The Billboard Insider Podcast
00:01:04 · Dave Westburg, Paul Wright
[00:01:04] S0: Paul, how did you get involved in the out of home advertising business? [00:01:08] S1: You know, that goes back twenty five years ago. I had a really strong interest in art and advertising. And I was working my way through college and working for Bank of America and working for CB Richard Ellis and the local Maricopa County assessor's office. And when I graduated, it was just kind of the perfect combination of things to get into. Advertising and art and finance, it all kind of came together perfectly. So that's kind of where I ended up and since then we've grown our company today. Well, guess we started in 2001 and today we do projects all over the country, brokerage valuation and taxation and condemnation. And we get to work on some pretty exciting things, kinda high profile projects, but we don't get to talk about them publicly. You might hear about them in the newspaper. Obviously, you get to read about them in Billboard Insider, but those are projects that we have to maintain pretty strict confidentiality about. [00:02:15] S0: Yeah. Guess what you're telling me, if you do work product, if there's a litigation dispute and your your work factors in the settlement, your work product is confidential and protected. It's it's the property of the company that has hired you. Is that correct? [00:02:29] S1: Exactly. So we hear about and work on a lot of things that have to kind of remain confidential until they're public. Mhmm.
00:02:29 · Paul Wright, Dave Westburg
[00:02:29] S1: Exactly. So we hear about and work on a lot of things that have to kind of remain confidential until they're public. Mhmm. [00:02:37] S0: Paul, you made some predictions for the industry in a column you wrote in Billboard Insider in December 2018. You had three predictions for out of home during 2019. The first was that out of home would become more integrated with technology. The second is there would be more m and a activity. And the third is that we would see a continued loosening of digital sign regulations. Can you do a bring down analysis on each of those predictions? How have things changed since you made those predictions? [00:03:10] S1: Sure. The first item that you mentioned was out of home and being more integrated with technology. We're continuing to see that groups. I call it smart buying, but there's a variety of different terms, programmatic and things like that. [00:03:24] S0: I love smart buying. It's actually a simple easy to understand English term. I don't know why when we start talking programmatic buying, we get into all this jargon that no one can understand, but smart buying is a great way of saying it Or automatic automated buying. Mean...
00:03:24 · Dave Westburg, Paul Wright
[00:03:24] S0: I love smart buying. It's actually a simple easy to understand English term. I don't know why when we start talking programmatic buying, we get into all this jargon that no one can understand, but smart buying is a great way of saying it Or automatic automated buying. Mean... [00:03:40] S1: Exactly. Yeah. It's it's just like a smartphone. It's smart buying. Right. And Adomni is obviously a leader in that. In Mobi is another one. Blip is another one, selling remnant space. So this geofencing and aggregating of big data is continuing to drive the industry and we're seeing a lot of that kind of thing. We just worked on a project up in Edmonton, Canada, where we were estimating some revenue for a particular location. And the group we were working with, Entro, has some software that does kind of a visual complexity and ordering and physiological response measuring of people who are in a particular space or atmosphere. And it was really interesting to talk to them about how they're quantifying and measuring visibility and complex environments. So there's all kinds of new things happening and we're really excited about the technology. [00:04:46] S0: Wow. Talk about the m and a market. You thought there would continue to be a healthy and a growing m and a market for billboard companies.
00:04:46 · Dave Westburg, Paul Wright
[00:04:46] S0: Wow. Talk about the m and a market. You thought there would continue to be a healthy and a growing m and a market for billboard companies. [00:04:53] S1: Right. And we've continued to see that. There's just a lot of optimism about the industry. We're seeing a lot of interest from new groups that are in kind of ancillary media, newspaper, radio, television, that are thinking, you know, outdoor, out of home is the place we wanna be. And so they're moving dollars there, making more investments. And so we've been really encouraged by that, and we think that will continue. [00:05:24] S0: What do you think, Paul, the private equity involvement? I admit it's kinda mixed for me. When a stable new entrant comes in with long term capital, I'm thrilled. If it's a private equity firm that just wants to gear up a company, I am a little concerned because that is what happened to Clear Channel Outdoor. You had a private equity firm come in, over leverage it, and it never quite recovered. So I view the private equity firm serve as a mixed blessing. [00:05:51] S1: I would agree. I think that there's a need for some education and some understanding when you make those kinds of investments. And a lot of times, the private equity groups are only looking at numbers and don't really understand the dynamics of the industry. So it's important to kind of have that balance and and have that advice. Mhmm. [00:06:12] S0: How about digital sign regulations? Are we seeing a continued loosening of digital sign regulations?
00:06:12 · Dave Westburg, Paul Wright
[00:06:12] S0: How about digital sign regulations? Are we seeing a continued loosening of digital sign regulations? [00:06:19] S1: Yeah. No question. In fact, we're seeing a lot of activity from developers and municipalities and other property owners that have, you know, things that were built in the last fifty or a hundred years, and trying to incorporate new digital applications into their properties. And obviously, you know, you're not going to go out and put digital displays on Notre Dame or some other historic building. But there are applications where you're trying to drive traffic, you're trying to make it more of an entertainment type destination. So we're seeing mixed use developers and municipalities try to incorporate digital and not just an advertising way, but in an aesthetic architectural kind of way to enhance their properties. And we're working on a large project right now in California that, again, we need to maintain confidentiality. A year from now, you'll hear about the project and it'll be really exciting to talk about. But there's a lot of a lot of optimism about digital.
00:07:29 · Dave Westburg, Paul Wright
[00:07:29] S0: There is a knee jerk response to digital that says, we don't want digital because we don't want our city to look like Las Vegas. Well, the flip side of that is, do you want smart car charging stations? If you do and you don't wanna have to pay for them, maybe you should put allow a digital screen on the smart car charging station where someone can charge advertising and use the ad revenue to support the service. Do you want kiosks available at your transit stops? Maybe if you do, you need to allow a digital screen so that the advertising can help support the information that you're driving through the digital kiosk. It seems like it's a way of of creating revenue that can help support smart city initiatives. [00:08:15] S1: Absolutely. And municipalities especially are understanding that if they want these kinds of added value services in their communities, somebody's gotta pay for it. And advertising dollars are an easy way to cover those costs and and to generate just additional tax revenue. And I think that there was an initial reservation about digital and the safety concerns and things like that. But now that there have been enough deployed, they understand that these aren't something that are dangerous, something that are garish. They're actually something that can be incorporated into a community and and enhance the community.