WE INVENT Interview with Dio Boaca - #ForTheLoveOfIdeas

The interview Dio Boacă (CEO Phoenix Media): “First and foremost, this HEPI, this AI, is made for clients, it is for their efficiency” appears first on WE INVENT.

In the middle of last month, I had the pleasure of attending the launch of HEPI (High-Efficiency Process Intelligence) by Phoenix Media, the first Artificial Intelligence assistant created in Romania for Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH). In an exclusive atmosphere hosted by Fratelli Club and in the presence of hundreds of guests—representatives of Outdoor companies, advertising agencies, and clients—Dio Boacă (CEO Phoenix Media) provided live demonstrations with HEPI to prove both the functions and the utility of this cutting-edge innovation.

Following the event, I distilled the ideas and reached out to Dio the other day with an interview, because beyond the launch of HEPI, I wanted to find out how he views the prospects of the Romanian Outdoor market, and especially how Phoenix Media positions itself as an operating model at a European level, based on the latest innovations.

An interview by Marian Costache, from the #ForTheLoveOfIdeas series

Last month's event, aside from the HEPI launch, what other perspectives did it offer you?

September 16, what an event! I was literally shocked, I say this with my hand on my heart. So, there were over 400 people and I saw a lot of clients. This brought me joy, because the fruits of our labor this year are visible, through that fabulous campaign you also wrote about, “how much money is this crazy guy spending!”

People need to test, people need to understand, people need to understand the granularity of Outdoor. The audience out there is dynamic, people are moving because we are not in a cemetery. Imagine that we reached a point where 48% of global revenue in 2025 comes from DOOH. It is obvious that in 2026 it exceeds 50%. I don't think we have any doubts, right?! Basically, the main media in Outdoor is no longer the classic billboard. Only here it's about poverty, about theft, with a prism placed in the public square, what we also know how to do. That's what we do, because it involves politicians. Politicians, what can you tell them, that's all they can do, that's what they do! Look how well they manage, we haven't had a government in 433 years. I don't even want to hear about it.

#roas

Digital Outdoor means digital billboards and this will be the main media, the secondary is the rest. The problem is that classic Outdoor doesn't yield ROI, and it severely underperforms. Firstly, because it's on a 30-day basis. If a billboard costs 200 EUR per month, that means 50 EUR per week. Can you realize where we've ended up?! Why? Because it yields no ROI, that's why we got there. If you keep it for two weeks it yields ROI, if you keep it for a month you paid another 100 EUR for nothing. Why would you do that?! Do ROAS, Return Of Ad Spend. Go to your agencies: "sorry to bother you, do we have this calculation done for anything?" You don't know how to do it, it is what it is, that's all that was possible.

#premiere

September 16 was for something absolutely astounding. September 16 was for launching the first planning AI in Romania and I think in the world, to be honest. It was a demonstration of ours, where I talked to that AI, I made a campaign and sent it to every Head of Outdoor in Romania, where I requested a campaign for a pet shop. Actually, I didn't request it for a pet shop. It was very funny that I told it I sell animal food, cats and hippos, dinosaurs, rhinos and other stuff, and HEPI figured out we were talking about a pet shop.

Moreover, for my category, it also gave me a recommendation. After that, it asked me in which cities I wanted to run the campaign and I said I didn't necessarily want it in the city, I wanted it in cities with over 200,000 inhabitants, and it gave me the 8 – 9 cities we have in INVENTORY. Then it asked me what budget I had and I gave a budget, after which it asked when I wanted to do the campaign and I told it in the first two weeks of Santa Claus's month and it set December 01-15. Then it came and asked me: "but what are the points of interest?" Every client has a point of interest.

#generaltarget

The problem with Outdoor is that almost 90% of our requests from agencies are for a broad target. You can't be efficient on a broad target. You have to buy the whole market then. You have 7,000 EUR and want a broad target? Seriously?! You have 3,000 EUR and want a broad target? Ask the client or better yet, log into ChatGPT: "sorry to bother you, do you happen to know what the target of this client, X, is?" And it tells you. You nicely take it, give it to me, and I give you something efficient, so the person sells, because if the person sells, then they come back to us and we take money again, twice, three times, five times and so on.

This is HEPI, this is what it can do instantly. Of course, it can exclude intervals, of course it can select only intervals from certain periods of the day when you have an interest, of course it can target within 200m of schools, 300m of hospitals, 270m of banks, whatever you need. It can do this just by talking to it. This is what HEPI was about on September 16, but it's not just about that, because practically we started a new chapter and a new world and I'm convinced you want to know what will happen in the future.

VIDEO 1:  What other perspectives did last month's event offer you?

Who is HEPI designed for?

By far, first and foremost, this INVENTORY, this HEPI, this AI, is made for clients, it is for their efficiency. Imagine it like this, imagine what is to come, imagine that this HEPI, which we taught all the words from zero, mind you it's not ChatGPT. It's not a database, a huge Excel that we threw into ChatGPT and say: "find Sun Way! Give me W40 with line 8, what happens if?!" No, it's nothing like that, anyone can do that.

We taught this AI everything from zero. We taught it what an hour means, we taught it what a month, week, billboard, eBacklit, TV screen, large format mean. We taught it what GRP, TRP, CPT mean. We taught it what morning hour, rush hour mean. We taught it what Santa Claus's month means. We taught it what Valentine's Day means. We taught it what June 1st means. We even taught it what Easter means. It's important, these are the moments of Outdoor!

Outdoor is a dynamic media, once again, it's not a cemetery, we don't stop, fixed. Outdoor is dynamic, Outdoor is in motion. We are in 2026 and everything is in immense motion. We have a real-time audience, we know what's happening outside.

#strategy

Imagine how many common-sense things we need from the future or from the past, which we have to unify with this HEPI, with what it knows how to do, so we can come up with strategy, not with price, with strategy, this is what will follow. 2027 and 2028 will be strategy versus price. With strategy, I beat price, I beat any price, with any media agency specialized in Outdoor, and this will be the beginning of the end for certain things, in 2027 and 2028. We are discussing it in the current interview too.

Returning to what HEPI does, it will have to merge with the global AI, except that if it were to merge with the global AI, each iteration would mean a cost. If you go ask ChatGPT something related to a certain thing, it asks for some tokens to calculate them for you. Those tokens cost money, a lot of money. Then I thought what if I had a pitch, where someone would want to know how many times it rained in November in the last 5 years.

Can you imagine that 20 agencies would go in and give money to ChatGPT just for this exact thing?! After which I would think like this, what if I had a contextual temperature campaign, in September. If the spot would only appear from 22°C upwards, look, on September 3 it might start at 8 AM and end at 8 PM maybe even 10 PM. But on September 28 it might not appear at all or appear from 12 to 14 because you had 22°C for two hours, the rest is lower.

#past

It is very important to understand how much budget you allocate for that story, how, in what way, how you move, how you can intervene in real-time on your campaign. All these things would mean entering ChatGPT a million times and giving it money. We won't do that. We will create some small AI agents, our own, that will gather from ChatGPT, from Claude, from Gemini, it doesn't even matter, the entire past. Meaning I will take the top 25 cities in Romania, the temperatures over the last five years, when it was sunny, when it rained, what the temperature was every hour. Moreover, then other triggers that interest me, of annual events. Like Easter, there are many like that but we don't know them. Then events that can be non-recurring.

Imagine we have a campaign in October, from the 15th to the 30th, and on October 26 Ed Sheeran sings in Timișoara. Well, shouldn't you take all the screens in the city from the 25th to the 26th and display your brand?! It means you have no clue how to do Outdoor! Because those two days cost you 2,000 EUR and are worth as much as a 100,000 campaign. It's common sense, here we no longer need numbers, research data, nothing. This is common sense, but obviously you need to know.

A person from an agency has no way of knowing all these things, they just can't. Then there is an AI that will tell you. It won't tell everyone, it will tell those who have an ongoing campaign: "Hey man, I saw you have 3 billboards in Timișoara, wouldn't you like on that day when Pink Martini or Ed Sheeran or Madonna or whoever sings, 'Pupăza din Tei', wouldn't you like me to get you all those screens, since it interests you? If you want to, if not, you don't, it's your business, but it's important to know!

VIDEO 2:  Who is HEPI designed for?

In the current context, what do you think the future of Outdoor advertising looks like in Bucharest?

To be honest, I had a lot of trust in Ciprian Ciucu, that he would get to work. No, I see he's doing exactly what the other mayors did, even the elected president. Nothing, from an Outdoor point of view! He swept two streets, bam-bam, two Instagrams, a TikTok, boom-boom, took a picture, took down a prism, alright bye goodbye!

We need a public tender in Bucharest, they could make money too. I mean all due respect to Mr. Băluță. He held a tender, he took our money, from some he took more, from others he took less, each as we could. We won the locations, we are there, we give the money within the legal timeframe, we have no problem. This is what's needed at the Bucharest level. Whoever has money can enter, whoever doesn't have money can stay home.

#combination

I would have wished for much more from him, finding excuses now is easy, you know how it is. It's like I would go to ANAF (Tax Authority) and tell them I felt sick this month and I don't want to pay taxes anymore. No, I'm also a citizen who pays a lot of money, take care of me too and take down the illegal billboards and take down the prisms and take down all the garbage that happens, if you want to be a European capital! Comparing ourselves to other states, precisely because of these things we don't have a very strong Outdoor industry. No, we have a "shady deal" Outdoor industry.

50 million last year, this year around 45. Let's say thanks if it's 45, I think it's even lower. You know how it is, stingy pockets, let's not give 1 Leu for research, let's not give 1 Leu for anything. It is attempted, it was wanted, it is wanted. That's why we are where we are, because we are independent, because the level of the other things happening around us is too low, from our point of view.

We want to give a lot more money but we have no one to give it to, so we can get to matter and be able to sit at the same table rightfully with Digital and TV, like we do for example, Phoenix Media, where you have real-time audience, where you have the correct audience. So you can come and provide granularity and moreover, come and be able to bring efficiency to the client, final efficiency.

#inovationversusexcel

A client who comes and invests 100,000 EUR and he actually in the market, on the street, actually has 25 - 30,000 EUR invested, you have no way to get the necessary ROAS. You have no way, it's not possible, it's impossible! With 30,000, if he put in 100,000, to give him back 120,000 or give him 100,000, it's not possible. In conclusion, it will continue to be a battle of price versus strategy, a battle of innovation versus Excel, a battle of vision versus stagnation.

VIDEO 3 :  What do you think the future of outdoor advertising in Bucharest looks like?

Phoenix has accustomed everyone to being the flagship of innovation in Romanian Outdoor, but what do you think the business in this industry will soon look like in Romania as well?

What will the future look like?! I think we should look at what the future looks like abroad; I think that's the first step, because that's always how it happens. I look, for example, at England, where 50-55% of all Outdoor advertising is routed through Talon.

Eric Newman, Talon's founder and majority shareholder, was here at Phoenix Media, in the office next door, last week, and we talked exactly about this story. Media agencies no longer have Outdoor departments. Only a few still have Outdoor departments, but many of them don't anymore, and then the money goes through these specialized Outdoor agencies. Meaning OMD has to work through Talon globally, that's the deal. Whether it hasn't happened here yet, whether it will happen or won't happen is not my business. I'm saying how it is abroad.

You have Billups in America, you have Vistar, you have Silverflow in Europe and Eastern Europe. Silverflow representatives were also at my place last week and starting next week they will be represented by a company from Romania, in Romania, which I think is a fantastic thing. Winnie and Adrian were genuinely impressed by certain things in Romania.

#progress

Naturally they were impressed by what Phoenix is doing, because ultimately Phoenix attracted these names and these companies to get a like on LinkedIn from Benj Billups, to go to London and present at Ocean, at their headquarters, what the future will look like and to receive a standing ovation. Having Talon and Silverflow representatives come to Romania and understand and say: "what you are doing actually sounds right, we really believe that's the direction we should take too, and your only problem is that you are far too advanced."

I got the message, we don't really have to invent everything first, but the market will get to where we wrote the things down. With us, without us, with Dio, without Dio, with Phoenix, without Phoenix, Phoenix being bought and so on, it doesn't matter, it will get there. Because the granularity, the simplicity, and the speed with which you can take a spot to the street during the time of day—because we don't just talk about times of day, we don't talk about morning hours. We need to talk about afterwork, to talk about things we don't talk about in Outdoor. To talk about static audience and dynamic audience.

#transparency

We don't talk about anything. We have the Outdoor slide, in a one-page presentation, and I need at least an hour and a half to present. Explain to me where the mistake is. Who is making it? Because someone is making a mistake here. If you give one slide or two, and I can't fit presenting my Outdoor into an hour and a half.

Why don't you want to get into my Outdoor? My Outdoor is transparent, my Outdoor is efficient, my Outdoor is for the client. I don't know why. That is what Outdoor looks like abroad, through these agencies, different from what we are used to, through this type of work, through efficiency, mandatorily through numbers. That is what Phoenix did, and imagine that we went there 3 years ago, 4 years ago. We are in our 4th year, me and Bogdan. After 4 years, global leaders are coming all the way to Bucharest.

Not to mention I was even asking myself shouldn't we organize a European summit blah-blah-blah in Bucharest?! And I said no, because I have to pay for everything and these agency guests demand things from me too. So no, I don't want to, what I do for the Outdoor market is enough, thank you!

VIDEO 4 :  What will business in this industry—and in Romania—look like in the near future?

The interview Dio Boacă (CEO Phoenix Media): “First and foremost, this HEPI, this AI, is made for clients, it is for their efficiency” appears first on WE INVENT.