Digital & Dirt
00:48:44 · Ian Dallimore
[00:48:44] S0: Yeah. And, you know, each one teach one type mentality, those people eventually, and we've kind of both gotten to our career to your point, like where we started at the bottom and you've kind of worked your way up and you need to reach down and build the next generation of people. So there's also this prideful notch where you're also like, hey, I helped that person come along. But then more importantly, it's also, it's for the better get of the future and the generation of just how people interact in our industry, how they behave. The diversification of thought and mindset is kind of the big thing for me. Like we've evolved not just you and me, but this industry as a whole has significantly evolved the way that we're perceived and looked at. And trust me, I've been here long enough where I've heard some of the stories. It's like, why are you trying to make an industry that's so simple, it's a dot on the map? But now it's flipped it just on its head and it's really now about like, hey, how does a consumer move throughout their journey? How are they interacting with different screens? So with that, the last couple of minutes here, because I know we could talk a whole podcast about this, but how do you approach, you know, you have your tried and true folks that we work with. We love all of our at home specialists, a lot of the agencies, but let's focus specifically on newer digital agencies, newer brands that you, the team, go in. How are you telling this story? Because this is really a curious topic for a lot of the publishers on the out of home space. So we're we're trusting Lucy, we're trusting the entire team on going out and representing. And I always say, you're telling Lamar's 100 and twenty eight year old story. How are you as an out of home industry, how are you going in and the team going in talking about out of home specifically today?
00:50:29 · Lucy Markowitz
[00:50:29] S1: Yeah. Well, I think the first piece is almost like putting myself in the shoes that I was at when I first started at Vistar, which was you kind of take the rest of the industry away, but we think about our own consumer behaviors. There's not a lot of ads that I necessarily remember that are on my phone or even on my computer. I think that thinking about some of the things that are most memorable or iconic, they actually are outdoor. But I think that often those are thought of as moments or like a singular moment as opposed to being a part of a bigger story. And so I think that one of the things that we do is kind of obviously talk about like what even is out of home and how much of this industry is actually being digitized. And what does this mean? What are the capabilities that then you can bring forward? So whether that's being able to apply data, and I think a lot of it too is saying, what do you do online? And I guess I would almost flip that. And instead of saying it's actually asking. I think a lot of it is getting a better idea of what these brands are actually doing so that we're not coming in with any preconceived notions. Like that's super important to what does your brand care about? What are the budgets that you have? What are the assets that you have? What is the most important KPI? And then kind of then put together a story that fits the things that they're asking as opposed to it being something that's super generic. So maybe it's they have really cool creative that they're trying to enhance. So we can talk about maybe they want to leverage our creative studio to turn those into something that's a bit more animated or three d. Maybe it's that it's a pharma brand. They care all about showing script lift and we can say, no problem, we can work with Crossix or IQVIA. Maybe it's an agency wants to use their own data. Maybe it is about now that we're kind of part of the T Mobile family that they're interested in understanding some of the on device behaviors for different streaming apps or things along those lines, where we can help them to reach these people in the physical world. And I think that as we show one of the benefits we have now at this point is we have so many examples of great brands that have effectively checked everything off the checklist.
00:52:48 · Lucy Markowitz
Because I think that's the other thing too, is you can have a great strategy, but if you have bad creative, it's not gonna necessarily bring the story to life. So I think that the other thing that we've tried to do is not be complacent, which is if someone sends us something and whether it's a strategy or it's creative, we might say, we actually don't think this is a great idea. Or someone will say to us, I only have X budget, let's just do a study anyway. And we'll say, I don't think you should because the results are not gonna look good. And we would really recommend something else and giving them some of those suggestions. So I think it's really going with that consultative behavior. But again, like really understanding what the brand is looking to accomplish. Because I think that is the biggest mistake. I don't even think it's just an out of home. Think it's in everything that if you don't ask a client what they're doing, you might assume things. I think a good example was we had a meeting recently with CMO of the WNBA. And the budgets that the WNBA has are a tiny fraction of what the NBA does. Without asking more about how they're approaching the market and what they care about, we potentially could give them a suggestion that would be like very tone deaf or completely off base. Same thing in who their target is. Their target audience is anyone that loves sports. You easily could walk into that meeting and say, how do we help you target women? Which would also like meeting over. So I think it's just also making sure that you ask those questions and then be able to kind of build in a meeting. And also I would just say like the visual representation of a lot of the inventory goes a long way because at the end of the day, this is physical real estate. And I think that especially in a time when like brand safety is more important than ever and knowing the environment that you're gonna be in, I would say like people have been very receptive to out of home.
00:54:47 · Ian Dallimore
[00:54:47] S0: Yeah. And that was, that's super powerful. We talk about sound bites all the time, like bottle that up because I think, as I think about the WNBA and I was at the brand innovators and heard the CMO of the WNBA and I was blown away by what they focus on. And someone could have easily just went into that meeting and said like, oh, we'll just replicate what we did with the NBA. It's super cool, dynamic content, live scores, like that's what you would want. But the reality of it is what they want is they want to grow viewership, but more importantly, passion about the characters that exist. The Caitlin Clarks, the Angel Reese's of the world, and so much beyond. So I think that that's a powerful statement and understanding and not just going in there and just selling that product and just doing a pitch and be like, crush that pitch. And then not understand why the client never called back. But truly taking a moment, taking a beat and diving deep into it, think is powerful.
00:55:41 · Lucy Markowitz, Ian Dallimore
[00:55:41] S1: And ask too, like if, well maybe not if you don't get a callback because it's hard to ask on a silence on the other side. But if someone does say, we're not gonna move forward. I think that's something that our team is phenomenal at, which is even if someone says no, asking for a bit more information to understand why they didn't move forward. If there's anything that we could have presented differently and learning from that. And that's something that we also like bring back just as much of the wins is also talking about some of these losses and what happened and how we can learn from them and hopefully do better in the future. [00:56:17] S0: Yeah. And it's, look, we know the difference between, we won't call out the other digital media, but we know the moment that a board goes up on a roadside billboard, a urban panel that goes up and those brands and the agencies that purchase that through your team and the platform, they're like, woah, it's significantly different. And the impact that it has is way different than, hey, that campaign, the KPIs of the, that digital social campaign or that Google search campaign or that AI campaign, you're kind of like, it doesn't have the buzz and the excitement that a digital out of home campaign has.
00:56:17 · Ian Dallimore, Lucy Markowitz
[00:56:17] S0: Yeah. And it's, look, we know the difference between, we won't call out the other digital media, but we know the moment that a board goes up on a roadside billboard, a urban panel that goes up and those brands and the agencies that purchase that through your team and the platform, they're like, woah, it's significantly different. And the impact that it has is way different than, hey, that campaign, the KPIs of the, that digital social campaign or that Google search campaign or that AI campaign, you're kind of like, it doesn't have the buzz and the excitement that a digital out of home campaign has. [00:56:57] S1: Totally. And I think, you know, both there's at the brand and then also at the agency is like that convergence of people talking about these mediums not standing separately and how they all work together to drive results, I think is encouraging better collaboration. And I think we've come a long way. And I think that we're going to continue down that path because that is how like brands aren't thinking about these in silos. And I think even programmatic, it is not a channel, it's a way of activating, it's a method. And I think that mentality even for other channels like has changed a lot. And I think it's allowing for the perception of what is programmatic out of home. It's just a way to buy out of home. It's not something completely different. And I feel like that is starting to resonate more and more with both the buyers as well as the publisher community.