Thanks to all the folks able to attend and support our IBAA 2022 Conference and shindig March 22-23rd in Las Vegas!
With the head spinning past 2 years, it was invigorating and inspiring to reconnect with members who’ve done their share of pivoting, re-booting, and that other overused word, ‘navigating’ the indoor advertising landscape.
Just seeing members who are always long term friends ‘in person’ was refreshing.
Knowing we’re all a phone call or email away from getting solid advice and input from a fellow IBAA-er is always the big payback for belonging to our group, and we had a few ‘first timers” in attendance who can now attest to that value.
(Another added value was being able to rattle each other over our March Madness loyalties and give each other friendly grief and bet on a few games. I’m certain most of our brackets are beyond busted-hah!)
Tying our event with the Bar & Restaurant Expo provided good synergy, and our attendees were able to check out the expo center free of charge and connect with brands, and other add-on ideas that might fit relationship offerings for their venues and clients.
I’d like to thank our conference sponsors and speakers who provided us ample content with many of us are looking to add new avenues to connect with our indoor and socially active audiences.
We had a keynote sponsorship and presentation from uRhere – SellrTV with place based interactive digital tablets placed in liquor stores and dispensaries and a no cost opportunity for IBAA members to add a digital advertising sales platform. They also shared an opportunity to convert static board locations to digital via a partnership sales relationship. Big thanks to Tom Miller CEO and John Wheating Director of uRHere-SellrTV for sponsoring our group.
Another place based venture and insight was shared by Alex Mauritz and Keven Stefanek of Barcast.tv and Barpoints with their program of advertising content on television screens in bar venues, liquor stores, as well as customer loyalty program app and text rebate rewards which add value and tangible ROI information in real time to advertisers.
As we get closer to a post-Covid return to some “normal” in Out of Home media buying, we we’re lucky to have keynote speaker Paul Crowder, Business Director at Billups get us up to speed on agency media buying trends, the status of “programmatic” advertising, as well as how to position ad inventories to land agency work. Paul’s attended our conference previously, and was an open book on how Billups works with clients to track down the best placements for OOH locally and nationwide.
The word “pivot’ might be the other overused word of the pandemic, but we wrapped up with a roundtable discussion on what adaptations members have made to stay relevant over covid lockdown venue closures, and what members have continued to keep as part of their offerings now that the world is opening up.
Ruben Garcia, IBAA Past President and CEO of Johnny Boards shared his experience on maintaining relevancy in his market by accessing ample PSA budgets, and working directly with nonprofit and government organizations that needed messaging over the Covid shut down period, no matter that social venues were closed. Ruben shared his ‘pivot’ story and his work doing place based media externally, which he’s now leveraged those clients into his indoor portfolio.
I’d also like to thank Randy Levine from Valley Industrial Products for sponsoring our catered lunch and continued long term support of the IBAA. Valley Industrial Products has supplied many of our IBAA Members with pressure sensitive tapes which do a rock star job of keeping our Indoor Displays on walls despite the brute force attempts of folks to try to wrestle displays down.
Kudos to Tim Shoemaker, IBAA Treasurer and CEO of Headlines Indoor, as well as David Turner of McMann & Tate Advertising, for pulling together many of the behind the scenes details of our gathering.
As the children’s song goes “…the more we get together…the happier we’ll be…”, the best portion of our conference year in and year out, is our ability to gather and share stories of what’s working and also preach the intrinsic value of our medium of indoor-restroom and placed based captive audience advertising.
We’ll continue to keep the IBAA focused on keeping Indoor Advertising relevant and top of mind for agencies and advertisers and our captive readers.
For those unable to attend, we’re open to suggestions on IBAA Conference 2023 and we’ll look for similar tie-in events, or activities to bring the group together.
Please feel free to reach out with questions and thanks again for supporting our industry… it means a lot!
Cheers!
John Koenig
Director
Indoor Billboard Advertising Association (IBAA)
1816 NE Alberta Street, 7th Floor
Portland Oregon 97211
503-998-3465
