114-lynn-palmer

Gordon Stevens:

Greetings everyone and welcome to another serving of Bizness Soup Podcast Radio. If it’s in business, it’s Bizness Soup. Your host is the incomparable John DeBevoise. Today, John will be talking with Lynn Palmer, the VP of sales and marketing manager in San Diego for Clear Channel Outdoor, an innovative out-of-home advertising company focusing on billboards, airport signs, and other outdoor advertising options. Gone are the days of billboards giving directions to the local eatery. Now these billboards are now electronic and can not only change their message by the second, they incorporate technology used by social media and OTT advertisers by gathering consumer information that puts your billboard in the perfect spot. So pull up a chair and sit on down. Billboard advertising is about to be served right here on Biz Soup. 

John DeBevoise (00:53): 

Lynn, welcome to this serving of Bizness Soup. 

Lynn Palmer (00:56): 

Hi there. Thank you for having me. 

John DeBevoise (00:57): 

It’s a pleasure. You are part of the biggest exposure company out there, outdoor advertising, the billboards, and that’s the entity of Clear Channel that you’re involved with. How would I know it’s a Clear Channel Billboard when I’m racing by it on the freeway? 

Lynn Palmer (01:13): 

Wow, that’s a great question. We’re in the business of focusing on who the advertiser is on the board, more than who owns the board, but if you were driving down the freeway and you saw a board and you wanted to know if it was a Clear Channel board, in the very bottom center of the board, you’ll see our logo. So our logo is really not what’s meant to be focused on, it’s the advertiser message. But if you look really closely, you’ll see the Clear Channel logo there in the middle of the board. 

John DeBevoise (01:39): 

Well, outdoor advertising or billboards has changed over the generations that I’ve used them. And what I learned in my early days was that there are a lot of billboard companies out there. You’re just not the only player. You might be the biggest player, but there are a lot of families that have these billboards on private property, including my property and such. And so that you end up having a rental agreement and for the business owners out there and property owners, lessors, there’s that aspect of the business where you are renting property from the property owner and putting up whether it be your billboard or in many cases, it’s a cell tower. You are renting that property on a long-term basis for your billboards. So you have a secure place where you can do business and your business is the billboard. What kind of businesses do you find have transitioned into billboards these days and what were they before? And now you have these electronic billboards. How has the market changed over the past decade or so? 

Lynn Palmer (02:36): 

In a lot of rural areas, billboards were used for directional, like when you’re talking about some of the smaller companies where it’s owned by a family and you’re driving down the road in let’s say rural Texas or rural Oklahoma, there would be billboards that would direct you to exit here for gas or 10 miles next exit for gas. And really our billboard industry, the out-of-home industry has come a long way. And now we’re focused around driving our customer’s business and we’re focused on delivering audiences. So in the past, it was that directional message, right? So exit here and now it’s really more about, we have proprietary data that Clear Channel has put together using mobile data. So we know a lot of information about where people go, where they travel, where they eat, where they work out and we use that aggregate mobile data so that we can create custom audiences for our inventory. 

Lynn Palmer (03:38): 

So we know for example, billboards that are indexing really high for people that are quick serve restaurant customers. We know billboards that index really high for people that are going to their financial institution. So, it’s more about understanding the audience and the behavioral characteristics of those audiences and less about just being directional. And one of the things I like to say is out-of-home in this world, when you can DVR your favorite television show and it’s harder and harder to reach people, out-of-home is the mass reach medium that really helps reach that customer. And then we help that business connect to their customer, either online or with phone numbers. And I’ve seen it work for really large businesses and really small businesses, that mom and pop [inaudible 00:00:04:33] too, so. We’ve come a long way from being that board just on the side of the road. 

John DeBevoise (04:38): 

Yes. Well, you were talking about in Texas, we can bring it closer to home because we’re both in the Southern California locale and well, you go out to Vegas and there’s turn right here, take next exit or the casinos. Or, if you’ve been injured, you may be entitled to in compensation. I get out to Vegas and I think, “My gosh, everybody must be a horrible driver out here because everybody’s getting sued.” So it has evolved into these electronic billboards, which are fascinating and you’re on over almost a half a million displays across the world and you were mentioning, something that I wasn’t familiar with and how you’re able to aggregate the information. How do you do that with a billboard that’s outside and just cars are driving by? 

Lynn Palmer (05:24): 

The actual billboard itself is not collecting any data or information. What we use is we use consumers cell phone data in aggregate to understand information about them. For example, me, in a normal non-pandemic year, my cell phone knows where I live and then the direction I drive to work. And then on my way to work, I stop at Starbucks. I grab my Starbucks coffee. Then I go to the office and then I take my cell phone with me when I go lunch, when I come back. And then when I stop at my yoga studio and then when I come home. So my cell phone knows a lot of data about me and my behaviors. So we take that data on a mass scale in aggregate across the country to understand what billboards index high for someone who is visiting a Starbucks, for example, in my story or somebody who is going to their yoga studio. 

Lynn Palmer (06:25): 

So its anonymous information. They don’t know my name. They don’t know information about me, but it understands what my behaviors are. And so we take that information and then we work with our customers to help them put together programs that are reaching those audiences. You mentioned casinos. One of the things that we can look at and understand is casino goers. So, we know if somebody is going to the casino because their cell phone is at the casino for a few hours, X number of times. And so we can use that data to then go back to our casino customers and say, “Hey, look, here are some areas that have high numbers of casino goers. And this board index is really high for casino goers. You might want to look at advertising here rather than just a board that is on the way to the casino.” So it’s just a different way of targeting audiences based on their behaviors. 

John DeBevoise (07:23): 

And we’ve talked on this program about how television is using that same type of information, because they have the same resources that you have, your cell phone, your browser, Google knows all. But they don’t know you individually and we’re describing here, it’s just a series of numbers. And if I have Bob’s or say John’s coffee shop, and I want to hijack Lynn over to my coffee shop, I know that she travels in this direction to a Starbucks or anyone else in the Starbucks, I could strategically place my John’s coffee shop, turn left here, or, download or go here and give them a call to action, trying to pirate you from your Starbucks. 

Lynn Palmer (08:08): 

I think that the way I would look at that as mediums are working well together and not necessarily just pirating someone. But if the client knows that they want to reach that consumer, it might be a good opportunity for them to utilize both television and out-of-home together. 

John DeBevoise (08:24): 

I’ve seen where the television in this particular case, is able to know what you’re watching and what you like, which was kind of scary when I saw that and I didn’t even know I had a camera in my television. And then when I discovered this, I went home and covered that little thing up. But in the case with the billboard, I can strategically place my market along a freeway, say the 15 or the 5 or the 8 [inaudible 00:08:53] Southern California, or anywhere within the reach of Clear Channel. And if I know that there are people that consume my goods and services, I can place an advertisement on your billboard in the direction that they are traveling, knowing that I’m going to get more of them, because there’s a pattern of people that use or consume my product goods and services. 

Lynn Palmer (09:13): 

And that’s one of the things that’s really interesting about it is that, we also know that in the example that I gave about driving from my house and then stopping at the Starbucks, I would be exposed to the board facing in one direction and not if there was a board on the backside, but I wouldn’t be exposed to that one on my way into Starbucks. So we look at the direction that someone travels and we are able to be very strategic in where we would place ads for that customer. So that like you’re saying, we would be reaching that consumer before they go into Starbucks or a consumer before they go into a retailer. So it’s a great way to have mass reach, but also to be extremely strategic about that placement. And that’s where I think we’ve come such a long way from those days, like we were talking about where it’s just a board on the side of the road, telling you to exit here. 

Lynn Palmer (10:08): 

And you also talked about our digital, our new digital boards. And that is where it’s such an amazing capability for our customers. We have the capabilities to give you the keys where you recreate a template ad, and then you can update and change that content on your own. So for example, if you were a banking institution and you wanted to focus on whatever were the current rates of your CDs, that’s something where you can be connected, where you could update that content, or it can be done if you have some sort of an RSS feed that updates that for you. It can be tied directly to that RSS feed. So we’ve done some fun things with advertisers. 

Lynn Palmer (10:56): 

We worked with a mountain resort and we had ads that were adjusted based on the snowfall. So when there would be a certain snowfall, certain ads would run. So there’s a lot of capabilities that our digital ads have that make it an opportunity to be extremely relevant. You can even, much like radio, you could run a commercial in the morning, that’s advertising, “Hey, stop and get your coffee.” And then you could on a hot day, run a different commercial in mid-day saying, “Stop and get your milkshake.” So a lot of creative flexibility and message flexibility that really didn’t exist with the traditional old, like you were talking about, seeing [crosstalk 00:11:40] someone paint the board and now it’s digital and it has capabilities to change within seconds. 

John DeBevoise (11:47): 

We were talking off air about this and my first experience in billboards was off of the interstate eight in Diego. And I was told I needed some direction to a gas station truck stop that I owned. And it was one of the most difficult decisions I had to spend that 700 bucks and the guy was hanging from a rope, painting my logo on this giant billboard. I’m going, “How does he do that?” And of course, things have come a long way since those days of hanging off the top of the billboard. But my business expanded greatly just from this one sign, take the off ramp coming up and where all these people come from. So I saw the value of it, but once I had it painted, there was no, “Oh, I’d like to throw in a coupon or something, have that guy climb up there and paint it again.” The digital boards give you, and I didn’t know this, the opportunity to update change. I would imagine somebody is overseeing my creativity at your office. 

Lynn Palmer (12:47): 

We have a team that, I call it our version of NASA and they sit back and there are algorithms that we have. So, like I said, you can have the keys to this template and update things on your own, but we have algorithms that if you tried to put some sort of a bad word or certain things, that it would be automatically kicked out, but we do have our NASA central that makes sure that all of our digital across the country is running and that everything’s running smoothly. And so that capability to have something and have your message changed in seconds is revolutionary, I think, to our industry and for our customers that really do embrace that and utilize that capability. 

John DeBevoise (13:33): 

Now as a business owner in the digital world as it has changed, it sounds like it would be a good idea for me to coordinate, perhaps, my social media marketing, or perhaps text marketing along with all other forms, including the outdoor advertising or the billboards, so that the same message is seen and/or heard we’ve got to throw in radio, that’s both our backgrounds. So I can actually coordinate that with other messaging or other advertising programs so that they see the same message and it’s that repetitiveness that is so important in marketing. And there it is. I got a text message and they look up, there’s Bizness Soup on the billboard. Hey, you got to stop in and get my Biz Soup brew or something like that. So do you work with the marketing agencies of small business owners? How do you bring that all together? 

Lynn Palmer (14:26): 

Well, it depends on the customer. A lot of our larger customers are working with media agencies who are coordinating all of that and controlling their media plans. But you’re absolutely right. I mean, I think that all media works best when there’s a consistent message and consistency across all that they’re doing. And when we work with smaller businesses, local owned businesses, that’s one of things that we make sure that we work with them on. So, if they’re already doing an ad in the newspaper or on radio, we try to make sure that we’re utilizing the same messaging and keeping that consistent for them when we’re creating the messages. So our involvement in that planning really just depends on the size of the customer. But one of the things I shared with you before, I think we started chatting and more in [inaudible 00:15:17] is that I have that background in radio and when I started in out-of-home, I was really amazed at how out-of-home, it’ll work for that small, small business. 

Lynn Palmer (15:29): 

And there was a jewelry store down the street from my house that I’d been going to for years. And I had been working with them, trying to get them to do some radio. And it was before I worked in out-of-home, I was in radio and he said, “The best thing that we do is we buy that board right there.” And he took me to the window of his jewelry store and he pointed at that board and he said, “I get so many people that come in that say they want that ring.” And the board had a certain ring on it. And I was just amazed that he said that. 

Lynn Palmer (16:00): 

So as I shifted and pivoted and moved into the out-of-home business, I’m really still amazed at how our medium can help that small business, that one jewelry store, but also the larger businesses when it’s, let’s say it’s a quick serve restaurant that has hundreds of locations in a county. We can help them sell product and we can also help that small, small jeweler. So the size of the business really has a lot to do with what our involvement is in helping them build a campaign. 

John DeBevoise (16:30): 

In making the decision to go into the outdoor advertising, the billboards, the electronic ones, what is it a small business owner needs to do questions and/or answers they should have ready when they call your office to say, “All right, light me up.” 

Lynn Palmer (16:46): 

Well, I think that the important thing for us to understand in working together with the business is who’s their target customer. And that’s so critical because we want to be able to place our advertising, our boards in areas that are going to reach that target customer. Like I was explaining earlier, that may not mean that it’s the board that’s just right down the street, because there might be a great core audience for them in another area, based on some of the things that we’ve talked about earlier. So I think that’s most critical as we come together with an understanding of who their target customer is. 

Lynn Palmer (17:21): 

And then I think the other key thing is understanding what their goals are. And oftentimes I’ll meet with a small business and they’ll say, “Well, we just want a brand.” And that’s always a bit of a red flag to me because when you ask them how they’re going to determine whether or not a billboard campaign or a radio campaign or any campaign works, oftentimes they’ll say, “Well, I need my phone to ring,” or “I need someone to walk into my business,” or “I need someone to come to my website.” And if they say that, then it’s really not just branding, right? They need to have a call to action message. So I think it’s important that the business owner understands what they want someone to do. So if they want someone to call or if they want someone to go to their website or come into their store, that really needs to be the message that they put on their boards and it needs to be a good call to action. 

Lynn Palmer (18:13): 

And the other thing is, like I said earlier, we’re one of the oldest mediums in the world. I visited Pompei years ago and there were, I guess, the original form of a billboard on the ground. There was directions written to direct people to the bar. And that’s really what out-of-home is about. It’s about directing people to your business. And so I think it’s really critical that when you’re putting together a campaign, you’re targeting the right people and you’re putting up the right message. And the other thing is, remember that it’s the headline, right? Where people are driving in their car, if they’re in traffic, they’re going slow. If they’re not in traffic, they’re going faster and you want to capture their attention in that few seconds. And so what we often will say is like, you want seven words or less, you want to really have that headline that’s going to grab their attention. So I think those are the three elements that are most important. 

John DeBevoise (19:10): 

Unless of course you, you travel on the 405, then you can put a War and Peace on the billboard there. [crosstalk 00:19:17] tend to read the whole thing. 

Lynn Palmer (19:19): 

Yes, that is true. 

John DeBevoise (19:22): 

So there’s a call to action and something as simple as being able to change that call to action could be like a local florist could have it’s Valentine’s Day, “Don’t forget, choose wisely men.” I learned that lesson. So then there comes other holidays or events and apparently every day has some sort of celebratory meaning. 

Lynn Palmer (19:46): 

It does. National Donut Day, all kinds of things. 

John DeBevoise (19:53): 

I thought that was every day. It was [crosstalk 00:19:54] know. There are so many celebrations out there and I think Hallmark is behind all of it and maybe Clear Channel too is promoting on a regular basis the ability to change the message. Or, if the message doesn’t work, the ability to change it. That’s what’s beautiful about podcasting and digital is that if it doesn’t work, you’re going to know. And as you know, from radio, back in the old days, you threw the message out there. And we didn’t know if anybody responded. And it was tough to track those numbers other than how many people called in during the show. So I like the fact that you can coordinate the same graphics with your website and have a synergy between all of your marketing with the outdoor advertising and have a call to action to take them from the direct to redirect on the marketing go here or text this message, hopefully, while you’re not driving. 

Lynn Palmer (20:49): 

Yeah, we discourage texting and driving. So none of our roadside displays will have any text message call to action because that’s something we’re very cognizant of in the community. 

John DeBevoise (21:05): 

So what is the best call to action? Is that a phone number or a website, or go to our ad and a particular magazine? What’s the best call to action that you see being used by most businesses? 

Lynn Palmer (21:16): 

That really depends on what the business wants someone to do. So, I know you’re familiar with Nelson Study and Arbitron, and there was a study done in my market and it was done by one of those national research groups. And it showed that out-of-home ads, after someone was exposed to an out-of-home ad, 40%, so 40% of those people went and visited a business that was advertised. And 24% of those people made a purchase. And talking about the mediums working well together, we actually even did a study and showed that 14% of people tuned into a radio show that was advertised. So to answer your question, I think that really depends on what you want someone to do. So if you want someone to visit the business, I would say the messaging and the call to action should be to come in for the sale or come in for this product. 

Lynn Palmer (22:21): 

However, the other thing might be purchasing tickets to an event and you might have the website there. So that really depends on what the business owner wants the customer to do. I’ve seen a lot of campaigns be extremely successful when directing people to the website, because as we know, a lot of purchasing decisions and research is done online in advance of making purchases, large purchases. And so putting your website on there can be something great to do on your campaign. 

Lynn Palmer (22:51): 

Another interesting fact, I think about out-of-home is that if you think about it and you talked about being stuck on the 405, when you’re stuck on that freeway- 

John DeBevoise (23:05): 

Every community has that freeway. In Vegas, it’s called the Spaghetti Bowl. And high traffic starts on Friday at four and ends at Monday at two. 

Lynn Palmer (23:14): 

In San Diego, it’s the 805 and the 805 merge at Sedona Valley that we sit at. But when you’re sitting there and you’re stuck in traffic, I call it kind of doing something that you don’t want to be doing, and you look over and you see a billboard that tells you about an event or a business or something that you want to do, there’s an opportunity for great positive message engagement. And so I think that’s one of the really unique things about out-of-home is that positive engagement that we have by giving someone a break from something they don’t want to do, which is being stuck in traffic. And so, also because of that in the study that I talked about earlier, 40% of people actually talk to their family about something that they saw. So that’s pretty amazing. Almost half of people tell someone about a board that they saw. 

Lynn Palmer (23:58): 

But I think back before I worked in this business, I was in radio, but I remember seeing a board and it was advertising polarized sunglasses. And on one side of the board, it showed you looking through the side window at a really attractive person. I’m going to be politically correct as I can. And then it said, non-polarized and the other side of the board it had polarized. And it was actually a very unattractive person. And so basically the ad was saying that you need polarized sunglasses to be able to see clearly. And so that support, I did not work in this business and I will never forget that because it made me laugh. And so it’s a story that I share carefully, but it’s a true story. 

Lynn Palmer (24:46): 

It’s funny when something makes you laugh, like you told me earlier, you remember that and you don’t forget it. So those are the things that we talk about. Also, I worked in radio and radio had run a campaign and we were using the digital rollouts and the digital screens to say what song was on the air. And I did not listen to that station, but I immediately turned to that station and I’m like, “Oh my gosh, they are playing Tom Petty right now.” So those digital ads have that ability to just really engage you and make you do something and make you respond. 

John DeBevoise (25:21): 

And of course in that capacity, I could be working for my business and programming through the template that is being monitored by NASA central there, to coordinate with the daily events or specials, or whether it be a flower stand or a radio station, as you just gave the example of. There could be a contest, tune into KDWN AM 720 and enter to win or call in to win, and there it is on the billboard and if you’re not watching it, as an example that are listening, as the example you just gave, I’m going to immediately go over to that station for the opportunity to call in and win something. Radio is great for giveaways. 

Lynn Palmer (26:03): 

Yep. I miss those radio days of when we would be giving away lots of great prizes and looking forward to the days again when we get to go to those events and do all those things again. 

John DeBevoise (26:13): 

That’s right. And shake somebody’s hand. Go and meet them for coffee and not wonder what’s behind the mask. Who is that, Tonto? Well, Lynn, I could go all day on this subject. I find it very interesting. Fascinating that any business can get into a very strategic marketing plan and coordinate it with their existing plan. By putting it up on a billboard on the lighted board. You can’t miss those. And it’s wonderful. It gives that interaction and the ability to edit things that work or don’t work. Extend it and be more involved, seemingly one-on-one with the customer who’s going by. Remember folks, it’s seven words or less. Your audience has the attention span and visual capacity of a goldfish. 

Lynn Palmer (26:59): 

That is the critical piece is having that compelling message. And that’s what’s fun and thus creating those compelling messages that make you look when you’re driving. 

John DeBevoise (27:08): 

That’s right. If you have too many words, they won’t remember it. And one of the things I’ve learned, if you can make them laugh, they’ll remember it. 

Lynn Palmer (27:16): 

Absolutely. 

John DeBevoise (27:17): 

Let’s put them in stitches, Lynn. We’re going to put you up on our website. And if you’d like more information about Clear Channel, well, they’re everywhere, but this show and everything will be available through BizSoup and one source where business comes for business. And Lynn, I can’t thank you enough for being a part of this serving of Bizness soup. And I look forward to having you back to bring us up to speed on more billboard outdoor advertising. 

Lynn Palmer (27:40): 

Thank you. Thanks for having me.