OOH Uncut Podcast: John Papadopoulos
John Papadopoulos, Partner, Head of Media, Davis Elen Advertising, joins host Rick Robinson, CEO, PJX Media, on OOH Uncut, the podcast featuring leaders in the Out of Home media world.
June 27, 2023
John Papadopoulos Discussion on OOH Uncut Podcast with Rick Robinson
Rick Robinson: Hi everybody. My name is Rick Robinson with PJX Media. And today I have John Papadopoulos. He's the Partner & Head of Media for Davis Ellen here in Los Angeles. Hi John. Say hello to everybody.
John Papadopoulos: Hey Rick. Hi everyone. Thanks for having me.
Rick Robinson: So happy to have you and really excited to get your viewpoint from the agency side and knowing the clients you work with with like the Toyota dealership group and McDonald's and Smart & Final. I have to ask you the question. I'm asking everyone here in season one, which is, what can out of home, do that no other media can do.
John Papadopoulos: I would actually pose a question back to you and that would be what doesn't it do, right. So yeah,…
Rick Robinson: Oh, I love that. So talk to me.
John Papadopoulos: Out of Home selfishly is one of my favorite media types, right? So, I loved planning it. I loved executing on it. I think it's one of those media types that people can, you know, maybe not tangibly, feel like a newspaper or print, but you can certainly feel it whether you walk by, drive by, get surrounded by it. Whether it's a takeover, whatever. I think, I think out-of-home floats, a tremendous amount of boats, just like broadcast television, just like, you know, connected TV and all of that. Really, the crux of it. The way I position it to our clients, especially retail clients is the street fight, right?
Rick Robinson: The street fight… talk about that.
John Papadopoulos: I call it a street fight and that's because you know whether you're a smaller client, that's little known out there or a massive client, like an Apple, right? You always want to win the street fight on the ground and sometimes, you can't do that with television unless you're walking around with the 50 inch. Sometimes you're not in the car or you're you might be listening to an audio stream or a podcast as you're walking by, but from a site, sound and motion, sometimes, right? If it's digital and and you know motion, you can't get that outside out-of-home, placements, right? So outside of the home, that kind of serves your sight. And maybe sometimes even your sound depending on what kind of out of home executions you're doing.
So, for big brands, you know, I think what it really does well is increase that consideration. It obviously serves as a reminder message, a complementary message to your terrestrial radio to your streaming audio, efforts and execution, whether that's in car or as you're walking, right when you're mobile. And for like the unknown brands, it could be huge and tremendous exposure. you know, so and we see that a lot, you know, primarily with the law category, the attorney's category, right? Especially in Southern California,…
Rick Robinson: Yeah, absolutely.
John Papadopoulos: If it's not auto, it's pretty much dominated by attorneys. Yeah, so let's let's think about that right?
Rick Robinson: There's a lot of that, no doubt.
John Papadopoulos: Attorneys love efficiency, love profit and ultimately want performance, right? They love to win. And they dominate the out of home space aside from automotive or maybe qsr and why is that if there are always thinking about efficiency and performance and winning and they're all over out of home. Well, certainly, it's doing something for them, right? The Jacob & Meyers or the, you know, and all that,…
Rick Robinson: Right, right. So yeah.
John Papadopoulos: they utilize this stuff, you know, that you this channel to be able to get their message out there to know that they are embedded and they weave their fabric within the local community. And I think it's ultimately important. It's what we do from an automotive standpoint. That's what we do from a qsr standpoint. If we have a certain deal, we want to push from a McDonald's venue. It's it's more about, you know, bogo or two for one or, you know, here's a deal on chicken nuggets, you know, when you're driving in the car, in the morning, you know, or in midday or whatever and you're looking for lunch or you're hungry. It serves as that reminder messaging you already know. McDonald's is, um, but it helps reinforce, you know what you might be having for lunch, you know, there's massive creativity without a home. I love,…
Rick Robinson: Yep.
John Papadopoulos: I love how creative you can get without a home. It's one of the oldest media channels, you know, this industry is ever.
John Papadopoulos: That, but it doesn't mean that because it's old, it's boring. Right, because it's not as measurable as digital it's boring or it's not as effective, but that's wrong. That's a wrong way of looking at it. It all works together seamlessly and without some of that reinforcement that at a home gives you Some of your other channels, may not work so well, so that's the way I see it. You know, it always comes down to the street fight, making sure that we put a foot. A foot hold in a specific market. If we want to launch a product, remind people that were there or even want to serve it as directional and tell people, You know, we're located here and,…
John Papadopoulos: you know, Make a right on this also.
Rick Robinson: The context the context
John Papadopoulos: So again, my question to you would be what doesn't it do?
Rick Robinson: I love that. Look a couple great observations here. First of all that phrase street fight. I'm gonna lift that and use that because that just characterized what happens, you…
John Papadopoulos: Yep.
Rick Robinson: it's real media for real people at that ground level when they're out in public space. That just says it all together, and then your observation that the attorneys they want efficiency. They want to win, you know, they're gonna be strong critics of their investment in anything, right? And out of home must be delivering at that street fight level for them or they wouldn't be doing it so much.
John Papadopoulos: That's right.
Rick Robinson: So John, thank you for your insights. Really appreciate it. You guys heard it here. street fight, efficiency, creativity, amplifying other media. John, you have an awesome day and take care,
John Papadopoulos: Thank you, Rick. Thanks for having me, man.
