Turning Public Spaces Into Brand Stages with Anna Bager

0:00Hey, welcome to the CMO Whisper Show. I'm your host, Steve Olensky. Part marketing practitioner, part ad agency veteran, part journalist. I was a writer for Forbes for 10 years. I've had so many insightful conversations over the years with business leaders, to athletes, to celebrities, to, of course, CMOs. The only difference now is instead of sharing those insights through written form, I'm doing it this way. My guest this week is a force in the media world, Ana Bagger, president and CEO of the Out of Home Advertising Association of America, which is a mouthful. So we'll just say OAAA going forward.

0:38Anna is leading the charge in transforming out-of-home advertising into one of the most innovative, tech-driven, and brand-friendly, very key, platforms out there. Now, before taking the reins at the OAAA, she was the EVP of Industry Initiatives at the IAB, where she shaped the future of digital, mobile, video, and audio, and even driving the content new fronts. Ana was named one of the most powerful 30 women in mobile, advertising by Business Insider, and one of the top women in media by folio and synopsis. Ana brings both brains and bold vision to the table. I am honored to call her my friend, and it's long overdue.

1:16Welcome to my show. Thank you so much, Steve. It's like the best introduction I ever had. I'm glad to be here. So fun. Well, listen, I have a burgeoning career of like people's like you do best introductions. And if I can get paid, like when someone goes on stage, I'll record an intro for people. It could be a whole new career. Oh, you know what? It could be. And we do, I do a lot of introductions on stage. So maybe this is a side gig. We should talk about that after. And I will do it for you pro bono for sure. Even better. I love it. Yeah. Okay. Well, you have a new job. I'll put it on my LinkedIn tomorrow.

1:50Okay. So the first thing, and we had talked offline about, you know, give me some things you want to talk about. and one of them right off the bat hit me was like out of home advertising is not just back, it's booming, right? And now, of course, when I hear booming, you know, that work can go a lot of different ways. But the first thing I want to just dive right into the deep end is why, what do you think is driving out of homes advertising, quote, resurgence? I think it's a lot of things, to be honest with you. Well, first of all, I'll have to say it's been booming a while now. It's never not been booming.

2:20It's been a very steady growing platform for a very long time. But I think, you know, we definitely took a hit in the pandemic. So the real boom has been after that. And I think it's a number of explanations for it. I mean, I would say, first of all, it is a really powerful medium, right? Like it's very visible. Consumers like it. They pay attention to the ad. They don't feel like they're intrusive. Consumers after the pandemic have changed their behaviors. They travel more. They drive more. They're just kind of out and about more in a different way. And, you know, we're kind of there where they are.

2:58So it definitely has to do with traffic and just consumer appreciation of the media, which I would say might be the only platform that they actually have that for. And that kind of lends itself into other things, right? Like it's a tricky world today. privacy, data regulation, and different things that are happening in the landscape overall means that it's harder and harder for advertisers to reach consumers. It's harder and harder for advertisers to target consumers. And consumers are well aware now. They don't kind of like to be bombarded with messaging. Our platform is not facing those challenges at all, right?

3:36Like we're very privacy safe, brand safe, view safe media, right? We're being noticed. We're there. If a consumer doesn't like the ad, they're just not going to pay attention to it. They're just going to walk or drive right past it. And it works. And it lends itself really well to amplify other forms of media. And I'm not just talking about social, which I think we might have discussed before, too, like the power of the connection between out of home and how you can amplify the message on social media and thereby get like sort of free media for it, right? Because consumers like to post the ads.

4:06But it's also the glue that it can provide, right, for the advertiser from the point that the consumer sees an ad in their home and then leave their home. The way that you can now leverage data, programmatic, and just kind of knowledge of location to retarget through out-of-home means that it's a really powerful medium. You need to have it as part of your media mix because it can drive to conversion, to better brand building, and to just more results for the advertiser. And it's fairly cost-efficient. So I think all of those are a few reasons why it's booming, but it's definitely a very powerful media platform that has regained even more traction in recent years.

4:45I want to give you. Yeah, I'm sorry to interrupt you. My sense is the average consumer, you and I can't be subjective because we live this, but the average consumer, when they hear out of home advertising, I think most people would go to billboards. Right. And I want to give you the platform to I know most of my audience are marketers and so on, but there's a lot of different things when it falls under out of home that are not billboards. Absolutely. I mean, if I was there for it and it wasn't already taken, I would have probably rebranded the industry to locate based marketing because that's really what it is.

5:22right? It is signage, messages, and content right where the consumer is. Now, 70 % of consumers or of our revenue, something around there probably comes from billboards. It's a huge part of advertising and people see it everywhere. But there are some really important other pieces of it. Transit, that can be, you know, buses in the bus, outside of the bus. The bus is kind of a billboard too, right? Like driving through the city, the subway, airports, anything that we call street furniture, but you know, kiosks, bus shelters, smaller signage and elevators or malls or, you know, different places where consumers are.

6:04I mean, our industry, we're experts in putting a message right where the consumer is and using data and context to make sure that it's the right message. So can I give you one of my favorites? yeah my this is for the men in the audience you've all experienced it over the over a urinal in a men's room that is another place because you know especially in places where we may not want to look at other people we can't hold on to our phone we might be holding on to something else you know uh that's a good place to put an ad and people pay attention so no it's it's really i wouldn't focus so and that's why we call it out of home it's any form of advertising that happens out of home.

6:45By the way, retail media, point of care, like there are many other things that kind of fit within that mold and that are part of out of home. I mean, essentially, it's about just knowing where consumers are, where they will pay attention to the message, don't find it too intrusive. And, you know, an advertiser can cut through the clutter. So yeah, we're many, many different things. Okay, I have to get something off my chest here. And I'm going to offer to give you give your members a free steve-o soapbox tutorial one of the things that drives me absolutely crazy when i'm traveling especially on a highway now i get it depends on the speed of the road you're on but what drives me crazy on is when i seal billboard and it's got way too much words way too many different fonts it's got phone numbers and website no one's reading all this it drives me crazy too uh you're not the only one addressed most people in the industry crazy, to be honest.

7:39I mean, the industry are experts, not just in location, but also the creativity that works on these billboards. But, you know, we can't tell a client no, if they want to put a lot of messages on a billboard, it's hard. And again, to your point, kind of, you paid attention to it, you saw it, you'd be surprised how many phone numbers you might remember if you drive past it every day. But obviously, that's not the intent, right? Like, you want it to be short, crisp, attention catching, and tell a story and not too much information, or not have any words at all, just an interesting picture that will lead you to Google or, you know, search for the, which a lot of consumers do more than half of consumers actually follow up on something we saw on and out of home ad, do more research around it, find out more.

8:25And a lot of times it leads to an actual purchase. So keeping them in suspense and, and, and wondering a little bit about what it is, it's usually a better thing, you know, and it's out there, right? Like in the nature, you don't want to ugly fly anything either, right? Like you want to think about the environment that we're in. Okay. You just said something that's going to spur me to a different question that I was going to ask next, but you said leads to a purchase. And you know, this as well as I do, regardless of what marketing medium you use, the attribution model is always in play. So the email team wants, no, I get credit for this.

8:59No, the marketing, You know, another social team gets you. How does a brand go? Wait a minute. How can you how can I tie a billboard to a sale? Or a subway cart or any of the other media? I'm the victim of my billboards. It is. It goes for any. I mean, one of the things that has been a challenge for the industry, because we're a little different. We don't have all the tools and the toolbox at our disposal that, for example, digital media has. But it is measurement and we're working on it. Attribution can be hard. We have a brand council at OAAA. We talk to them frequently about what they need from us.

9:33And this is the one thing that comes up. Better audience measurement and better attribution and medium-mixed modeling that they can fit into their models. Still a bit of a work in process. Sometimes you can measure it because if not on the highway, it's not allowed. But many different places there could, for example, be a QR code or else that can lead to a better metric. There are data models that you can use to, you know, see if a consumer saw the ad or if something worked or just like actually just looking at, you know, results. It might be a companion that only ran an out of home, right? Or social listening.

10:10I mean, there are tools that we have to our disposal. But when I'm talking about some of the stats that I'm saying, you know, more than half are taking action after seeing an out of home ad or researching it. And then half of those are actually taking action, making a purchase. that's based on a lot of the work that we're doing with a great partnership with the Harris Poll, constantly surveying consumers about specific campaigns or their behaviors as it relates to out of home. And the good news there is that consumers do notice the ads, they understand them and they answer the questions. So that is some sort of proof.

10:43But obviously in today's modern marketing world, where numbers count a lot, it's an area where we are making great strides, but we still have some ways to go. Totally. Totally. Post-pandemic, which we're still talking about before and after, right, for any industry. But I want to get into, you know, you mentioned more people are traveling. I am. I'm sure we all are. Right. But I want to get into the specific opportunities that you think out of home can offer to brands during those, quote, discovery moments when people are traveling. Yeah, it's a great platform for it. You know, we are part of the journey, literally.

11:16Right. Like we're in the airports, we're in the planes. But also, you know, after you have to get yourself to her from the airport or you have to go traveling. Right. So you're surrounded by this messaging through, you know, especially through digital. We can, you know, very in a quick way, get messages up and make sure that we tie all these different messages together. Right. That the consumer is being exposed to. So travel is a huge opportunity. In fact, we just released a survey. I'm not sure when this is running, but I think it's a week ago now. And July 25th, we released a survey again in partnership with Harris Bowl that showed that 83 % of adult Americans are planning on traveling within the next two months.

11:56Nine out of 10 Gen C in the Gen C audience will. So there's a huge opportunity there. Americans are traveling. And again, when they travel, it's not just the airport. It's the whole gamut of how they commute. So that lends itself really well to any travel related content. Obviously, you know where they're going or where they're coming from because they bought a ticket. So it could be any type of content that relates to that. Right. Like restaurants, hotels, museums, anything that you might want to know when you're traveling or business related information. And it's also other things, you know, like when you travel, especially when you're on vacation, you have a little bit more time to think about things.

12:39Maybe you're thinking about your health. Maybe you're thinking about what's going to happen. Maybe you're thinking about fashion. Maybe you want to shop. Right. So it's an opportunity not just for travel related content. I think it's an opportunity for any thing that consumers might entertainment for sure. You know, maybe you're going somewhere where you're going to finally have time to binge watch, you know, or something like that. So it is a great opportunity really for any kind of brand to catch a consumer when you kind of know what they're doing and where their mind is. Yeah. Yeah. It's, I think that discovery moment, right.

13:10When you're, when you're traveling, especially on personal, you're, you're, I don't, this is going to come back. Your guard is down, right. You're in a different mind frame. Yeah, for sure. For sure. And you know, and again, it's, it's, it, you're more open. You have time to research more and maybe make that purchase. And if you can provide a certain frequency of the ads or making sure that they like show up in a good way, you can really inspire consumers to take action and they do. Yeah, exactly. I want to get into how marketers and agencies work with the OAAA, right? We just talked about attribution models, and I'm sure that's high on the marketers list, right?

13:46And when it comes to like integrating out of home into omni-channel, right? Is that, it can't be the only concern they have. I'm sure it's top five kind of thing, that attribution model. But what are some things when you talk to marketers and agencies when it comes to using out of home as part of an overall integrated campaign? Yeah, so we, I mean, big goal for us, obviously, to spread the gospel of the medium and, you know, get as many on board as possible. And for us to, you know, out of home, again, medium that's been around forever. We have certain strengths that everyone knows about, but the world doesn't necessarily know about how digital we are, that you can buy us in an automated fashion, that there's programmatic, how you can leverage data.

14:28the ability we have to reach, frankly, not just targeted consumer groups, but all consumers and convey them a message which lends itself really well to certain brands. And in a very polarized world is a real upside because it's hard to reach audiences that, especially in media, if they're not like on board with your whatever they perceive as your mission being or political views or whatever it might be, right? Out of home is a completely unbiased medium to reach anyone. So we have a lot of tools in our toolbox that I think brands and agencies don't necessarily know about because that's something that has happened in recent years.

15:06So we have a brand council consisting of very senior and constantly growing brand marketers, CMO or just below level. And we talk to them about their needs, what they see as opportunities, how they would like for us to better sell and what's keeping them back or moving them forward. And equally, we have an agency advisory board that consists of chief investment officers, strategy professionals or specific political advertising, whatever it might be, disciplines within the agency to really try and teach them kind of how out of home works. There are specialist groups in most agencies, but kind of help these guys reach out to them and make sure that they buy more out of home.

15:45And the things that we're really talking about, measurement comes up and attribution. And unfortunately, it's not number five. It's probably more like number one or number two. But I think the things that the industry, which is why we're doing it, it's just like, give us big ideas. Tell us how we can reach consumers. Teach us because it's been a medium that has been perceived as very hard to buy. It's you can cover, you can reach any American several times a day, which no other platform can not even met up right through out of home. But it's perceived as being very difficult because you have to use all these different platform, maybe different creative, different ways of buying from the agency, different media companies, as we call them.

16:27So it's hard to buy, hard to understand sometimes. And then there's creative challenges around all the different formats. So that's something we're working on, right? Like in programmatic and automation can solve for a lot of that. Again, the ability to use data, the ability to tie all these audiences together so you can provide that big footprint is high on our list. Simplifying the supply chain, for lack of a better word. So you could more push a button to get there. Those are things we're hearing from marketers. But I think more than anything else outside of measurement, it's really tell us the big thing that we can do with your medium.

17:00And we're more than happy to do that, right? Like we understand it better than anyone. So that's a big one with the advertisers and frankly, similarly to the agencies, right? If they can make sure that they integrate out of home into a media strategy more holistically, Again, like I said before, you can touch the consumer all the way from the living room to the store. And you can reiterate a message. And you can have a communication with them. Ads can be seen globally or with groups you wouldn't even necessarily target with that particular sign through social media and other things like that. So we are spending a lot of time explaining how that works, how they need to think about it, and how it can make any media buy a lot stronger and better.

17:44and easier to kind of optimize and improve over time. And dynamic creative too, that will help, right? Like making sure that it works on whatever it's time to choose. Yeah. Of course. I can't believe we're this far into this conversation and I'm just bringing up AI. Yeah. How much time do we have, Steve? This may be more too, but no, I'm kidding. But how is the OAAA using AI, first of all, to help service clients? Well, I think we're dabbling is not the right word because I don't think anyone really necessarily dabbles anymore, but we use it in the same way that everyone else does, you know, for intelligence, better understanding of clients, potential clients.

18:22We are careful using it in writing too much. I mean, we can use it as a first step, but we want to make sure we own the content. There's still a lot of challenges, as I think we all know when it comes to AI and sources of content, if it's actually real content, right? Like as a trade association, we have to be careful with that. And I think everyone should be because there's so much on clarity. We're also a lobby group. We don't want to get in trouble, you know, from a privacy perspective or, you know, again, validity of the content we're putting out. So we're using it, but we're still trying to understand it better.

18:56I think for the industry, it's an opportunity. We talked about measurement before, how hard it is to measure out of home because you need so much data and so many data sources to understand consumer movement. And again, you can't target individual consumers. This is about larger groups, right? And AI can be a great help in processing a lot of different data sources, once verified, to better understand measurement and then also hopefully work in our favor when it comes to attribution and media mix modeling. So it's an opportunity from that perspective. And then I think we're all sort of following the debate around AIO and SEO or whatever we decide to call it.

19:32Understanding how web traffic is going down and consumers just are harder to get to. Not a problem our industry has. I know that a lot of marketers are really trying to find out what sort of AI tools consumers are using to get inspiration to buy products, for example, because not everyone's on chat GPT. So how do you reach them? How do you fuel these models to get your message right? Again, out of home, you don't have that issue. You will reach the consumer with a message that's right. And you know a lot because of context and location. Yeah. So we're sort of, this is going to sound super cheesy, and I just came up with, we're like the original form of AI in a sense, right?

20:10Like we're kind of there. We have access based on the knowledge of that particular place we're in to a lot of information. So I know that AI is going to be an opportunity and a challenge for all industries, and it's going to mean changes in the workforce. But I think for us right now, it feels like it's an opportunity. And I think leaning into it early is going to help. And again, understanding how consumers really use it so it can benefit you as a brand. And then I think keep a close eye on the regulation because we don't have much right now. Privacy regulation is not a federal thing yet. There's a lot of confusion, but it will happen.

20:53Equally, will there be new regulation around how you approach children and young adults through the revision of COPA? the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, which means that there's going to be a lot of changes in the industry. And everyone should stay abreast of that. And I think for our industry, that's going to be a huge opportunity. Yeah. Yeah, that's going to be. I'm trying to squeeze it all in in like three minutes. You did it. And I commend you for, because that's a lot, to talk about AI in three minutes. So very well done. This one's a personal pet peeve of mine as well, like billboards.

21:30Brand versus performance. Every CMO I have on, I ask about why take yourself out of your current role and just put yourself in a CMO role at a widget company. So many people have to feel like they have to pick one brand or performance. And now I want to juxtapose you back to your current role. Like, how does out of home help bridge that gap between brand awareness and performance? Well, first of all, I think you have to do both. I've never understood this upper funnel, lower funnel conversation. And I have a super digital media background, right? Like what really helped grow digital ad dollars back in the day were not the performance marketing that then came.

22:08It was really the ability to compete with television and reaching consumers for the kind of upper funnel dollars, right? So I think you need both. I don't think it's an either or. I think where we play, and this, I believe, is Greg Stewart from the MMA who coined this. It's not, didn't coin it, but used it a lot. It's about the movable middle, right? So you have consumers that already know your brand, appreciate your brand, are always going to buy your brand. You don't have to target them with more than just maybe some reminders and then focus more on performance, like make them buy more often.

22:42But they will do it. Then you have the people that are never going to buy your brand. Don't spend a cent on those guys or very little. I mean, you might attach some of them through certain types of media, like out of home. But that's not where you should be spending your brand dollars or performance dollars. It's the people in the middle that you can shift their mindset, no matter what product it is, or shift the perception of a brand, the ones that are open to it. Those are the ones you want to reach. And coming back to one of the early comments I made, our medium reaches everyone, right? Depending on the location.

23:15It could be close to a supermarket. It could be close to a museum or a city or just like on way to work in an affluent area, in a not so affluent area. You know a lot based on the location and then be smart about like that movable middle. And I think our medium can drive that. And then depending on, again, the location, we might have a better opportunity to get a conversion on the dollar in the store or just make people feel better about themselves or a jeans brand or whatever it is that you want to advertise. It's a car that's just been launched, right? So I think we can do both. I think marketers definitely need to think about both.

23:53But I think it's spend your dollars wisely on the individuals that are actually going to drive results for you. And that's probably not going to... The existing customer that already loves you, they're going to keep driving what they're driving, but not more. And the ones who don't care about you, never going to care about you. Don't focus on them. Focus on the middle. And there are actually really good ways of plugging a different association. the MMA has some great tools for how you track and measure performance. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Okay, I want you to be as objective as possible with this next question.

24:24I know it won't be easy. It's not my job to be objective, by the way, but yeah, I'll try it. And we touched on it earlier. Do you think marketers have become so obsessed with social and digital and the metrics they're in that they've forgotten of the power of, quote, just being seen in the real world? Yes and no. I think I do think that the insane focus on measurement and performance that kind of was born out of digital and being able to track everything got in the way of creativity and new ideas and made everything really just like play by a certain type of model ish. At the same time, I appreciate the marketers of today and the challenges they have because of AI and increased competition, a tough economy, unforeseen political landscape, and, you know, a CFO or a CMO or a CEO that are squeezing them quite a bit.