Jonathan Gudai says with a return of audiences there is a return of dollars.
Billboard Insider Podcast
Published: July 27, 2021
On today’s Billboard Insider podcast Adomni founder Jonathan Gudai talks about how out of home is recovering and what he thinks of the capital flowing into programmatic out of home.
Podcast: 
Play in new window | Download (Duration: 22:29 — 30.9MB)
Here are the highlights.
How is out of home recovering from covid?
We feel like we are back right now. We expected Q3 and Q4 to have the lions share…but we were surprised by Q2…there was a huge spike and audiences started to move earlier in Q2 than we had forecasted…there are certain venue types that are stronger: digital billboards rode out the wave in a lot more stable way than indoor. But…people are going to restaurants and shopping malls and gyms. With the return of audiences there is a return of dollars.
The US out of home industry is $8 billion. If out of home captures just 1% of the $200 billion digital ecosystem (search, online display, social media), US out of home grows by 25%
That’s right. Out of home is $8 billion but only 30-40% is digital. So let’s call it a $2.5-3 billion market. We see an opportunity to take it to $10 billion and do that in a five year time frame.
Lots of capital is being raised by programmatic out of home platforms.
I look at these different startups that are entering our space with energy and a desire to improve the experience of buying digital out of home and they have their own ideas and I was in those shoes 6 years ago…Any new entrants in the marketplace who want to enhance digital out of home…we should welcome. Innovation can come from a lot of different places and oftentimes its from the outside.
What do recent capital raises (Vistar/Lamar, OneScreen, Place Exchange) say about programmatic out of home.
They’re great signals that a media owner like Lamar which has great business intelligence and market intelligence is saying “this is a very important piece of the ecosystem – we need to support Vistar media…”. For Place Exchange I believe it was a venture backed investment so that’s…having VC’s say this is something that we believe has great growth potential…And OneScreen is an early stage…We see this as not only really good but necessary…
Could we see an announcement from Adomni?
Yes. You probably will…This is a growth engine…the smart money is realizing that.
Are you worried about privacy issues with Lamar investing in a sales platform used by its competitors?
This isn’t the first media owner whose made an investment in a technology or platform. It won’t be the last…There needs to be a level playing field…I think Lamar and the other media owners realize that the ecosystem needs multiple players…Lamar has been an incredible partner to Adomni and several of our competitors. They were an early pioneer. Even though they are the largest billboard company in the US they also act in many ways like a startup…I’ve found them to be honest with high integrity…I don’t have any reason to believe that they would make some moves that would change that…We were not at all alarmed by the Vistar investment by Lamar…
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