Blog
The problems that actually cost money in this trade — empty days, rates nobody can recall, proof that lives in a chat thread, payments frozen on a paperwork mismatch — and what to do about them.
What each out-of-home format actually is, the sizes they are commonly built at, and why the "standard size" you are looking for does not really exist. Written for people who have to record, price or buy this inventory.
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There are two different businesses hiding behind the phrase, and they need different money, different skills and different paperwork. Here is what each one actually involves, in the order you meet it, and the three numbers that decide whether it works.
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The same hoarding has three different prices depending on who is asking, and most billing disputes in this trade come from two people using the same word for different numbers. Here is how the money is actually structured.
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Most tools sold under this name solve a different problem than the one media owners have. Here is the distinction that trips everybody up, the eight things the software must actually do, and the questions worth asking a vendor before you pay.
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Vacancy is the largest cost in an out-of-home business and the one nobody measures, because an empty hoarding does not send an invoice or ring the phone. Here is how to work out what it cost you, and why the number is almost always larger than expected.
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Double-booking a face is the mistake every media owner has made once and nobody talks about. It is almost never carelessness — it is a hold nobody confirmed, and a diary only one person can read. Here is how it happens and how to make it impossible.
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Proof of display is the request that arrives at the worst moment and takes an afternoon to satisfy. The photograph almost always exists; what is missing is any way to find it. Here is what a client is really asking for, and how to make it a thirty-second answer.
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Most out-of-home work is lost on turnaround and completeness, not on rate. A client who asked three owners and got one proper document on Tuesday rarely waits for yours on Friday. Here is what belongs in a proposal and how to stop it taking an evening.
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Rates for hoardings, unipoles and gantries vary by more than ten times between a small-town junction and a metro arterial road. Here is what drives the number, roughly what each format fetches, and how a media owner should price inventory rather than guess.
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Payments in outdoor advertising rarely freeze because a client is dishonest. They freeze because the period on the invoice is not the period on the purchase order, and proving who is right takes longer than the money is worth. Here is where the mismatch comes from and how to remove it.
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