 Hello and welcome to another webinar, eForum virtual series. We have this special webinar and we have a very special guest today, live from New York, Mr. Barry Fray. He is the president and CEO of DPAA, which is a trade and marketing association that is leading the digital transformation of the outdoor industry. And his members include publishers, ad tech companies, media agencies, research and hardware companies. Before I begin, I want to announce that we are live on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and on our website exchangeformedia.com. We are also live on YouTube. Something rare, I mean not everybody is doing this simulcast that we are managing to do here. Welcome Barry to this exclusive discussion. First tell me, I mean we are reading and watching a lot about New York, how is the situation right now there? So yeah, New York, we've had a difficult time. Certainly we've been the epicenter of the United States and certainly more issues than most places in the world. The good news is we're turning the corner now and we've had some terrific leadership from Governor Andrew Cuomo and we've been all basically sequestered and quarantined in our homes but people are getting by and we've definitely turned the corner. The hospitals are managing better and I think the separation and the people wearing masks and keeping distancing has not only flattened the curve but finally we're starting to see a downturn, which is great. And thank you, Ruheil, for doing this today. I appreciate it, it's great to see you. I do want to send my condolences. I know that a couple of big Bollywood stars have just passed in recent days and I know how important that is and they were relatively young so I'm sorry to all my friends in India. I love your country, I've been there a few times. I helped, I ran sales and marketing globally for the Hallmark channel so I did spend a lot of time in Mumbai but I wanted to send my condolences and then of course some highs to my friends who I know are watching this all over India. So thank you for having me. Thank you so much for joining us. So we can start, we will have a later part of it for questions and answers from our viewers. Let me start with my first question about the outdoor industry, something unprecedented. This industry depends, it does not understand social distancing. It depends on the people in the streets out on the highways and now you're faced with a difficult situation. How is the industry dealing with this unprecedented times that I may call it? Yeah, it's a great question. It is certainly unprecedented. We've never seen this before and we're coming off certainly great momentum around the world for out of home and especially digital out of home. Most of our members around the world had the largest first quarter ever and then of course the second quarter hit. What's happening, first and foremost our members are looking out for their teams, their staff, making sure the health is okay and organizing principles so everybody has been able to work at home successfully and I'm sure like what's happened in other countries and I'm sure in India management is seeking to connect virtually and for the most part everybody has been doing that at the same time we're carefully tracking traffic patterns and the good news is in many pockets of the world traffic is coming back and coming out. All of media has been impacted by this and of course people are not out as much so we've been impacted a little bit more but it's therefore been a time for us to reimagine a little bit and as opposed to just kind of planning on coming out and reemerging we think we're going to reimagine and come out better with a lot of creativity, a lot of ideas. In the digital out of home world we've been fortunate to have the ability to put messaging on screens and I think that will carry in as a value to councils, municipalities and government when we come back. So first it's managing teams of course it's also managing the businesses and really managing cash for all businesses and a lot of our members around the world have done that successfully and we're planning for emerging and like I said the good news is we are seeing traffic coming out and the fundamentals of the out of home business are still very much very strong and that will showcase itself when we reemerge. Tell me if you must be in touch with all your stakeholders and if you can just tell me individually how are they trying to soft land in this situation how are they planning to minimize the kind of impact they are going through anything that you have heard from them how they are tackling individually these situations? Yeah back to the kind of reinvention we have a variety of members that have sought ventures of how to work together in terms of pooling their resources maybe it's sales maybe it's marketing maybe it's different use of their physical spaces for more and unique advertising services so everybody is kind of taking a look at their core businesses now of course we have many members that are each actually in or around or on highways and roadways to areas that are still traffic that is supermarkets, markets, grocers, point of care you know the specialists and in general practitioners doctors around the world are still practicing medicine so we have and then pharmacies so the pharmacies the supermarkets the food areas are still experiencing traffic even though people are social distancing and they've set up systems so what's happened is that those areas are certainly getting the eyeballs and the impressions and then people on their way there are getting that as well so we're continuing in that fashion and then our businesses are opening up according to where the regions are opening up and then our companies and members that have physical spaces like malls or theaters other places they are setting a lot of social distancing and sanitizing guidelines which people will follow and society will get used to at least in the short term until you know vaccines and cures are fully established I just want to make this announcement that we are live on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram on our website and YouTube and you can post your questions send it to us we will ask Barry those questions Barry I want to understand the extent of this loss in terms of numbers are there any early figures that you could share with us globally what is the extent of loss that outdoor is going through at this moment well what I could say as I mentioned before across the board most of our members around the world had huge momentum coming into this and a great first quarter of course second quarter roundly around the world has been quite down now to the same degree all media has been down and all media has been compromised for likely reasons that we all know but of course out of home has experienced a difficult second quarter we believe that third quarter would probably at this point be somewhat challenging at the same time due to the nature of fourth quarter and other factors which I can talk about we are looking at a strong fourth quarter and what I mean by that is that relative to other media what we're seeing as we emerge into what we believe will be a strong fourth quarter is that generally around the world television, cable, satellite and advertisers supported broadcast and terrestrial have been in decline and that is you know while the over the top television has certainly done well there's a lot of impressions that and viewership and the medium of media inside the home whether it be terrestrial television or print is certainly not as used as it once was so that makes for a good case for out of home and of course the real powerful part of this is the digitization of out of home and what that means first and foremost is the ability to get signals and get content up very quickly so that's why we believe that we'll see fourth quarter emerging because we can through digital out of home basically get content and advertisers on screen quickly that enables programmatic around the world and where if you look at you know the high percentages of advertising now trade programmatically as we have now entered the programmatic world for out of home that will once again enable not only great targeting ROI and metrics but also a shifting of media to this medium and then also keep in mind as we do come into this kind of fourth quarter period is that television advertising if you look at it television production is largely shut down around the world as is film production as is Bollywood that's going to take some time to ramp up which the quality of television may not be what it once was and then if we look at commercial production for television that's all shut down as well so to get advertising up for out of home is going to be a little bit quicker and easier the other part to remember and this is where we believe will emerge in fourth quarter strong as I said the fundamentals are good and if you look once again at other media out of home you can block the ads with you know digital out of home you don't have the issues of bot fraud or brand safety issues that occur in other media and you know overall it is a brand safe strong environment where also viewability is not an issue you see the whole ad for the whole time so the fundamentals as you can see me recalling are still there and as we are seeing traffic patterns now grow already the US is up about 6% at the same time the big upfront in the US where you know the new broadcast season is unveiled and 20 billion dollars is spent upfront in advertising for the year that's going to be small or not existent or virtual or possibly one may call it an upfront so you know that's where I see first quarter strong second quarter very difficult third quarter coming back and then fourth quarter we anticipate to be very robust there's another aspect of this outdoor industry that this pandemic there might be two eras before covid and after covid and this might permanently alter the way we consume media for example social distancing might become a norm you know for the next few years or it might become essential part of our lives as we move on tell me is there a fear among outdoor players about getting to the pre covid era where in the ads ads spends used to flow easily now you have stopped live sporting people are not on the streets would there be a permanent altering of the media consumption landscape for outdoor players do you think that is a possibility well I say Ruheil you can maybe tweak human nature but you can totally change human nature humans will always want to get out they'll always want to connect they'll always want to be together and I personally as a New Yorker I experienced 9-11 too close I actually saw the second plane go into the World Trade Center and explode in a fireball of fury that sent an electric shock through my body and I knew that the world and myself were going to be altered by this experience and at that time you know we were looking at will people travel again will people get on airplanes will people go to airports and what happened is that you know like a good Darwinian theory human nature adapted and you know if we were to say to people before 9-11 to go you know from Delhi to Mumbai you had to take off your belt and take off your shoes and tip toe through and get people touching you up and down you would say really but we adapted to that after 9-11 and airline travel since 9-11 skyrocketing so I think that in the short term there will be adaptions that will have to happen in terms of humans getting out we've talked to like I said some of our transit on wall owners and real estate people around and they're already setting patterns of sanitizing when you first come in of checking temperatures when you first come in of social distancing retail may have rules where you don't have to you're not going to be touching something and picking it up unless you're buying it and these systems will be set up you know as we've seen throughout centuries human nature can be very adapted so I think the core is that back to the kind of 9-11 example people still wanted to travel and connect for personal business people will still need to be in the sunshine people will still want to be out and we will make certain adaptions but you can't stop human nature and what I would say that I think it's going to be very interesting and I'm a I've been a big media student and professor of media and in my studies there's a there was a great prognosticator Marshall who basically coined all of the phrases of the future media and global media and one of his great terms was called the medium is the message and that refers to the fact that where the environment is depends how we receive the message as an example if you see an ad on a trash can what do you think about the brand but when you see an ad in a beautiful home like you're sitting now how do you perceive that brand so to wit what I would say is that when we do come out and people are starting to emerge and outside will be a happy place it'll be a great environment where people will be happy and open to messaging and in good moods and open to new brands and new concepts and new products and services so we're actually going to be seeing a resurgence where the environment for being out is going to be really great and then if you think about it too traditionally television has been branding and reach medium and as traditional inside the home over the air commercial TV is getting usurped by over the top and other digital media we can now take that mantle out of home of being the broad branding and reach medium which is a very positive thing for us. I want to tell my viewers that you can send in your questions we will be in the next 10 minutes going with our Q&A round I just want to ask you this that once the lockdown opens you know gradually it's going to open in some way in a phased manner do you think the federal spends on outdoor going up in some way the government spends going up because for them it's a medium to raise that awareness that is needed do you think the spends from federal government and the government spends are going to go up if it opens in a phased way I think I'm understanding are you saying will they spend from government for out of home advertising going up? Yes, well it's a great question because it's already happening and what's already happening and during this unfortunate experience is that we are now seeing through the digitization of out of home that the screens can now take content and messaging for example you mentioned all of our membership around the world being media owners and by the way our media owners go from Times Square to Piccadilly Circus to Indian train stations and programmatic companies, research companies Nielsen, Newstar and we've got mobile companies and DSPs and SSPs that are now putting a lot of digital money into the space so what the other part of our membership that is a significant part are content companies so we have Bloomberg Television is a member AccuWeather is a member, we have Chive and CheddarTV Live Times Live is a great live music series and that is because the screens can now have content and all of the DPW research around the world has shown that if there's content on screens in addition to ads people will watch, people will engage and advertisers and planners around the world will spend more money long way of saying is that consumers, governments, public services are getting used to putting content on screens especially now so coming out of this as we still in government will need to message keep your social distance or wear your mask our digital screens will have a great opportunity for that look I know in India and by the way congratulations it looks like there's a 25% movement now in terms of coronavirus selling up so congratulations I'm so glad to hear that and I also know the government in India is looking forward to digital screens where there's less kind of print screens around and now we can have more digital out so the digital is a great communication method not just for advertising but for public messaging and what I would say is we actually developed the first global digital out of home public service announcement and it was done by a hot Brooklyn agency and it's been running all over the world in Japan and UK and US and Canada and Dubai and many places and this DPAA built campaign with an agency called Madwell talk to people that are need to work with the essential workers and it basically supported them at the same time it said to people that weren't outside that shouldn't be to get back home and then it told people that needed to be out to kind of social distance so the messaging on screens to in a long way give you the answer is something that has happened and will proliferate even more so live streaming we were discussing that you're planning an India chapter DPAA is planning to come to India that's the first time anybody's heard that Rohe that's a big announcement for today you can you explain it a little bit more what exactly is the plan like and how soon are you going to run it out sure and I can't speak that much about it but you're an intrepid reporter and you figured out how to break some news congratulations yes we've established a chapter we have a great local partner in India and it's a business that is very experienced in this area in advertising media as well as at home and digital in maybe within the next month is where we'll be having the details on that I'm sorry I can't speak too much about it but since you've uncovered this I'm happy to say that you're correct and we are very pleased about it we've been operating all over the world and because of the interest and we've got some great members we have a Vioma and Shemitro there in India we have a Neil at Armored Digital we have a lot of other folks that are members and because of the interest today and what we've seen around the world tomorrow for all the reasons that we're talking about we see this as a great big growth area and I think with DPAA's global practices research studies and the way that we've really connected a global community we will see out of home and digital at home connect even more in a unified fashion in India and that's part of our goal to do that with a relative disparate group of companies at the moment so we'll go to the audience questions we have a lot of questions coming in and my first question is from Shalini Shankar she's asking is repositioning and collaboration and reinventing are these the way forward for the sector for the outdoor industry going forward yes I would say yes and add to it I would say that we're in a great foundation at the moment and as I mentioned relative to the media the digitization that's rolling out all of the core fundamentals that I mentioned earlier plus this is giving us a very good time and I kind of prefer to look at it as reimagining and I think it's so important for all businesses at this time and all individuals to take a pause in what we're doing to see what's real in life to kind of look at things a little differently because we need to move forward there's no more yesterdays it's all about tomorrow now and the more we can reimagine and serve our customers better serve and unified better and come together you know it's a great question because the models for our livelihood and our lives that we're all in this together also pertains to business so yes we will see that in part of Global DPAA now establishing chapters around the world we'll do this there's a question by Sanjeev ready and he's asking what will be the impact of COVID on transit media like metro branding, airports, what kind of impact and maybe he also wants to know how would it pan out yes so you know certainly those areas are not experiencing much traffic around the world but you know like I said people will want to travel again they will need to get to work and I think what we'll see similar to the 9-11 notion that I mentioned establishment of certain protocols that will be challenging at the beginning and we spoke into a lot of our members whether it's separation, sanitation, you know lines you know we're seeing that in supermarkets around the world now where you know there's you know certain lines and separation and barriers set up and I think and you'll see that at the beginning stages in transit you know throughout the world as well as in the airport areas the question is is outdoor plus mobile going to be a big push post-COVID? Yeah great question from my friends at Vioma a great company yes and it's what we've seen is that we actually in digital at home have a love affair with mobile and why is that first of all the mobile data we can understand and we're not interested in the personal nature of people we're really more interested in cohorts so we use a lot of mobile data around the world to not understand who but what so it's not as if we're not doing any public personal identifiable information we don't we like Rohelle but we don't care about you that much and measurement we care about you know good men 18 to 34 that are in the market for you know speakers so firstly we use mobile data to identify cohorts then once those cohorts are in and about or near a screen they can be targeted with ads because of the mobile data next we can retarget the ad so you basically have an ad running on a digital screen and then an ad running a mobile where it has a 40% lift or 1 plus 1 equals 3 in terms of being able to deliver more impactful messaging on to media and then lastly we can use mobile data to understand how this is proven an ROI or KPI by consumers going into stores showing lift there as well as showing lift on websites so mobile data is interest intricately tied to digital of home our members include ground truth is a board member a great mobile company place IQ is a member we've got M4 is a member mobile fuse is a member around the world so yes it's an integral part of working together for a powerful combination. There's a follow up question by Sri Ranga the question is do you see global investors looking at Indian media outdoor assets? Do I see global investors looking at Indian media outdoor assets? Yes yes I do I see two things I see global investors and I see global advertisers also now taking advantage of it yes you know there will be some more consolidation in the industry private equity has jumped in big time I think you're going to see coming out of this people seeing that the fundamentals of out of home are excellent and therefore the growth by witness that DPAA is not only in the already but will be establishing a firm business there shows that there will be more investment coming. Sorry sorry. Your head shot to you lounging on the couch over there I saw the cigars I was really a very long question and I wish that was true this is from Bhaskar Ghosh I will break this question into two parts the first part is what would be the importance of outdoor to media planners now with the increase in time spend at home and increase in TV and digital What is the first part is what is the importance to out of home to media planners now and then the second part was second part is how will in-store advertising increase or decrease post. Let me do the second one first so actually in store advertising has grown of course we've got many members with screens and supermarkets groceries pharmacy big box stores and that's become an increasingly area due to the power of digital advertising due to the proliferation of high quality screens and also as I mentioned earlier the ability to put good information on the screen so right now the information may be on navigating around the store maybe about keeping your social distance that's a big area we've got many members around the world in supermarkets, pharmacies and we even have a great member that's in the parking lots with charging stations called BOLTA that as people are driving up to these stores that happens and then in terms of media planners we do media planner studies every year in different parts of the world and we'll be doing one soon in India and what the media planners tell us is not only an increasing percent of spend on out of home but interesting reasons and interesting facts and figures so what we've seen is that as an example I'll give you in the US about 4% of media spend is planned for out of home when we survey the planners throughout and we say to them out of home is now more digital if it's got more data due to the digital nature to the mobile as we discussed if we've taken out the friction of the business we've taken out the legacy history and heritage what would you spend what do you believe and we add in programmatic all to make it easier what would you believe would be the value that you would spend of your client's budget on out of home and the numbers come up over 20% which is really interesting but of course there's always kind of takes a while as technology comes to media for the advertising to follow the advantages so there is that kind of slow shift but when we ask the question if we take out the friction, the heritage, the legacy and we started fresh today with all these opportunities and the fundamentals what would be an ideal spend it is quite high so that's a very exciting opportunity pretending more growth when we come out of this that's a good question by the way there's a question from Sunder Hemrajani he's asking due to slowing economy overall media spends have been under stress for the last three quarters outdoor is approximately 5% of the media buy in any case and has been impacted by this lockdown what are your suggestions for the industry players were the out of home industry players? sure I mentioned before reimagining your business can you collaborate on Salesforce, can you collaborate on marketing can you jump into programmatic where there's more efficiencies better targeting economy of scale, how are you using mobile for data, how are you performing and delivering to your clients and also this is an amazing time for every media owner around the world and every business around the world to engage in a bigger deeper level with the constituents I interviewed the CEO of Cara the other day we do something I'll tell you about she said to me that she's used to she has 2,000 employees and she's used to traveling a couple of few times a year to each office and visiting with people now she's had the opportunity to meet the long tail of offices and long tail of people on video that she never would have seen so I stress to everybody this is a great time to not only rethink reimagine and figure out what's really important in life and in business but to connect on a much deeper level and the way that we've been doing this is actually DPAA connects it's a news series where we've interviewed CEOs of global ad agencies heads of marketing globally and media for MasterCard for IBM, for Microsoft and what we're doing is keeping these folks top of mind about at home at the same time our members are getting a much broader understanding of what's important to these these real leaders in the space so we've used this time to connect on a bigger and deeper level to the advertising leaders we usually do this through an array of events our DPAA global everywhere video everywhere to summit last year attracted over a thousand people and we'll be doing events by coming up and possibly in Delhi as well in addition to that we've used this time to develop what we call DPAA Davos which is where we get our global members about 25 at a time 25 30 at a time on multiple calls video calls every morning where people get a chance to exchange ideas and best practices and what are the challenges and what are the opportunities and a great sharing mechanism for our global members like I said that include out of home companies digital companies, mobile companies content research data hardware companies we are getting a lot of questions so we have another 15 minutes and we'll try to back as many so this one is from YouTube and Roy wants to know what will it take for advertisers to come back to OH to outdoor given the change in in the patterns in which you know the cycles that have been impacted what should OH stakeholders additionally do to give brands the confidence that they need in this moment. Okay once again I'll take the second one first I think the confidence comes from the increased data available at home today as mentioned from the great question from Beoma earlier mobile data mobile ID data is really helping us understand audiences traffic flow and others and in a you know a very good specific pattern in terms of that programmatic is also delivering so I would encourage the use of the digital functionalities of programmatic of digital data of KPIs of mobile data on screens that will all help and after I did all that answer I forgot the first question I would one second so the first question was okay so part of it is also what I mentioned before about the additional KPIs and the tremendous new opportunities and values of digital out of home in addition to out of home and then as I mentioned too you know out of home being a great branding and reach medium can now take some of the mantle that television has had in terms of delivering branding and advertising messages and what I would add to that is that now because of the digital nature which you know for the most part out of home has been a great digital branding big messages getting great reach out there it's worked very well on the advertising funnel and this is what advertisers are starting to understand is that now because we can actually target audiences we can actually affect consideration and show lift in activity and sales we are now operating at the top right through to the bottom of the funnel so these are the aspects that are exciting advertisers around the world Jayesh Yagnek he's asking the outdoor industry has virtually become nil in current scenario according to you will it bounce back like a youth shape curve or we have to wait I think it's going to mimic society I think we're looking at a you shape you know early on a lot of businesses were anticipating this V and you know I think given the nature of this terrible disease where we're seeing kind of an upside down you in terms of coming up the curve flattening staying at a level for a while and then coming down I think we're going to see a lot of business do kind of a you shape which is the reverse of the flattening of the curve and for everything I mentioned in terms of people getting out and by the way as we are seeing all regions around the world in countries will have a very staggered pattern so I think that on a global basis will also kind of you know foster this you shape because some places will emerge and you've made great 25% progress recently New Jersey and is opening up for people to come outside next week some states like Georgia have opened up and New York and others will take some more time so therefore I think if you aggregate that all together we're really looking at a you shape Next question is from Satyan Sharma he's asking post-COVID things are going to be different given the changes in consumer audience behavior could you shed some light on audience measurement best practices and its ability to help in the post-COVID business Yeah so I've kind of touched on that you know utilization of mobile data of you know different geotemporal data a lot of our programmatic companies a company like Hive Stack now has recently organized an understanding of where medical practitioners are and then basically been able to advertise them as they understand the traffic pattern so this is a great opportunity for out of home to really use you know mobile geotemporal data and others to target audiences program by the way our programmatic companies are really doing great in the space you know Vistar Hive Stack for you coming out of JC DeCoe Place Exchange it's a great opportunity to tap into this and what really happens here is not only does out of home grow the out of home budgets but what really happens is as we're offering a programmatic and digital equation what's flowing in we've seen this in some of the advanced markets in digital out of home is that now out of home is attracting digital money we're attracting location budgets mobile budgets and very excitingly video budgets that he or would have ended up on video online or on television but the capabilities to run content and digital content to to have you know tap into the programmatic training desk and we have a lot of members that are also training desks and DSPs and SSPs and will actually be announcing two great global companies one big trading desk and one huge DSP and SSP that is now increasingly excited about the out of home space so stay tuned those will be announcements forthcoming too which enable those screens that you see to be running digital money from digital ad budgets. Next one is from Kumar Sita Raman he's asking our digital business models that work in the US relevant to India where the same scapes traffic patterns and demographics are fundamentally very different well yeah I think you know it has its unique nature and proclivities and I think that every success of out of home digital out of home is adapting and that's part of the reason why we're establishing a local partnership with a great partner in India I have run media businesses all over the world as I mentioned earlier I was in charge of sales and marketing for Hallmark Channel in India and you know the real key is to do what works globally and thinking that way but act locally and that is an important premise of brands, of media companies and if you really understand what happens locally and the digitization of out of home will enable adaption easier than more analog forms. We still have a lot of questions coming but I think we are short on time and I will have to thank you for joining us for this wonderful conversation and we have another around 50 questions unanswered but maybe we can look at doing another long session next time. Well I want to thank you Rahul because first I want to thank everybody for staying until 5 36 o'clock at night to do this. I woke up at 5 a.m. this morning to do this but I think what's really important here is that we are cocooning for a while and that is happening but for everybody that knows what happens when a cocoon in the spring time and summer emerges we know that it turns into a big beautiful butterfly and that is what is going to be happening to out of home. We are cocooning fair to say it's a challenging time but as all good cocoons they emerge into great big beautiful butterflies so that's what we see happening around the world. Lovely words and thank you once again and see you soon. Thank you very much Rahul. Thank you.