[OUT-OF-HOME

With apologies to justin timberlake, Chris Gagen is bringing sexy back to out-of-home advertising.The outdoor sector is going gangbusters—it's now the second-fastest growing medium in terms of ad spending, after the Internet—thanks to technological advances, fragmentation of other media, the growing amount of time consumers spend out of the home, breakthrough creative executions and the work of pros like Gagen, senior vp, managing director of out-of-home agency Posterscope USA in Atlanta and 2006's Media All-Star for Out-of-Home. For so many years, despite its enormous reach and entrenched position in the media landscape, "out-of-home was almost a below-the-line medium, way below the radar screen of most major marketers," says Gagen. "People tended to roll their eyes. But now, more and more major multinational clients spending a lot of money in multiplatform spaces are intrigued about out-of-home. They're asking how they can get into the space, how they can utilize it, whereas before most agencies had to bring it up to clients."Gagen's boss, Posterscope USA's chief operating officer, Todd Hansen, calls him "inventive, thoughtful—all the things a Media All-Star is supposed to be. He truly gets it. He understands the client side, which is a great asset to us." Hansen jokes that if he weren't aware Gagen had been named a Media All-Star, Gagen surely would have put a billboard outside his office window to make sure he knew.Chuck Fruit, senior adviser in marketing strategy and innovation at Posterscope client Coca-Cola Co., has known Gagen for 15 years, beginning when they both worked for Coke, Fruit as corporate media director, Gagen as North American media director. "He's bringing a whole new set of skills and a different perspective to the outdoor industry," Fruit says. "He spent so many years on the other side of the table that I think he's able to take a much more strategic view of the role outdoor can play in a company's overall marketing mix."Over the last year, Gagen's focus has been establishing Posterscope USA, owned by Aegis PLC, parent company of Carat. Posterscope USA is a division of London-based Posterscope World Wide, with more than 35 offices in 14 countries. Under Gagen's direction, the Atlanta office, which opened its doors this past April, already has grown billings to more than $30 million—making the executive's achievements truly billboard-worthy. Besides Coca-Cola, clients include Outback Steakhouse, Club Med and Re/Max Realty.Gagen says his mission at Posterscope USA was going beyond strategic planning and investment to initiate creative services, digital and market research units, a focus on ethnic markets, and a division specializing in creating new out-of-home touch points called Hyperspace. And beyond his day job, Gagen has kept plenty busy to advance the out-of-home business. As a board member and former chair of the Traffic Audit Bureau, Gagen has led the industry in developing audience-measurement capabilities.Digital technology is revolutionizing the outdoor market, and has been a growing concentration of Gagen and Posterscope. "The focus is on digital and where digital is going and how our clients can take full advantage of it," Gagen says. But content, as always, trumps platform. "Messaging is absolutely critical, whether it's LED, plasma, LCD. Slapping a TV spot in these platforms is not the way to go," Gagen says. "It's a very different environment, where you have a very short amount of time to capture somebody's attention … You really need to create an engagement immediately and get a lot of brand-centric imagery into the message. In many cases, I've seen disappointment not that the platform wasn't appropriate, but that the message wasn't compelling. It wasn't the fault of the platform itself."Coke was the first client brought to Posterscope by Gagen—who, as logic would dictate, is a self-described outdoorsy guy whose passions include skiing and going to the beach with his family. Gagen gets props for producing one of the most clever, ambitious out-of-home displays ever on behalf of the soft drink giant, what's been described as "the world's first three-dimensional sculpted digital communication portal" in New York's Times Square. That state-of-the-art placement boasts 3,700 square feet and is capable of 4.3 trillion combinations. And it's only the beginning, with another installation slated for Toronto.Coke has been a staple of Times Square advertising for decades, of course. But in recent years, the client decided that, with its old sign in disrepair, it needed to execute "a more contemporary view of Coca-Cola," says Gagen. What ensued was an exhaustive process of design, evaluation, consumer research and dozens of possible executions considered. "We did not want the traditional, flat, LED screen—we wanted something groundbreaking, something unique, but also iconic for Coca-Cola," Gagen explains. The end result paid off big time, with a splashy launch event two summers ago that attracted the mayor of New York and reams of press attention—not to mention millions of gawking passersby at the so-called "Crossroads of the World."Of the Times Square placement, Coca-Cola's Fruit says, "To his credit, [Gagen] assembled a great team of people to work with him … and really blazed new trails in terms of technology and design and capabilities. And that's typical of the way he approaches things. He's not a lone ranger."Says Gagen, "Not many marketers have made the long-term commitment to out-of-home like Coca-Cola," which lately has used out-of-home to target new markets like blue-collar guys, rolling out a whole fleet of executions, from wraps for cement mixers to sampling initiatives at gun shows and fishing tournaments.One recent, attention-grabbing execution had 20 giant, Coke-ad-clad cement trucks driving up and down the boulevards of Las Vegas. "Chris took care of it all," says Hansen, adding, "He didn't actually drive a truck, but he would have! He's a great guy." Tony Case is a contributing writer to Mediaweek.

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