Episode 5
Billboards Bets and a bit of Booze
As the President and CEO of DPAA, Barry Frey is known for his willingness to take risks. Join Jonathan Gudai for a conversation with Barry as they delve into his exciting bets in digital out-of-home and how advertisers can leverage media for its distinctiveness and influence.
Transcript
Jonathan Gudai
And let’s talk about some of the bets that you personally are making and that you’re making on behalf of the great organization that you represent.
Barry Frey
We have a very unique medium here. The success of media happens when people use it for its uniqueness and its power.
Jonathan Gudai
All right. I’m here with Barry Frey, the CEO of DPAA Global, a trade body that represents all of digital out of home. Whether you’re a media owner, a media buyer or tech companies like us that are the glue that pull everyone together. It’s really a pleasure to have you. You literally are the chief innovation officer of the entire industry. Welcome.
Barry Frey
Thank you. Great to be here at Adomni HQ.
Jonathan Gudai
Well, it is a privilege to have you here on Billboards, Bets, and (a little bit of) Booze.
Barry Frey
I love the alliteration, Jonathan. And I’m a big fan and a big fan of yours as well.
Jonathan Gudai
Well, thanks.
Barry Frey
Great to be here in your hometown. The global capital of Adomni in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Jonathan Gudai
So we’re going to talk about a few things that really excite me. And that’s the future of digital out-of-home.
Barry Frey
It excites me, too.
Jonathan Gudai
Hopefully. You know, I’ve seen a little bit of that excitement here in there. But really, you know, let’s have some fun. Let’s, you know, before jumping into business, what we’d like to do just to honor the tradition and the history of this great city, is to start off by having a little fun. So on the screen here, we have a roulette wheel.
Barry Frey
Okay.
Jonathan Gudai
I don’t know if you tend to kind of go towards certain numbers or colors, but if you want to throw out a few to kick off the bets.
Barry Frey
Let’s do 32 red. Uh, what does that mean? Well, that’s the bet. Okay. Eight. Eight. Black. And how about, uh, 18 red?
Jonathan Gudai
And just for shits and giggles, I’m going to throw in a green zero.
Barry Frey
Okay.
Jonathan Gudai
So someone’s guaranteed to win, and here we go. Spin it up, Adam.
Barry Frey
Spin the wheel. That’s key.
Jonathan Gudai
Spin and spin and spin.
Barry Frey
Well, that music is mysterious.
Jonathan Gudai
Oh, okay. All right. So, black baby.
Barry Frey
All right.
Jonathan Gudai
So for this opening sequence of our fun little podcast here, whatever color it lands on corresponds with a box that was brought over.
Barry Frey
So we win something no matter what.
Jonathan Gudai
And yet you are guaranteed. Wow, something. So why don’t you open that up and do the honors?
Barry Frey
Hey, dun dun dun dun. Here’s the box.
Jonathan Gudai
And what do we got here?
Barry Frey
Let’s see what this is here. It looks like a scotch. Okay.
Jonathan Gudai
Are you a scotch drinker?
Barry Frey
You know, I tend not to be a scotch drinker.
Jonathan Gudai
This is Glenmoore. 1980. Single malt scotch whiskey from the Highlands. But for today, I really wanted to raise a glass and propose a toast to our industry, to innovation, to the DPAA. To the great work you’re doing. And let’s talk about some of the bets that you personally are making and that you’re making on behalf of the great organization that you represent.
Barry Frey
Excellent. Jonathan, thanks for having me here. Cheers. And to some great scotch and a good friend and a great industry.
Jonathan Gudai
Cheers.
Barry Frey
Smooth after this let’s go to Scotland.
Jonathan Gudai
So as you think about today and into the future and the bets that you personally are getting behind or that you already have on the table, what are some of the things that come to mind?
Barry Frey
You know, what are the bets that we’re putting down now? Is global. And because we’re operating largely in the digital framework of the out of home world, global and digital across borders nicely you know it’s tougher for analog to have best practices data strategy programmatic across borders. But when you’re working in a digital world, in an electronic medium, in a digital framework, borders can really be crossed easily. And the growth opportunity for members learning from other members, from people connecting to other people in this digital, global fashion I think is pretty powerful. We’ve done this already. We have actually now I would say about almost 40% of our members are headquartered outside the U.S. at this point. And certainly you know, the U.S. is the big growth engine. But I came back from London a few weeks ago, and we’ve got a fellow there that’s, you know, kicking up some good dirt for us. And it’s I think that’s one of the bets. And it makes a lot of sense because we are operating in the digital forward world. You know, as we talked about the summit this year, we, you know, we got through the pain of COVID, which was tough for everybody. And, yes, you know, my summit a couple of years ago was all about resilience, reimagination and reinvention. And once we got past there, now it’s all about digital fast forward, which is probably the second bet. You know, it’s all about digital. And when we talk about digital for out of home, you know, we’re not just talking about screens, we’re talking about something you do great, which people wouldn’t imagine right away is user generated content. That’s a digital mechanism of working it out of media. We talk about AR, VR, we talk about 3D, we talk about digital data, digital targeting. Of course, we talk about screens as well. But it’s a digital mindset that I think is really going to be the growth area and the growth engine of that of home across, you know, every discipline. It’s a digital world, it’s a digital media world. And so those are two bets. You’ve caught me off guard. I have. There’s probably a third, but there’s some place. But maybe by the end of this, we’ll figure out what that is.
Jonathan Gudai
Yeah. And maybe we’ll touch upon each of those and I’ll give you a little perspective, at least from how we look at the global side and as a programmatic platform and one that is really looking to simplify the access to audiences. What programmatic has done and what your organization, the DPAA has done is bringing together media owners, technology providers, so that everyone is in it together. And I think that when you look at the major, you know, competing platforms priority now, other other, you know, ways that media buyers can spend their money. Scale is one of the first things that attracted the biggest brands. The PNGs to to those platforms. And so in a way we needed to band together and here we are drinking scotch and you have a beard and I don’t know if William Wallace with his blue eyes or what’s coming to mind here. But I feel like in many ways, you have United the Clans and done so really effectively. You brought us into the mix and now it’s saying, okay, well, the U.S., North America, there’s even a 40% is outside. There’s still so many that aren’t yet part of it. And as we add more into the mix and as the impressions and audience scale grows, the industry grows.
Barry Frey
You’re 100% right. And that was my vision from the beginning. And something we’re doubling down on again today. I mean, if you look at the behemoths out there in terms of, say, competition for the media, dollar, Google, Facebook, Twitter, you know, what people don’t realize is that one company is an example selling theme parks, U.K. television, U.S. TV, U.S. cable. That’s Comcast. You know, only by coming together, bringing all the global data companies together, the media owners together, the programatics, the DSP, the SSP, the hardware, the software. That’s what we’ve done and built this deep family. And I’m so glad you’re part of the leadership of the DPAA family because scale drives it. And what do you get with scale? You get knowledge, you get best practices, you get transferring of information. You know, you look at Google, how many brilliant engineers are sitting in their headquarters. You know, you’ve got some great engineers here, but you don’t have thousands. So, you know, as we take the use of all of our mechanisms and it’s great you know, what I pride myself on is we’ve built a nice community and I appreciate you noticing that Jonathan. The people were all good, decent people. They all kind of share and care and we’ve instituted that. I’ve actually have a, a bit of a, as you’ve seen and heard, a no asshole policy in our memberships. And if people don’t act right or don’t act decently or, you know, engage in subterfuge or other, you know, seemingly illicit types of actions, we find a way that they won’t be a member any longer. And we have a pretty good sense of that coming in. And we’ve dissuaded many people that we thought weren’t part of this kind of culture that we’ve built here. And it’s critical for me and the way I’ve lived my life and the way I’m living it forward as this is a forward thinking podcast, is that you’ve got to be around decent people. I knew, Jonathan, you were an amazing family man. You’ve got a great family. You’ve got a great wife and daughters. And I’ve met a lot of your relatives and the staff that you have, you know, also follows that if we’re not enjoying ourselves and being good, decent people, then we’re not doing the right thing.
Jonathan Gudai
Absolutely.
Barry Frey
Yeah.
Jonathan Gudai
And I think that at the end of the day, there’s principles that apply that almost never change, but sometimes aren’t always followed. And one of those that you’re talking about is quality over quantity. And, you know, we have a physical like screen that we’re connecting to almost a digital, you know, ad or piece of content on there. But it’s physical and there’s only so many digital out of home screens, digital billboards. And yes, we’re growing and there’s more screens being put out and there’s more audience to be reached. But it’s not like pixels. We’re dealing with atoms. And I think that when as we enter into the pure digital mix, which started a few years ago and is continuing to amplify, advertisers are thinking about quality versus quantity. And even if we take like a personal experience view of the last few years where we were told we can’t go out of our home and we were giving all of these different ways to communicate, it became a quantity game where it’s slacks and it’s IMessages and it’s your socials, emails and everything, and we just get bombarded and I think a lot of us, at least me personally, are feeling that the quality of being with people out of our home in what’s truly a true social environment is what we want and yearn. And I think that’s where, as the story gets told for why did you digital out of home in the mix? It’s asking people, what do you want to be spending your time doing? You want to be at another Zoom meeting? Do you want to be in front of a video game console? Or you want to be out at a ballgame or at a bar with friends or at a great restaurant or getting on a plane? And so I think that what you touched upon there, where there’s quality people in the industry, but there’s also a quality intrinsically to the medium. That I think everyone appreciates, but hasn’t yet necessarily put their dollars behind the way that they feel about the medium. What do you think about that?
Barry Frey
I think that’s very important. Look, we’re we’re human animals. We need to connect and we need to connect not necessarily only by Zoom, but in person. And that’s where when you’re experiencing a screen outside the home, you’re outside the home. Just the fact that you’re walking or you’re moving is getting the blood flowing. It’s you know, it’s getting you yourself in shape. And when the blood flows, the mind is stimulated and the heart is passionate. And that’s what life’s about. And I think we will see coming out of Zoom, maybe not five days a week, but coming out of COVID, of course, not five days a week. But I think we have to get together more. And we are humans and that’s how we connect. and yes. And out of home is that great connective tissue. Fabulous.
Jonathan Gudai
Yep. And from a trend perspective, you know, I started my career in e-commerce. My family had a small business that we took from offline catalogs to online, and that was 1999. And we watched as and participated as every major digital transformation happened from the emergence of Google to programmatic to social to mobile. And really looking at the last, you know, three or four years, it made sense that television transitioned to connected television, where you could do digital targeting and more flexible control. And one of the things that really excited me was just we started building Adomni in 2015 it we didn’t necessarily no have the we had a vision where there could be a marketplace that could make it easier but where things have been taken where it’s like there’s actually us kind of fitting into a digital ecosystem where, you know, you truly are part of an omnichannel buy. That wasn’t part of our thought process back then, but it very much is now. And I believe that that transformation you’re describing, where us as consumers, us as just individuals who want to leave our homes and and be out, translates also to a scale of audience, which translates also to the dollars. And so if CTV was the hot thing during the pandemic, and everyone’s at home as the new digital way to buy television that’s now programmatic and digital out of home is the next gen of this channel that just fits in. It’s another arrow in the quiver, but with the same premise and with everything else.
Barry Frey
Absolutely. And you mentioned this omnichannel world. Look, there’s consumers are touching every media point and brands want to touch every place that consumers are touching and digital out of home is incredible part of that. And we’re only moving more outside the home post-pandemic. So, you know, the opportunity to experience. I was in London. Outer mark is an amazing company. They have built a real estate and digital sign business with screens all around it and clothes and maybe we’ll when we cut this, I’ll show you some pictures of it and the brilliance of that experience and Piccadilly Lights and the power look at, you know, look at Times Square, you know, New Years as which is so-
Jonathan Gudai
It’s captivating.
Barry Frey
It’s captivating. And the power of video, it’s not a brand or a consumer that doesn’t get up every day and say, I love video. And now that you can capture this video outside the home on your daily journey is very powerful and it’s going to morph more in that direction.
Jonathan Gudai
Yeah, and I think your summit was even kind of badge that video everywhere, the video of a summit and you know, our company Adomni is literally that: advertise everywhere omnipresent. Right. And I think that’s the opportunity that bringing more, you know, screens together, bringing the technology, bringing the targeting and the measurement which we’ve done, you know, like a lot of innovation happened during the pandemic when we weren’t necessarily focused on the normal operating business. And so that’s one of our bets. I know you’ve made two bets. You know that the UGC was something that first people looked at it like, do we really want consumers on our screens? Does it have these negative qualities? And when done the right way, where it’s moderated properly, where it’s brand safe, where the brands are involved, we think it could be a really big way to pull in some brand new budgets that used to think of social a certain way. And now they say, Oh, it’s another screen. It’s just-
Barry Frey
I think that’s great, Jonathan, I got two thoughts for you on that. One is that I think we have a much better opportunity to moderate the content than digital media. And look, that has been the failing recently of Twitter and Meta and others, we have much tighter control on our medium because of the way it’s set up. And then the other thought I think we should work together and start having conversations with makers and the agencies that have these social media talents. And let’s start to educate them on the opportunity of this great new canvas and palette that they can not only create on TikTok, but they can create on Hollywood and Vine or in Times Square or in Las Vegas or, you know, Piccadilly Circus.
Jonathan Gudai
And the major platforms are spending hundreds of millions, even billions, trying to have more content created. And having these creators supported with different whether it’s AR experiences or different templates or themes or things that are that would make for a fun sort of application for that. And so the opportunity for for these creators where literally it’s, you know, like take Charli D’Amelio, who we did a partnership with, she was just this young girl that did, you know, some dance videos and then all of a sudden got a following and then all of a sudden has over 100 million people that are following her, her moves and the reaction people have to the screens when they see themselves on there, even if they’ve a hundred. Like when we did the Kylie Jenner campaign.
Barry Frey
Sure.
Jonathan Gudai
She’s got hundreds, millions of followers, but a like from hundreds of millions of people compared to being on a digital billboard or being in Times Square that is so much more valuable to them. Right. That’s that is like social-
Barry Frey
And they still get social, because people are taking pictures of the video in Times Square and then it becomes social amplified as well. So you’ve got both of that. But yeah, it’s you’ve got the opportunity to be on a big screen as opposed to a mobile screen, if got the opportunity to be engaging with other people and looking at it and pointing to it, and not just once again seeing it in your own cocoon, and then you have the opportunity to also socially amplify it on the other methods.
Jonathan Gudai
It’s not just reach and frequency and you just hitting them with the same CPG brands, product message over and over and over. It’s having creators showcase it in some fun stuff with it and then mix in the standard content. So it’s not either or like there is a blend, a harmony. The second is that programmatic digital out of home, UGC content from social, measurement of digital out of home campaigns, those are all very new and also very under the radar for a lot of buyers who are used to just, I buy Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or I do, you know, this type of programmatic display. And I think there’s a you know, you guys do great work to produce these events that bring people together. Your video shorts are awesome, but there is a huge gap between a planner and a buyer in other channels and those who can do the same tactics using our channel.
Barry Frey
That’s right.
Jonathan Gudai
And so I personally believe we are investing significant amounts into video content and I mean this podcast to just enlighten people about what exists, just hey, this exists and then how do we get them to actually take action? We want people to learn something and then apply it. So you’re not just watching how a bicycle was made and how people ride bicycles. You’re getting on the bicycle.
Barry Frey
Excellent.
Jonathan Gudai
I think that piece has been missing.
Barry Frey
Excellent
Jonathan Gudai
-in our space. And that’s one of the second bet that we’re-
Barry Frey
I love that. I’d like to tie together your last two bets. Education and then the power of content creators and video. We have a very unique medium here. If you look at where it’s experienced, how it’s experienced, the physicality of the medium, the digital nature of the medium, the success of media happens when people use it for its uniqueness and its power. As an example, the first television commercials basically was a radio announcer sitting at a desk, maybe something like this with a microphone, and he held up a product, it wasn’t whiskey in those days, but he basically held up the product in a radio format with the radio mic and said, buy this product. And those were the first TV commercials. And then when creative people got involved and the data, people got involved to see what worked and innovation happened, which is what’s happening now in our space. Then you had close ups and then you had primary movement and secondary movement and tertiary movement and you had quick cuts and you had music and sound and and they figured out how to use this medium that it’s not just radio plus a camera, but it’s a whole new medium.
Jonathan Gudai
Right.
Barry Frey
So as we get into, you know, the youth and the creators and the clever folks of the brand, you know, we have a creative council we formed now with some amazing, brilliant creative folks. They are going to, you know, do just what we’re talking about here. We built this creative council and it’s being led by Dan Dawson.
Jonathan Gudai
Brilliant guy.
Barry Frey
Brilliant guy. He runs a creative, a grand visual and talent based in London, really smart and once again, a great guy to the ethos of DPAA. Terrific guy. David Sable, who was the CEO Global of Young and Rubicon for 15 years, is on my creative counsel, John Bond Kirshenbaum And Bond, one of the brilliant creators, the head of creative at Gale Partners. And this group is going to innovate, create, set standards and really help this medium get to its next level. Just what you’re talking about as well. And let’s continue to collaborate on this as well, because they can weigh into the projects that you’re doing and give it some kind of stamp of approval. And this is where innovation happens from creative thinking, of course, with data, with attribution, with understanding the value of it. But we have such a wonderful opportunity to take this canvas, this palette, like I said before, and, and really blow it out and not just, do, you know, 15 second ads that run on social on the big screens.
Jonathan Gudai
Love it. I mean, that kind of dovetails with that first one about doing more, you know, doing more with what’s coming off the screen, what’s being projected from the screen. But I think it also touches my third bet and we’re-
Barry Frey
Dun dun dun dun.
Jonathan Gudai
We might share this. So you might not even have to think about the third one.
Barry Frey
Okay.
Jonathan Gudai
This is our shared one.
Barry Frey
Can I do a little announcement? And now the Jonathan Gudai. Third bid of the year from Las Vegas, Nevada. Here it is. Tell us, Jonathan, what is it?
Jonathan Gudai
It’s the jackhammer.
Barry Frey
The jackhammer
Jonathan Gudai
Thats it. The jackhammer. And you know what we are going to with this jackhammer? I guess, in your case, it would be like some sort of like medieval sword piledriver for William Wallace. But the jackhammer and what the jackhammer is doing is taking the legacy thought processes. And the legacy silos that have been built in all these organizations. And breaking it down, whether it’s jackhammering it, whether it’s taking a hammer to the wall, whatever the case may be, because I believe that creatives need to have a seat early on during the planning process to be thinking about how are we telling this story and using the different screens and different channels effectively. And that’s not happening. Like at least not, you know, enough when we say it’s a bet that we need to take a jackhammer to all these things, it’s not easy. I know the holding companies have been designed over many years with certain structures and it’s hard to reinvent. But I believe that by just showing them it’s another screen that has a purchasing mechanism. A measurement mechanism.
Barry Frey
We haven’t talked about QR codes and interactivity.
Jonathan Gudai
Yep. Right. All of that can feed into the same sort of way of buying it, the way of assessing how it’s working, that, that, that we can break down those silos and we can do that together. And that’s really, I think, where the true growth opportunity comes, when we’re not growing ten, 20% growing like what we should be growing.
Barry Frey
You’re 100% right. We focused since I’ve been doing this at the top brand levels, at the heads of agencies, at the top decision makers, because the closer you get down to the bottom, the more you’ve got less decision making and you’ve got more of a silo built in. And it’s interesting, if you think about it to some degree, the trend is our friend. I mean, the hold cos. are realizing this. We’ve seen lots of changes recently in the hold cos., kind of, you know, changing around especially out of home. I’ll never forget when Sir Martin Sorrell spoke at my conference in 19, he spoke about how he formed Kinetic early on to give a special attention to Out of Home. And then he realized that the special attention locked it within a silo and borders and minimized its growth and opportunity. And now Media Monks is one of the hottest shops around because they’re flexible, they’re nimble and they’re taking everything to account from the start. And the lower you get down the funnel, the more you’re siloed. And that’s why we spend a lot of our time with our members and introducing our members. The silos have not been decided yet. The fragments have not been cut off yet. And that’s really key that we do that. And let’s take a jackhammer to it, man.
Jonathan Gudai
Absolutely. And we’re doing it. We did a campaign with Activision this past fall, first of its kind, where it brought in UGC content and AR and your standard digital out of home sort of branded marketing all into one. We didn’t talk to their agency, we didn’t talk to their digital out of home specialist. This was a social buy where you had the CMO or, you know, key stakeholders sort of at that level involved in something that really hadn’t been done, at least in that space. And that was combining all those things for the launch of World of Warcraft. And it’s like it’s things like that when people realize, Oh, I didn’t know that that existed, where we together need to not just talk about here’s where we want to go, every opportunity to share was just done or did you know that you could do this? The tactical implementation side is what I think we need to paint that picture very clearly, and that’s our challenge. I mean, I think that we together from an industry perspective and from a platform vendor that’s doing some of these bleeding edge things, need to make sure that that story is being told. And you’re literally the ultimate storyteller there is.
Barry Frey
And you mentioned the CMO is look, the CMO wants to sell product. As you get further down the line, the TV buyer wants to accumulate rating points. The radio buyer may want reach across a few counties, but the more we speak to the person that wants to move brands and move product, the more we have a chance to really, you know, showcase this wonderful medium that we’re busy growing. And I love the jackhammer. And, you know, I’ve kind of always done that in my career. And, you know, to some degree, early on when I was on sales calls with Ted Turner, you know, we would go to ad agencies and they’d say, Nice to see you, Barry and Ted. Thanks for coming in, Ted can I have your autograph? And Barry like, what the fuck are you doing? And they would say, Well, you know, we have TV, radio, print and out-of-home budgets, but we don’t have any cable TV budgets and, you know, we would make the case that the people that were buying Toyotas were watching 50 channels and they were advertising on three. Maybe you need to do something different if you want to sell Toyotas.
Jonathan Gudai
Right.
Barry Frey
And we go out, speak to the brands directly and the CMOs, and the planners, you know, earlier up in the decision-making process. And that’s how we built a cable television industry. And then I did that in digital and then I did that and global all along. So it’s a that’s the good fight. And then we are fighting the good fight.
Jonathan Gudai
Thank you for joining me here. It’s been a pleasure. I know you’ve been lightly sipping this, but it is very good stuff. But we hope to see you guys around. And if you want to reach Barry Fry, what’s the best way to get hold of.
Barry Frey
Barry.Frey@DPAAglobal.com. Easily reached on LinkedIn and or ask anybody. Most people know me, but it’s quality scotch. It’s a quality company, a quality Adomini. And I love seeing your new quality headquarters here. It’s been refurbished since COVID and looks great. This is a lovely room and you’ve got a terrific staff working here and wonderful Adam and Joe. It’s, uh. This has been great, so thanks for having me. It’s great to see you, John.
Jonathan Gudai
Always a pleasure.