Episode 7
Billboards Bets and a bit of Booze
Join host Jonathan Gudai and guest Drew Berkowitz, the latest addition to Adomni as the EVP of Sales and Business Development. Embark on Drew’s journey from media buying to his agency experience and even his time at Comedy Central, all of which fueled his passion for joining the dynamic world of DOOH advertising.
Transcript
Jonathan Gudai
All right, Here we are on Billboards, Bets, and a Bit of Booze. I am Jonathan Gudai, your host here with Drew Berkowitz, EVP, Sales and Biz Dev for Adomni. Welcome. Welcome.
Drew Berkowitz
Thank you. Thank you. Wow! Big applause.
Jonathan Gudai
Great. Absolutely. While we have a tradition here of placing a bet on a roulette wheel. And then kicking things off with a little bit of booze. So in the time-honored tradition, if you could place $100 worth of chips on the roulette wheel, let’s give it a spin.
Drew Berkowitz
Okay, great. How many – do I just pick as many numbers as I want?
Jonathan Gudai
You got four chip chips.
Drew Berkowitz
Fantastic. I know a lot of people on the podcast have already picked number 18. That is my birthday and it hasn’t hit yet. So I’m going 18.
Jonathan Gudai
18.
Drew Berkowitz
Yeah.
Jonathan Gudai
Lucky number 18.
Drew Berkowitz
And I’m going to go for 22.
Jonathan Gudai
22, 22, Black.
Drew Berkowitz
29 black.
Jonathan Gudai
That’s my birthday, which is coming up here this weekend. Okay. I like it. I like it.
Drew Berkowitz
I don’t remember the next number on the wheel for that.
Jonathan Gudai
How about green?
Drew Berkowitz
I’m just going to go- let’s do green that way. Zero.
Jonathan Gudai
Guaranteed a winner. All right.
Drew Berkowitz
Covered our basis.
Jonathan Gudai
No further bets..
Drew Berkowitz
This is my first bet of the week, by the way. Here we go.
Jonathan Gudai
All right. You know they still have them at the airport.
Drew Berkowitz
So that’s true. That’s true.
Jonathan Gudai
You’re last. And-
Drew Berkowitz
Oh, no. Oh my goodness.
Jonathan Gudai
Five red. We gotta we got to a-
Drew Berkowitz
Missed it. Tribute
Jonathan Gudai
All right, So what do we got here, Luba? All right. Check it out.
Drew Berkowitz
Yeah. When we got 1980, oh, the 39 year old Oak Barrel. Nice.
Jonathan Gudai
All right, let’s crack that open.
Drew Berkowitz
Yeah, let’s do it.
Jonathan Gudai
You can do the honors. All right. Cheers. L’chaim.
Drew Berkowitz
Cheers.
Jonathan Gudai
That’s nice. That’s really nice. So, on billboards, bets and booze. We’re, you know, future casting. But it’s always nice to learn a little bit about our guests, especially, you know, a special guest who is having a very important role at our company, maybe just a little bit about, you know, your background and then we’ll talk about, you know, why Adomni, why digital out of home, what excited you about joining here? And then we can look at some of the bets that you are thinking about.
Drew Berkowitz
Yeah absolutely. I started my career on the agency side, actually. I got out of school. I really wanted to do something a little bit more creative. And so I, you know, learned media buying on that side. I was covering clients like Procter Gamble, KitchenAid, Sterling Drugs, AT&T. But one of the things that I was doing for our head of the department at that time was I was reading scripts for General Motors and AT&T to sponsor for branded content. This was a show that would show up on PBS.
Jonathan Gudai
Okay.
Drew Berkowitz
And they were, you know, sponsored programming what’s really, really fun programs and stars. And again that fascinated me to be part of that. But at the same time, I was getting called on all the time by salespeople wanting me to spend my money with them on their broadcast. TV You’re talking broadcast back here.
Jonathan Gudai
Yeah. You were being catered to.
Drew Berkowitz
I was being catered to and it was fantastic. I was being treated to skyboxes at the Knick games, tickets and concerts and all that great stuff. But I also realized two things. One, I wanted to control that part of it. You know, I wanted to be the one to decide when I go, where I go, how I go. I also realized they were making a lot more money than I was as a media buyer. Yeah, salespeople, right? Had an had an opportunity to go to go make a lot of money. And so I wanted to go into sales, found my way into a training program back in the day at Turner Broadcasting, where one of your other guests, Barry Frey, had started and learned a lot about sales back then. It was ruthless, right? It was things that you cannot do in this day and age. It is a great training program. I learned a lot. Moved over to Comedy Central. Comedy Central was just, you know, kind of getting and catching on and cable world premiere. Now I moved from broadcast to cable. Cable was really just starting out. Comedy Central was, you know, one of the smaller, smaller cable stations at that point. And then South Park hit and exploded. Now, you know, everyone wanted to be on Comedy Central. Calls were coming in.
Jonathan Gudai
Exclusive, right? You guys were the only-
Drew Berkowitz
Only yeah we had the exclusive so only one showing South Park and it took off. People were talking about it. It was just one of the hottest shows out there, but the same eight salespeople. We didn’t get any smarter. We just had a really hot show. Right. And video to me has been everything, right? I grew up glued to television. And that’s why I wanted to go into the medium and why I was so fascinated about being part of, you know, programs and companies that were putting together shows and content because that, you know, whether content is king or whether audiences is king or distribution is king, content obviously FUELS you know what what people are watching and therefore obviously what brands, you know, want to associate with because the audience is there. So I went through Comedy Central and video then ended up on the digital side. I actually transitioned to Comedy Central from selling their TV to selling digital back in the early days of the Web business.
Jonathan Gudai
Okay.
Drew Berkowitz
I thought I knew everything.
Jonathan Gudai
That would be their Website. Essentially.
Drew Berkowitz
Website. Yeah. Okay.
Jonathan Gudai
So banner ads, early banner ads, display ads. Yeah.
Drew Berkowitz
Yeah. That’s exactly. I mean, this is Web 101, right? No broadband. No broadband. There was no video.
Jonathan Gudai
Gifs. Lots of low-grade gifs.
Drew Berkowitz
Oh, yeah. It was terrible. Yeah.
Jonathan Gudai
Yeah.
Drew Berkowitz
Basically, it was like what’s what’s what’s on tonight on The Daily Show. What’s on South Park tonight? Like, it was like our channel list and guide and then banner ads. I went and partnered with our television team. We went out to brands. We started talking about this new business, the web, and how you can start reaching new audiences there. So you’re, you know, expanding your reach from one medium into this new medium, you know, similar to a fast forward. Well, we’ll talk about in a minute like where we are today. You know, I thought I knew everything I was, I don’t know, 26, 27 years old, if I knew everything. So I’m like, I’m going to help these digital companies, these new startups launch their business. So I took Comedy Central’s business, went out and started my own consulting company. And for eight years I was out. Yeah, doing my own thing, you know, signing up new partners, helping them with their sales and marketing organizations going on the road, you know, with their sellers and trying to, you know, do partnerships and all sorts of content marketing and all that. You know, some organizations, they were a little bit further along. They had sales teams already set up. So I’d go in and help train them and put together materials and advise on how to go to market. Yeah, others were really just starting off. So was it do we hire a third-party sales arm to go help you guys sell it or do we build something internally depending on how much money, you know, how much money they had? But we had talked to, you know, it was the heyday of the web. There was a lot going on. Yeah, a lot of great parties, a lot of bad money being spent.
Jonathan Gudai
Right. A ton of waste.
Drew Berkowitz
A lot of waste. Yeah. And so, you know, it was frustrating after a while and I ended up, you know, looking for obviously a real job. And I had health insurance and, you know, a steady paycheck. Yeah. I ended up at IAC.
Jonathan Gudai
Okay.
Drew Berkowitz
And helped launch you know 12, I was overseeing 12 disparate sites that they had. They were doing some fun toolbar activations with websites but one little website that was at IAC that people were playing around with was this company called Vimeo. Again, another lesson in the sales lifecycle of, you know, success. For Vimeo, as we were just starting out, we were looking to do something a little bit unique. You know, we weren’t doing any IAB standard units. So how do you help brands connect with audiences through this medium and do it in a different and unique way to capture, you know, a consumer’s attention? We ended up just, again, you know, being proactive in the market and having different conversations with brands and understanding what they’re looking to achieve, working together to figure out how we can do something a little bit special and different. Worked with Honda to do this small little integration that expanded beyond the frame of the video. And I guess I wouldn’t have thought much of it at the time. But people that are really obsessed with video production, they’re like, Wow, this is incredible.
Jonathan Gudai
Yeah.
Drew Berkowitz
And it made such, you know, I don’t even know how big Social was at the time, but it certainly spread like wildfire across the industry. I guess we were in Ad Week and Ad Age, right? We had press and so other marketers, you know, wanted to replicate or do something also special with us, right? How do we use these screens to do something more creative that hasn’t been done before that can capture the imagination of audiences and make us stand out above, you know, other brands? And I think, again, you know, not to skip the rest of my journey in terms of how I got here. But, you know, fast forward to the medium that we’re in, right. You know, the talk about one of the bets, right, is the creativity of what you can do in the digital out of home space. And I, I, you know, I’m so new in it, but yet I want to say maybe I hope I do offend anyone, but we are just scratching the surface. I mean we haven’t even scratched the surface. Right. There’s so much that we can do as an industry to leverage these screens and how we can do something really special and unique with brands’ creative. I’m always trying to think that way.
Jonathan Gudai
Yeah I agree. We hear a lot that, you know, creative optimization or creative, you know, design for the space is an area that’s just we are weak. And it’s not just us, it’s the brands, the planners, the creative agencies, and how they’re there putting these things together. And when you describe this Honda thing where you’re watching a video and then and then you know something, the car comes out or there’s some really interesting almost 3D effect. It reminded me of what’s going on now with anamorphic 3D billboards. It’s just a video playing on a spectacular screen, but it’s been thoughtfully designed where the edges it’s like trimmed down where there’s this effect as if the shoe is coming off of what would be the border of it. But it’s really just an effect where it’s still the same shape thing and it’s still just a video file and you’re not wearing 3D glasses. And it’s but it’s just doing it like that where it’s it’s just doing more with what exists and letting the creatives actually make the canvas pop with more and more visual interest.
Drew Berkowitz
Yeah, absolutely.
Jonathan Gudai
Yeah. I mean, that reminded me of that.
Drew Berkowitz
There’s so, you know, the spectaculars obviously are one size that is really mesmerizing. As we talked about the step into Times Square, step into Vegas and walking you know the sphere what’s happening right. So these canvases are, you know, getting more interesting and bigger but even the smaller ones in the unique places that they’re in offer an opportunity for brands to truly connect with audiences in unique ways and different ways. And I think, you know, as we fast forward into interactivity and AI and creator-led content, right again, where, you know, we’re just at the beginning.
Jonathan Gudai
Mm hmm. Mm hmm. And that’s so that’s the first bet in that taking some of your creative, I guess, personal interest, going back to, you know, graduating from Maryland and now fast forward to today where it’s how we take some of those things and weave them into the sales process itself and having brands think about that and do something better than maybe what they’ve done in the past. Yeah. Is that where your head’s at as far as BET number one?
Drew Berkowitz
That’s my first bet. Okay, I’m going to put the chips down on creativity.
Jonathan Gudai
Okay.
Drew Berkowitz
Yeah. Hopefully, it works better than number 18.
Jonathan Gudai
I think so. So leading with creativity is awesome. All right. So that’s BET one.
Drew Berkowitz
The idea again for there’s so much opportunity for people to create unique dynamic content quickly. They need a place to then create and or connect with audiences. We obviously can identify social as a quick step, but digital out-of-home comes right back to that, right? How do we take advantage of these screens and the audiences that we can connect with and help leverage content that, you know, publishers, brands, you know, creators of all kinds, they want to get out, you know, in front of audiences, you know, outside of their small screens. How do you connect with them off of these other channels?
Jonathan Gudai
And the world we live in now where we’re just bombarded with new content, new shows, new information, new requests, You know, Slack’s, all that. I feel like I feel like our brains have just evolved to need to consume new. Like we’re just moving from the next new thing over and over and over. And I and I, I feel like there’s got to be research that’s showing that if you’re not feeding the new, then what’s old almost gets tuned out because our brains can’t like, they’re oriented. They’re now designed to work in that new model. Do you see what I’m saying? Like that resonate?
Drew Berkowitz
Absolutely. And yeah, I don’t have that research to back it up, but I’m hoping, I’m guessing that those publishers that we were selling into understood that concept. You’re talking about a brand that wants to associate with a moment of something that happened. They want to be the first to be the one that ties themselves to it. Put that out there, because that’s again, the audience is going to gravitate to that newness.
Jonathan Gudai
And the notion that, you know, what’s happened in social for that, which has been proven to work from a financial perspective and also from an audience perspective. Now taking that outside of the box, what did you mean by like, how do you see that transferring from the phone to these other screens?
Drew Berkowitz
Well, I think the second bet of mine is personalization, right? And I haven’t figured out yet all the tricks of how you do it from digital out of home. But I think, you know, as we fast forward through it and digital screens allow for that, you know, with the technologies that we’re capturing, you know, through mobile devices or ID devices, how do you then supplement it so that you’re taking what you’re seeing on the big screen? We can already do that and then put it through an omnichannel approach, right? What’s the technology needed to do it in the reverse way? You know, how can I take, you know, a group of people that are around a certain gym, you know, at a certain time I go to the gym every morning, I see the same exact people, right? I don’t know what kind of content they’re all watching, but imagine if I could grab all that content and understand the types of people that were there in that gym. And now I’m serving it up on the digital out-of-home screens. I’m going the reverse way. And so I think the personalization of, you know, what people are watching and capturing and then, you know, capturing them in that contextual relevant moment, right, is really the next step for brands in this business.
Jonathan Gudai
Yeah. And with trends away from the cookie, you know, the cookie and the, you know, the, the mobile device ID that’s then Cross-Device tracked that contextual relevance, whether it’s time of day or its geography or its venue type, like our world with Digital out of Home, where we really think about our screens not just as a TV screen, but it’s what environment is it in? And then how does that also influence the audience that’s probably there? And then the dwell time that they’re there, all those ingredients are now data points and what you’re describing there of like a personalization element is branding actually using that where they used to say, you know, for gym goer I want to reach people that, you know, are looking for protein shakes or you know, there’s some new kind of healthy food delivery service or something like that where, you know, you have people that care about their well-being, their health, their their fitness, and you know that they’re going to be in a gym for maybe 45 minutes to an hour, whatever the average, you know, workout time is how you can influence them with better creative than just taking your TV spot what used to be your 15/30 second, throwing that up there for any product and now adding a little bit of that personalization so that it actually speaks to them in a mindset sort of way? Right?
Drew Berkowitz
Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, it’s I think again, we’re just, you know, at the beginning of that technology, you know, revolution. Yeah. Logical revolution to put those pieces together to again personalize the out-of-home experience for users. And I think there’s also I don’t know if the next bet is interactivity I don’t know or if it’s creator content. I don’t know how many bets I can do, but you know, getting audiences involved with content, you know, So the last part of my journey right before here was working with content creators in the space and, you know, the reason why they become so powerful. And again, this isn’t anything unique, right? You know, I think it was Barry on his podcast. He was talking about the first commercial, or it was an actor who stood up with a bottle and pitched something and is that that’s an influencer. Now, he might have called him, you know, a celebrity. Celebrity. Yeah, right, Right. But that’s what an influencer does. Now, these influencers and creators are hitting a new generation, my kids generation. That’s all they know. I always joke that, you know, if you went on to that man on the street, you know, a 12 to 13, 14 year old and I showed them, I’m making this up. This is probably not true. You know, a picture of Brad Pitt in a picture of Mr. Beast. Who would they recognize? Right. You know, and so the creators are really building these audiences that trusted, you know, connection. But there’s also that fun element of interactivity. That was the whole idea on live streaming on platforms like Twitch and YouTube, where the creators are getting the community involved with the action. It’s not just a passive-
Jonathan Gudai
Not one way.
Drew Berkowitz
Yeah, yeah. They’re actually 1. Chatting throughout the entire broadcast, the creator is asking them questions. They’re connected, you know, in a unique way. I would never get to ask a question to Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt. You know, now, but I can actually speak with you. I feel much closer to you. And so now when you go up onto the big screen, I’m, you know, fascinated. I’m connected. I know you. I feel like I know what you’re talking about. And when you have that product with you, I’m in, you know.
Jonathan Gudai
Yeah. And when you think of that cohort and what they respond to, this notion that the UGC element of it is leaving the phone and going to these bigger screens, if you were to ask them, would they be influenced by that, how would they not be right? Because that’s how everything else is. That’s the way they’re consuming, that’s the way they’re taking it in, right? Absolutely. It’s almost obvious that UGC should be part of it. So why do you think UGC hasn’t entered into the real world yet?
Drew Berkowitz
Well, I think I think it’s there. I think there are a lot of brands who are using it. I don’t think it is as big as it can be or should be, because I think, you know, again, there are some hurdles in terms of brand safety and legal, you know, jargon that you have to go through. So maybe the barrier to entry is a little tougher. But I think, again, you know, as we continue to evolve, unfortunately what’s happening now with the writer’s strike or the actor’s strike, I think every time that happens, you’re going to get more a look at UGC content. And eventually, you know, it’ll start to transition where it’s 50% of like I don’t, you know, whatever the numbers are, it’ll, it’ll continue to build for sure. The amount of content that’s uploaded on platforms like TikTok now, I mean, how can you not want to grab that as a brand, right? And do something with it. And you’re seeing that happen. They’re going to be able to now take that and transition it from the small screen onto the big screen.
Jonathan Gudai
Yeah, Yeah. I mean, maybe there is just things that happened in the pandemic that unlocked this whole new wave right where it was. There wasn’t a lot of like movies and things being produced. And so there was looking for entertainment a different way. There was, you didn’t have a menu that was physically printed at a restaurant. You were scanning QR codes. And so then all of a sudden the QR code revolution happened. And then there’s just this this notion of kind of fragmentation where now you have so many streaming services and you’ve so many different outlets to consume content that people are just back to like, I just want a few. and that’s why TikTok, you know, as one example is just so powerful because it’s it’s, it’s expanding beyond the original kind of value provided to now there’s so many hyper relevant pieces of content that can be fed to you on a daily basis that you don’t necessarily even turn on the TV late at night. You’re just on your phone and it’s enjoyable or you’re on the train on the way to, you know, your office in New York and you’re consuming that short-form content. And that’s where your attention has shifted.
Drew Berkowitz
Totally. I mean, I know at least one person who can’t get off of it. I won’t name them.
Jonathan Gudai
Yeah, no, that’s what is happening all over. It’s also interesting how it’s going beyond just the young generations. You know.
Drew Berkowitz
Yeah, absolutely, yeah, this is the one social platform. I mean, I you know, as Facebook started to age up, the younger generation wanted off. Not going to be on that same platform that my parents and my aunts and uncles are on.
Jonathan Gudai
Right.
Drew Berkowitz
But this platform, that hasn’t happened, you know, yet. I see every generation getting you know. Yeah.
Jonathan Gudai
And it’s also interesting that not everyone is creating for it, right? So you have a huge audience that maybe even the older, you know, demographics that are just consumers, that is a channel. This is like a way for them to get their entertainment. And to your point about interactivity, and you see this in like the Asian countries, you know, that are more progressive when it comes to technology and cultural sort of adoption of new technology like China and whatnot. How this all in one apps, you know, where they’re doing everything shopping from their social app, talking to their friends, you know, entertainment. You know, I think the ability that your phone becomes the gateway to doing everything and whether it’s pressing it in TikTok to go buy that dress you liked or that whatever that video game that you want to, then, you know, get on your your PC to, then that’s that same sort of experience being on a big screen where you see UGC creator that you would recognize from your phone in your hometown that has a QR code where there’s it’s a shop, there’s a shoppable element to it. That’s what’s happening, right?
Drew Berkowitz
Again, engaging audiences onto the screen and getting them involved with the content, right? Exponentially helps brands, you know, in terms of that purchase intent and lift and favorability and the shopability. What’s happening on social now can absolutely move into the screen so that when I’m sitting on that train and I’m looking up and I see something that I can buy right away, you know, it’s I can take the QR code or, you know, I’m just going to jump onto my phone and purchase it through –
Jonathan Gudai
Right.
Drew Berkowitz
–You know, through the creativity that that I’m seeing on the digital out of home screens. Yeah. So again that you know, next touchpoint if you combine all those elements of all my bets right that’s the excitement of digital out of home. And to finish up my journey that’s why I ended up over here.
Jonathan Gudai
Because you saw it. You saw the ingredients.
Drew Berkowitz
All the ingredients.
Jonathan Gudai
Yeah. The video and with the personalization, with the UGC and, and interactivity. But yet it’s not, it’s not, it has not been adopted at scale yet.
Drew Berkowitz
Yeah. You know I’m, I’ve graduated Jonathan. I’m tired of creating for the small screen. I want the big giant screen now.
Jonathan Gudai
Yeah. Yeah. No there’s nothing like it. You know, I was on Rick Robinson’s podcast. He’s like, What’s the one thing that you can do with out of home that in 5 minutes just say, what’s the one thing that that no other channel could do? And it’s that feeling. You know, there is a feeling for the buyer who’s literally planning it and thinking about like these huge canvases that all of a sudden they’re creative, they’re brand, they’re logo can show up on. And then there’s the platform experience of like, wow, I can have all those screens added to my campaign plan and throw a little audience overlay into that and, and control the budgets. And then ultimately it’s that end consumer or end user. If there is a creator involved and they’re seeing themselves on 3200 link NYC screens around New York as part of a campaign where they’ve never left the phone, have this huge audience, they’re more proud of that than the biggest, most liked, you know, piece of content they did on Instagram or TikTok.
Drew Berkowitz
Absolutely. I was at the Yankee game with my boys right before I came out here.
Jonathan Gudai
Okay.
Drew Berkowitz
You know, when they put the cameras across the fans on the Jumbotron, right? People go nuts. Yeah. They want to see themselves on the big screen. Yeah, right. And so, you know, it’s no different. Creator wants to see themselves on that screen as well and they get excited about it.
Jonathan Gudai
Yeah. No, it’s a visceral, just authentic feeling and vibe and also something that you, if you actually get there, you want to share that too. So that’s what really fascinates me. How does that out of home experience through the creators, through the personalization actually make its way back to social.
Drew Berkowitz
Absolutely. Yeah. And I know it’s been talked about here as well. I don’t know what the numbers are either. I would love to track that virality and that earned media to show brands how much they’re getting not just on the digital out of home screens. Right. What is being talked about and shared about now and that’s the currency of social right? Whether it’s the likes or, you know, the shares or the comments. Yeah, right. Clearly, if it’s up on the big screen, we can’t do that. But once people are taking those photos and videos, whether it’s of themselves or a 3D moment that they love and they’re sharing it on social, how do we track that to tie it back to the campaigns. And I think we’re going to see, you know, again, just incredible results.
Jonathan Gudai
So much creative potential juices with this. And when you actually give it to the people who are creating the virality, potential and then the unexpected. Right. The serendipity that can be created there is super powerful.
Drew Berkowitz
Yeah, it’s exciting. I’m really excited and I am, you know, totally excited for this next step of my journey. Yeah. Because I think this again, allows for all the experiences that I’ve had over my career. All the pieces are coming together and an opportunity to really, you know, work with you and the team to help this build into something really incredible. You know, I’m excited. Yeah.
Jonathan Gudai
Awesome. Well, Drew, welcome to the team.
Drew Berkowitz
Thank you. Cheers.
Jonathan Gudai
Cheers. Here’s to our sales and partnerships and growth and having a lot of fun along the way.
Drew Berkowitz
You got it. Let’s do it. Cheers.