Member Spotlight: Whiteway Outdoor
A conversation with David Levin, President of Whiteway Outdoor.
Tell us a little bit about Whiteway.
Whiteway Outdoor is an independent, third-generation, family-owned outdoor advertising and billboard company located in Atlanta, Georgia. Inspired by the big city and a visit to Times Square in the 1940s, our grandfather started Whiteway Outdoor with two lines of business – sign manufacturing and traditional outdoor advertising. Today we are proud to be operating as a true family owned business.
The business is run by our father Michael Levin (Chairman), while my sister, Leigh Nathan (Director of Sales) and myself, David Levin (President), oversee daily operations. Together we manage 15 locations, including 6 digital billboards, and an inventory capacity of 60-70 faces. We are Atlanta Proud and are grateful to have a wonderful relationship with local businesses as well as the city’s iconic leader for OOH creative, Delta Airlines.
How did you get into the out-of-home business?
Being that we are in the third generation, it was in our family blood. The shift from traditional billboards to digital has been very good to us. We are fortunate enough to have wonderful clientele and we’re able to put our personal touch and effort into each and every client interaction, because we are family owned. We pride ourselves on being flexible but more importantly, keeping up with the times and being at the forefront of changes in the industry.
Talk about your engagement with Geopath Ratings. How does being a Geopath member impact your business?
As an independent outdoor and billboard company, becoming a Geopath member has provided us with extra tools and additional credibility. National marketers and business are now able to find and purchase our inventory. At times, being that we are a smaller player up against several larger entities, we have been overlooked. Having location-based metrics and data from Geopath helps buyers and advertisers find us. The ability for us to have these tools and use them with clients, speaks for itself. Being part of an audited rating system has opened the door for us to work with larger buying agencies and services. Including our ratings throughout the discussions and planning processes with them reassures clients and is a strong selling point.
What would you say makes for a highly effective and impactful out-of-home campaign?
Location, location, location, and creative!
We utilize the metrics in the Geopath Insights Suite to help determine which locations work best for our clients’ needs. Furthermore, the creative needs to speak to those passing by and it needs to “pop”. We try to help our clients from all angles – if the location they are leaning towards doesn’t provide the right foot traffic, we suggest a better one – and the same with creative. You can’t do OOH without good, impactful, eye-catching, dynamic creative!
Tell us about your favorite OOH campaign of all time.
Being from Atlanta, one of our favorites is the Chick-Fil-A campaign, which was clever and stood out. They used 3D signage with a message that was short but recognizable to the brand, leaving an impact on all those that passed by!
What is the biggest myth in OOH?
I think a lot of people feel OOH is expensive and that billboard messages have to be static. In actuality for the audience it delivers, the ROI on a cost per thousand basis shows that OOH is rather inexpensive. It works 24/7 and it is something that the audience cannot turn off. The effectiveness rates speak for themselves. Now having digital at our fingertips, OOH is no longer static. People don’t realize they can change their messages and adapt their campaigns –with digital, you can change messages every 3-5 days (or sooner). Digital provides the ability to be very specific in timing throughout the day and creative can even be changed to relate to specific happenings locally.