Madvertising by AdQuick — Advertising, Marketing & Ad Tech Podcast
00:12:18 · Barry Frey
[00:12:18] S1: Well, you're you're talking a lot of great points there, and there's a lot to unpack. So you you mentioned, you know, what business are they really in. And go back to the model of the airlines taking over the railroad business. The railroad folks thought they were in the railroad business. They were really in the transportation business. So the airlines came in and did a better job of that. The same railroad pioneers could have ventured into the airline business, but they were too focused on on a lot lot of wheels and and not on really transporting people. The other part that you mentioned too about this personalized medium in the web where people are basically consuming what they already know, there's a lot to talk about there. Because one is how do you get people to experience new brands, new services? And that happens at the top of the funnel, which out of home has always been so great at exposing people to what a brand is, what it can do for you. And then the beauty of what's happening now with out of home is we're also moving up and down the funnel. We're a full funnel medium. So we now can drive people into stores. We can drive people to websites. And on the personalization, something that just came out a couple weeks ago in The UK media marketing publication is that these personalized experiences that people are getting from the web and consuming is not good for the psychology of people or for community of, of of society. What's happening is everybody's living in their own bubble, their own echo chamber in so many ways, and they're believing their own stuff. But, you know, Scott Galloway has done a lot of work on this where young men can't go into bars and say hello to a woman because they're busy playing games by themselves all day and going to the websites they've always been to, and society needs to connect, needs to interact, and that's best done out in the real world where our advertising is. So it's... You know, we're... We've... We focus on societal needs as well as brand needs, and out of home is is helping to solve a lot of today's problems.
00:14:19 · Adam Singer
[00:14:19] S0: Yeah. I I I think that's right. And while marketers can't do everything to fix those problems, the one thing that we can do is develop really good shared culture. And so, you know, when you can do that and it's not just this hyper personalization thing, I think that's where you really get a brand that people wanna come together about. They want to... You know, like, back in the day when Apple first launched the iPhone, right, you know, everyone was lined up to see, you know, Steve Jobs give his keynote, and then they would line up at the stores. There was this big shared moment. And, Apple has actually been... They've always been great about out of home as part of their mix, and they've always had, you know, the same message to people think differently. And so I think, you know, if you're a big, ambitious brand, you have to think about how can you build shared culture, and out of home is obviously a great way to do it. So one thing you also started talking about, Barry, was, you know, the notion of out of home being full funnel. And at AdQuick, we talk about... We we we have measurement products, so we're fully bought into measurement. But I'm curious when you're talking to, both brands and media owners, where do you sense the world is at with measuring out of home? Is it now understood that you can measure it? Are there still people you talk to where they're like, wow. You really can measure this, and you have to explain it to them, and you have to explain, you know, how we're using, you know, mobile devices and whatnot to help establish measurement? Kind of where is the industry at with that technology?
00:15:47 · Barry Frey
[00:15:47] S1: So where is it at, and where is it going? And I've always been a bit of a rebel. And I know you little... Know a little bit about me, but, you know, I used to go with Ted Turner to ad agencies when there were no cable budgets, and we would help them understand the reasons to do that. And I'm gonna get back to your point on that. And as an example, we would go, and they'd say nice to see you, Barry and Ted, and Ted was on the cover of Time Magazine. He owned the Atlanta Braves, and he built this amazing satellite network. And they'd say, Ted, can I have your autograph? And, Barry, what are you doing here? And then they would go in, and they'd say, well, we have TV budgets, radio budgets. We have out home budgets. We don't have any cable TV budgets. So what would we do? We would then go out to the brands directly that were more interested in moving product and outcomes than accumulating a whole bunch of rating points, which was done in those days easily by ABC, CBS, and NBC. So part of my rebellious slash innovative nature is to look forward. And looking forward, there's been a lot of discussion on measurement and out of home. And, you know, everybody has got different views on what measurement should be. And even if you look at the independent company that's driving the most amount of money by independent measurement, Nielsen, when they deliver the actual results of that to media owners or to brands or agencies, they call it Nielsen's estimates because it is only an estimate. So I prefer to look at outcomes. Does it move the needle? Does it make brand awareness higher? Does it move product off the shelf? Does it drive people to a store? Outcomes is really what brands want. It really is what everybody wants, and measurement can help get there. And we have a whole lot of members that do different forms of measurement, but I like to measure outcomes and actually deliverables. And, Adam, look, that's, of course, what your company does, you know, so amazing is showcase outcomes. And what do what do brands, what do business people want? They wanna know that it delivers results, and that's what AdQuick is so good at. And that's what I've done my whole life.
00:17:51 · Barry Frey
I mean, we would show in those early days with Ted Turner that they were buying a whole lot of rating points, but wasn't really moving product because at that time, we reached a very targeted audience and influencer audience, and it's kind of how I lived my life. And then as you know about me as well, when I I brought up and built... Helped build the nba.com globally and all the sports partnerships and sponsorships in the cable division. I built the advanced advertising platforms where we not only developed mobile and online, but addressable TV advertising. And it was all about delivering results. So that's kind of the way I live my life. It's it's not necessarily window dressing, but it's getting outcomes, and and AdQuick does showcase outcomes. So thank you for that.
00:18:36 · Adam Singer
[00:18:36] S0: I love that. And, you know, one thing that we've seen... And and I think this is interesting for marketers who have to who have to sell in and sell innovation into companies is, for tech... Like, when when we have large tech companies use our product, they get the analytics right away. They get it right away. And then for some other industries, for some more legacy industries, you just have to handhold them. And it could be a number of reasons. It's not even just, like, a fear of innovation. And a lot of times, you know, they have they they have privacy issues with with how they can implement if they're in health care, or they have a, they they have a a bureaucratic process internally, and it's like there's a lot of complexity. They have a way that certain things are done. So I don't even think it's always about hating innovation. I think in a lot of cases, companies just get stuck in doing things a certain way. It's just easier to continue doing things the way that they were doing things. And I even saw this... I used to be a consultant. You know, I I was basically... I I got some of the first, QSRs, quick service restaurants to embrace Facebook. Right? Like, back when Facebook first launched brand pages. And some of my clients got it right away. And then I had other clients who said, well, why would I want my brand to be on Facebook? And I would show, oh, you know, there's already 5,000 groups talking about your restaurant there for, like, a national brand. But it was really interesting because, you know, like yourself, I've sat in the shoes of trying to sell innovation to people, and I've seen every possible excuse. And I've also seen all of the all of the different fears and whatnot. And I tend to think most people actually do want the outcome, as you said. They do want the outcome, and there's always some other weird reason. And it's usually solvable sometimes, maybe not in the near term, but, it's just become more interesting as I go on in my career because I see certain people, industry types are just, like, always naturally harder than others. And then you get these kind of bright spots, these rebels within these companies who are great to work with and are like, oh, yeah. We should do it this way. And I I think that's just the push pull of maybe being in the media sector because we have so much change around us.
00:20:48 · Adam Singer, Barry Frey
And and I think you you sort of get a sense, in your career, you know, how you're gonna bring things forward, and it's just like a skill you have to develop if you're if you're selling ads, if you're working in [00:21:00] S1: I agree. In fact, I give a I give a lot of sales training courses. And what we talk about is understanding who the decision makers are and the real decision makers, and then who can affect change. To everything you've talked about, I would sum it up in one word, inertia. Humans don't move that much that differently, and it's up to the innovators to take technology, to take ideation, and showcase change for the better. So when we do these sales courses, we not only identify who the decision makers are, but from a personality standpoint, You know, who wants to, in their life, have lunch and go home at 05:00? And who wants to create a new world, or who wants to do a better job for their brand and an agency? Who wants to move more product? And the key for marketers and salespeople is identifying the ones that want better better for their lives, more interesting for their lives, better for their brands, better for their business. And once those people are identified, identified, then the innovators, and these days, digital out of home is the innovation, can connect with those folks and help change the the largesse of inertia.