Q&A with Posterscope's Garrido and Rickard

Eight months after MPGs Chrysalis combined forces with Aegis Media's Posterscope, the new organization is just about complete. Headed by Connie Garrido, CEO in the U.S. and Annie Rickard, CEO of Posterscope Worldwide, new group boasts $300 million in billings for clients such as Coca-Cola, Nokia, Sears/Kmart, Dunkin' Donuts, Panasonic, Vh1, Rayban and Adidas. Why bring the two out-of-home groups together?Garrido: The underlying premise of Chrysalis was strategic planning, putting the consumer at the core of the planning process and aligning ourselves with the planning team. We needed a partner to expand the buying and trading volume. Since MPG had a relationship with Posterscope internationally, conversations developed. Posterscope had been a strong buying entity. The idea is to combine strategic planning and buying, something that hasn't been crystallized in the US. out of home market. How is Posterscope different from other OOH shops?Garrido: We're an out of home communications agency. We align with planning at the briefing stage of the campaign. Instead of being given a budget and told to plan out of home, we are part of the development. This is not extraordinary from a 'traditional' agency perspective, but it is rare for out of home - in fact, while there are many out of home buying companies, I'm not certain any other out of home communications agencies exist. What's different is that in the past, OOH is often only brought in once planning teams have identified the role of OOH - and then generally it's based only on measured outdoor which as we know is quite limited. How advertisers' use of out of home change if the medium is included as part of the planning process? Rickard: It is our experience in other markets [outside the U.S.] that the earlier we engage in the discussion, the better chance we have of making a good out of home recommendation and the more advertisers spend. There is a big opportunity to grow ad spend in the U.S. People spend 20 percent of their time outside the home, yet ad spend is much less. What percent is out of home budgets in other markets compared to the U.S.?Rickard: In the UK, in the last 15 years, ad spend grew from 4 to 9 percent of budgets. In other European markets, it's as high as 10 to 11 percent. In the U.S., it's 2 to 4 percent. You've organized Posterscope's business into three areas, operations headed by Ray Rotolo, strategic initiatives headed by James Davies, and customer service headed by Brigg Hyland. What is the thinking behind that organization?Garrido: Our new structure enables us to assist the industry with advancements, and to advocate for the various industries that fall within the out of home space. Our strategic initiatives division is about bringing the tools and research to maximize our insights. For example, our Outdoor Consumer Study, a survey of 10,000 in the U.S. and 100,000 globally enables us to better understand consumers, which kicks off the process of being able to think about how they consume communications while out of home. In September, we are launching Prism Screen a new planning tool that will give us access to every Digital Out of Home screen in the U.S.. This will help us better analyze different Out of Home formats that may not yet be measured by the Outdoor Industry.How have clients reacted to the new Posterscope organization?Garrido: It's been well received. As a result of being more integrated, we are already seeing advertisers bringing us in to process earlier and considering new media in the space. We now have a seat at the planning table. For example, for one client in the travel and transportation category, we sued our consumer insights to help identify the target audience in detail. We ended up developing three simultaneous but separate out of home programs for each target, resulting in a 13.5 percent year over year ridership lift that broke passenger counts in the first half of the year alone.

Brand Marketing

Q&A with Posterscope's Garrido and Rickard

Katy Bachman

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Katy Bachman