chris Grosso : 20:23

No,

Tim Rowe : 20:23

It'd be helpful to know when it's coming.

Chris Grosso : 20:25

No, you want to know when the bus is come in. We do the bus time on on links. you can go by, You know when your bus is coming, it makes a difference and you know you. may you look at it sometimes and say you might change what you do. Maybe you take the train, Maybe you walk, But it's important for people to do that and I think increasingly this type of real time mobility information is going to be important as we go to a much more multi modil transportation system in cities where you might take a bus. you might take a train. you might take a revel by. You might take a city bike, bike share, you might take scooter. You have a lot of transportation options. Now coming out of the pandemic, people have a ton of transportation options and being able to navigate those is really important. so move people from place to place within the city.

Tim Rowe : 21:08

How do you? How do you answer or how do you respond to? Sometimes? what's um? I think it's It's part of the education gap, but maybe for for a first time advertiser, considering transit, transit advertising is not just for folks that are taking transit, it is for the population that's moving through the area. How do you? How do you handle that That That miss nowhere?

Chris Grosso : 21:34

Yes, so we like to look at the. You know, we start with always with the data And this is something we got very smart on during the pandemic, Right because transit wridership went way down during the pandemic

Tim Rowe : 21:44

Sure,

Chris Grosso : 21:45

for sure, But you know, if you look at, say the bus, If you think about one of the biggest transit format is the bus, The bus, People writing the bus has nothing to do with what the value of the media is on the bus, because most of the media on the bus is outside the bus, whether you wrap the bus or put the ultra super King, which is the, You know, you put a giant Osteron the side of the bus. These are huge. Adds. they go around the city and people see them in their cars and they see them when they're walking by. So you start with that data and you say Wow, know, one of these busses is reaching hundreds of thousands of people on its month long journey around the city, So it's got more reach than say a bill board, but you need to have that data to be able to tell that story. So one of the things we did was working with a company called street metrics. Not only do we have the geopathno As for these buses, but what street metrics does is they have all the transit authorities give out the g p s on the bus, so you can take that g p s data and map it against your device graph and understand a panel of actually who's seen the adds um on the sides of the bus, And that allows us to start talking about what the as delivered impressions would be, Because we can track where the bus went. We can track who saw not individually been a privacy friendly way. Panel of that, you can start to extrapolate how many people actually saw the ad and even look at what post post behaviors were on some of those people who saw the ads, which could be foot traffic attribution, or what they did on the Web and lo and behold we ran these studies. We found there was a massively effective form of advertising because it was extremely cost effective and people see the people, see the bus adds the side, the bus and they go do something after they see the ad Got

Tim Rowe : 23:29

And

Chris Grosso : 23:30

data.

Tim Rowe : 23:30

with yeah, it's it's the quatifying. The impact I think is definitely at least built a bridge over some of the education gap, Um, and in giving advertisers the confidence to invest in the channel and the come back and do it again and to scale and to test new for Mats. Um, you touched on a few things there in proximity, Really emerging as Um. You know one of the super powers of train Sid, advertising and we've seen a lot and we've heard a lot about retail media networks and we know that Amazons, you know, gobbling up all sorts of add revenue. but there's a lot of. There's a lot of brick and mortar companies that have physical retail media networks and in and in ways transit intersection. You similarly have assets that could be leverage like a retail media network

Chris Grosso : 24:24

Yeah, for sure, and working on that right now you know street furniture in particular is well suited to this because you have um, literally signs. I have a link outside my local grocery store that I walk by whenever I got to get milk or eggs, and I say like why isn't the C, P G company have a big ad there for the super market?

Tim Rowe : 24:44

Right.

Chris Grosso : 24:45

Have the circular on the link to get me to go in M. I have no doubt that would drive incremental traffic. So these these signs right outside stores, and the link we Looked at this. We've left four hundred signs within two hundred fifty feet of drug stores. We've got two hundred signs within two hundred fifty feet of a target. You know those, those signs are really valuable inventory for if you're a c, P. G, or the retailer itself to be able to use that to drive foot traffic, We just got to connect the dots around the data and find the right buyers and sellers to do it, but I feel in my bones that's a big opportunity for us, but it's also a big opportunity for any One who has a street furniture network. You know, there's other people run street furniture networks in other cities, And I think as an industry that that's one where again, if we can come together as an industry, we could unlock a lot of value both for the marketers, the retailers and ourselves. Because you know I can do this, I can do this at scale and like, probably four or five cities or intersection can, But if you start, you know, De co and others can probably do three or four cities as well, and all us. And you get you know if you can come together, you can do a lot of a lot of a lot of cities at once, and that's why I think that's an area where again the industries or the agencies can help drive as well, because the agencies have that ability to cobble together. You know multiple multiple publishers.

Tim Rowe : 26:11

It's definitely exciting. We hear from advertisers. They're excited about it. They're excited about seeing more of the location intelligence data that specifically tied to you know their store, and what's close by the audiences that go to that store. how they move through the buyers journey, and just continue to see in these in these types of environments, how appropriate and how perfectly suited transit is. We were working on something the other day for Um. for a q, s. r. This is part of the project with Justin, and to be able to demonstrate not only the ability to dynamically day part creative, but to use these link kiosk, as as like digital directionals, right, It's a brand that loves to use traditional static roadside as a directional. Hey, go here, and that's something that the link units really designed for. It's not just Hey, we can put them close by, but you have the ability to do some Nami mapping things too. Is that right?

Chris Grosso : 27:12

Yeah, yeah, we did this unit couple o years ago and you know one of the things we pride ourselves on is a lot of us not just came out digital background. So we think of these screens as mobile phones that don't move.

Tim Rowe : 27:24

I love

Chris Grosso : 27:24

Um,

Tim Rowe : 27:24

that.

Chris Grosso : 27:25

So you know you think about people who you doing these d s Ps, where they're trying to target mobile phones and around geofenseis like we have a gigantic one of these that don't move. So we think about these units. Really, Whatever you can do in h, t, m, l, you can do on a link or other digital sign Is as well that we have in other cities. So one of the tings we did as we call the mapping unit and it's very simple. It's it has the add, and then we take a piece of the add at the bottom and have a little map to show you how to get from point eight to point B. You know you're here and the I T. M is here at the restaurants here, or whatever the place you want people to go, And people can look and sort of, and we try to make the map, Um, the orientation correct, so that you can kind of understand where it goes. We do a lot of that. You know, One of my favorites we're doing is now post pandemic, But we used to, when movies would launch, you would take over the whole Link network for the movie launch night like six o'clock, and then it would resolve and tell you like where the nearest theater was and where the tickets were available in the show times. So I do think that like real time date, location based, real time data is pretty pretty powerful, but mapping mapping as probably been our, the mapping unit's been probably are most effective Or you, now, just in terms of like people who want to buy it unit that we that we've sold over the last couple of years, Because it just makes sense. it's you. I'm trying to get you to do something. I should tell you where where the thing is.

Tim Rowe : 28:54

Sure, it's the least you could do right if

Chris Grosso : 28:55

I,

Tim Rowe : 28:55

you're close by. Hey, it's over here. We would have had a Sidin spinner back in the day. Maybe

Chris Grosso : 29:00

In fact,

Tim Rowe : 29:00

I like that mobile phones

Chris Grosso : 29:01

we

Tim Rowe : 29:01

that

Chris Grosso : 29:01

can

Tim Rowe : 29:01

don't

Chris Grosso : 29:01

think that

Tim Rowe : 29:02

move.

Chris Grosso : 29:02

the sign spinner, you know,

Tim Rowe : 29:04

that's

Chris Grosso : 29:05

I always say like we compete with the Guyon, Has the sign outside the subway.

Tim Rowe : 29:09

Absolutely, and mobile phones that don't move for folks that don't know. I was so amused when I, when I learned this for folks that don't know. Can you tell everyone what happened to all of the payphones in New York City

Chris Grosso : 29:23

We took them out.

Tim Rowe : 29:24

And they are now.

Chris Grosso : 29:26

Where where are they?

Tim Rowe : 29:29

Well, they're now there link units for folks that don't know.

Chris Grosso : 29:32

Yeah?

Tim Rowe : 29:33

We ultimately converted the

Chris Grosso : 29:34

Yeah, So with the whole company was founded as a consortium to bid on the New York City said, Let's re invent the pay phone.

Tim Rowe : 29:43

Okay.

Chris Grosso : 29:44

So so Titan, which was one of our predecessor companies, had the pay phone franchise in New York, ran all the pay phones. In fact, even when I first got here, we still the ton of pay phones. We did like a million dollars a year of coins in the pay phones in like twenty. See

Tim Rowe : 29:57

Wow,

Chris Grosso : 29:57

People still using the pay phone? Um, but we took all the pay phones out and put Linkin in its place Because how did you re invent the pay phone for the digital age? It's digital. You get why you get communication. You make a phone call. We have a lot of people come make phone calls on the pamet On the

Tim Rowe : 30:12

No kidding.

Chris Grosso : 30:12

Yeah, there's a place to make a phone call. In fact, my kids before they got cell phones would know about it. If it was emergency, they could call on the phone. At one point we had a little gimic where you could call and get a voice. leave a voice mail for Santa Claus, But like we've done, We've done fun things with the phone. Um, but there was a phone and other pieces of the kiosk. and then we took the last payoukowwe. removed the pay phones. Some of them went you. Now, some of them went to the garbage, some went, some went to the dump, some went to museums. A few of our executives actually brought home a pay phone Because they went.

Tim Rowe : 30:44

Cool.

Chris Grosso : 30:45

We, actually, we left for them up on West End Avenue. They're the old super Man style pay phones just for tourists and they're working. You can make a phone call. Um, And then we took the last one Last year and I was blown away by the amount of media coverage we got when the last pay phone was taken out in New York City. It was. It was stunning. It was like a global story about how the last pay phone was removed from New York City. Was. probably, you know, we were kind of shock. That was such a big deal, but it was O. people have a special relationship with their ith, their pay phones

Tim Rowe : 31:18

Definitely,

Chris Grosso : 31:18

before left. I think sixty six and then eightieth ninetieth and a hundredth West End Avenue. You can still make a pay phone call in New York City. To the last four, We don't have any Adds on them. We run them on behalf of the city as a tourist attraction and people do come and use them. Sometimes.

Tim Rowe : 31:33

I love that next next time I'm next time I'm near by. I'm

Chris Grosso : 31:35

Well

Tim Rowe : 31:35

going to

Chris Grosso : 31:35

stand

Tim Rowe : 31:36

have to

Chris Grosso : 31:36

there. You can make a phone call on the pay phone. They still work. I think you may need a quarter, maybe fifty cents.

Tim Rowe : 31:41

Do my best Clark Kent. All right, Cool. You've been through so many significant changes in intersections. History and I didn't know this until we talked that first time that place exchange was born inside of those walls. Can you just give us like the sixty second history? On where did place exchange come from?

Chris Grosso : 32:03

Sure, so I was the coo. At the time our Cor Buck Alter had come from. Media Math was a co of intersection and we were looking for how do we plug our digital sign our digital sign Age networks into the into the Omni channel, D, S, Ps and Are had come from that world, built the media mouth D, s. P. So we built out our own set of tools to connect our screens to Trade desk and media math. All d s. P. S. and we found it was great and we did we did well, but we looked at it. We said Hey, you know, we should be doing this for everybody like it doesn't make sense to just do this for intersection. So we started integrating all the other publishers and we just got to the point. I was like Hey, if we're really doing this for other publishers, I really shouldn't live in intersection, So we spun it out and are actually went with with that business and runs that business today and I, I took. I stayed with the the original publishing business, as I was always a media guy. anyway, Um, and took over so intersection, but we spun place, exchanged out as an independent company and they've done great and you know it's good for them to be independent because we're a client. They're a great partner of ours. But you know what? out front to go out front, and Lamar, and all the other you know publishers you know are working with them, So it's it's good that they're independent and not just you know, working with us and that that's really unlocked a lot of value for them. and I think a lot of value for the industry, Because you know we're lucky in industry. I think we have Um, several really smart teams building out S. s. P. S. that will benefit all of us as an industry and you, I think place exchange is a great example of that.

Tim Rowe : 33:44

Chris? Last question, for anyone that might be listening, thinking about their own career. We've had so many amazing guests and it's a question that I am making a more focused effort to ask. Going forward. What advice do you have somebody? That's maybe either starting out in their career or you know, moving into that middle phase of their career and really deciding like All right, I want to raise my game. I want to get to the highest level possible. What advice would you give them?

Chris Grosso : 34:13

I. I think I'd say pick a major and commit meaning, build a set of experts around an industry or function and get really really good at that, because I think that level of commitment s important and I've also found is is you know, sticking it out at a at a company a bit longer than you think is good, as opposed to moving, because I think when you stick at a company for a while, you build a lot of institutional knowledge and opportunities. If it's the right company and its, You know, it's a company of enough scale. Oftentimes opportunities will present themselves in the company if you're there, and being at the right place in the right time as a really keep piece of that, and you're much more likely to be at the right place in the right time if you stick at a place and have a track record. so I think sticking out of place and having a track record. I mean, Obviously you have to make career moves at times and that you. you're never. No one's gonna work at the same place for twenty years any more, But you spending a decent chunk of time will create those opportunities. But then I also think you got to commit. You got to pick a major at some point. Um, it's very hard. you know. trying to be a general. Ist is going to be increasingly hard. and you have to be. you know, good at something could be a function could be an industry, but it's always better to be good at something as opposed to you know jackeballtrades.

Tim Rowe : 35:28

A man couldn't think of a better place than that. We set out with an ambitious road map. Today we wanted to talk about a lot of things. I think we got them all, Chris.

Chris Grosso : 35:36

What,

Tim Rowe : 35:37

I think so.

Chris Grosso : 35:37

Tim, this

Tim Rowe : 35:38

Anything

Chris Grosso : 35:38

is.

Tim Rowe : 35:38

you want to add,

Chris Grosso : 35:38

No, this has been great. I really appreciated a lot of fun. Thank you so much for having me on your show.

Tim Rowe : 35:44

Thank you so much for being here and if you found this to be helpful, please share it with somebody who could benefit. as always. Make sure. smash that subscribed button. That's how help the podcast grow, and we'll see all next time.

Chris Grosso : 35:54

Thank you.