"Outdoor cannot be left behind indefinitely. It doesn't work, you lose money, you can see." - Dio Boacă (Phoenix Media)

Phoenix Media events have been unique moments in the Romanian advertising market for a long time, on the one hand because they put the guests in contact with the technology applied in the field, and on the other hand they are invaluable opportunities for reconnection and networking. I don't know if these two reasons were the only reasons why the Fratelli Club was once again full-on Wednesday, September 18, or above all it is also the disruptive way in which Dio Boacă, CEO of Phoenix Media, gives his presentations.

It is certain that after the event I left with more ideas and with the desire to further clarify them, through an interview, which is why I challenged Dio to a sparkling discussion.

an interview by Marian Costache, from the series #reinventyourself #reinventyourbusiness

There were at least two upgrades that caught my attention during the Fratelli event. I am referring here to how you can choose zonal panels and the Golden Campaign. Where did you get these inspirations from?

I think we don't even talk about inspiration anymore because these two things are not necessarily our inventions. I told you in past interviews that we at Phoenix, both me and my colleagues, are so passionate about what we do that we try to bring from the environment what we see to help us evolve, to be different.

The map part, which is really incredible, imagine that now you can go in and take just the East of Bucharest or you take the East plus three panels in the North, plus two in the South, plus one in the center, any combination. You can do everything with the mouse, don't bother anymore, where do you put it because you have no idea where all the locations are.

Outdoor Accounts must understand that things evolve from "I need to know all of Bucharest, with every street as it was 20 years ago", to "I need to know how full the streets are, the audience on the street, how many people are , what potential I have, how many days I go, how I spend the client's money correctly". If they stay the same...

All industries in this world have shown us that old people, if they fail to adapt, have a real problem. We are not talking about craftsmen here, why did they become craftsmen or come to make pots, like 230 years ago?! Not! We are talking about the media industry, Advertising, Television, Internet, Digital, Outdoor Digital.

Outdoor cannot be left behind indefinitely. It doesn't work, you lose money, you can see. Look how others grew, look how we grow. That's why money is lost, because you don't create others, you just take. But you have to create.

Returning to what I was talking about, the map, I think that about three years ago I was going somewhere, I had a tablet and Booking was on there. I entered Booking, it gave me a hotel. Um, I didn't know the area. How do you know the whole planet?! What, you're at Outdoor, you want to know everything?! You can imagine what those from Booking would do, if they had to know all the hotels on earth!

I selected the hotel, I didn't like it, and I entered the map to see where it is. When I entered the map, I see a button and it says "select the area where you would be interested in the hotel". “Boss, wait a minute, someone here was particularly clever!” So, I pulled my finger and said "this is the area I want to stay in!"

I didn't make this up. No, I took it from others smarter than me, we developed the necessary software in our platforms that we have, that we worked to have, and we brought an ease in our daily work, both for us, as well as for those who buy. A process that does nothing but create time. You know how much I like to say that we sell time, so we know how to value time.

You know how I feel when I'm told "I didn't have time to make the offer, help me make it!" "What time do you have?! That it takes two minutes, I did a demonstration, a minute and a half! But what do you do the rest of the time, that I don't understand? Ahaa, you have to work for the other locations which are… Ok, fair enough! But if I were you, I'd get the others to do something too, so we can buy more time!"

Little by little, these are the things that give Outdoor value and make it grow. In any industry on this earth, if things are simple, if people can use more and more easily, that industry will grow.

Look in the banking system! When you had to pay... Look at everything around us, after all! Now you can buy 363 pairs of shoes a month and give them back. Well could you do that?! But why can you do this, that the problem is not if you can, but why you can and how you can? Well simple. That you have an application where you see them, you no longer have to go to the store, after which you choose them, after which you have a card that you can use. You no longer have to go to the bank, deposit the money, send the money... He would give you a sheet, on which you had to write your name, surname, that. No, now there is someone who remembers everything there. A software.

What happened?! What happened to the Fashion area? How much is it now and how much were it 10 years ago? It has increased 50 times! Why has Digital grown so much and is used and has the numbers it has? Only because he adds value to tens of thousands of campaigns? Not!

Simplicity, that's what we try to create!

The second upgrade, Golden Campaign, I brought just to show you a better way. If I gave you a system where everything takes a minute and a half, I gave you a system where you can buy what you want, let me show you the optimal option. It seems very ok to me, to choose is sensational!

At the moment there are not many industries that can afford to come and say, "Boss, you give me this money but I say this is better for you!" You always need someone to give you another opinion. We all want to have opinions, certainties, certifications, that's why social media is full, because everyone is looking for something in it. If I don't need anyone to say that I'm smart, beautiful, rich, poor, brilliant, I wouldn't go at all, because I'm not interested. We all in human nature need these certifications.

When is DOOH Analytics coming out and when do you think it will be mainstream?

I hope with all my heart to release it next year, until the end. You know it seems like a child's game, a joke. We heard about Digital Analytics, which is on the other side, about Meta, about Google, etc. and you say "what a big cheese they make too?!" It's hard, so it's not simple at all, because there are so many IT processes and so many processes underlying the history you have. Basically, what I told you with the Golden Campaign, earlier, is just the beginning, that you need a second opinion. OK, perfect. Do you just realize what it would mean to have a whole tool that would bring you and confirm or disprove the opinions that you think you have at the time of building a campaign?

You are an account or you are a customer and you have already done 6,7,8,9,10 campaigns so far. A report came to you, the report comes from us automatically. You have a clear report on all KPIs, you don't have any kind of problem: audience, number of spots, impressions, everything, perfect. But do you still remember what you did in February 2024? I don't remember what I did last week. How to remember the report at the "Alpha" client, what he did there and whether it was good or bad?! That you can't even tell if it was good or bad. To be able to say this, you have to compare it to something. You will never be able to put a qualifier without comparison, there is no such thing on this earth!

Look, Lidl has dozens of campaigns, I like what Lidl is doing, because it uses Digital Outdoor to perfection, I swear! It has over 50-60 campaigns per year, I don't know 100, short, clear, per product. This is Digital Outdoor; this is what the panels are made for.

Then you start merging the campaigns together. What happened? Why did one campaign scored and another one didn't? Because we start to associate it with time. I'm going to say that during your campaign you had four days of sun and a temperature of 12.7 ° and in the next campaign I'm going to say you had three days with rain and one with sun. You see that the audience in the street is different. After three or four years, you will have information. Usually, that none of us know, in the first week of February it rains. How do you know, you are Romica Jurcă?! How do you know, that you have no way of knowing them, only that one tells you. Then you take what KPI you have achieved there and compare them. After which it gives you totals.

"At the end of everything we did is this. Look, that went great." Then let's start taking the formats, that we didn't launch the possibility to change the picture with video, depending on the audience, the environment, for nothing. Who will understand, will do it. Because he will spend less and get more. And what is this world all about?! That everything starts from there. Teach me to do for free, because everyone knows about money, you know how it is, a saying. It's not free, but much more effective in pitches as well.

God! I have a consultant who got me into pitches with reach. God helps! But there are some who haven't done that either, they still ask me for a price. "What price should I give you, what should I price you for? How to put me, compared to what? That the difference in delivery is huge, it's overwhelming, what data and what analysis we do, versus a simple panel." That's why I don't know when I launch. It is much more difficult to create software, to interact with it, to apply it, than to put a piece of plastic on two pillars!

You were speaking at the sustainability event. Do you really think it's time for our businesses to become “greener”?

Sustainability?! We can't understand everything, but it's clear that there is a difference, it's a big difference. After all, you don't have to be a scientist, you don't have to be a doctor, you don't even have to be a mathematician. When you go out a little in Western Europe, because we all want to be a country like outside, you look a little at that Outdoor. When you see that everything is digital and if there are still signs, they exist on paper, you really don't ask yourself "what's going on here?" You look at those meshes and say "ours prints better; these are more yellowish". "Well, yes, because these are recyclable, you fool!"

There is a difference, yes. So, there are things that really need to be said, we can't hide everything under the rug all the time, let's talk to them face to face. what's the problem It's not a secret. We did not and are not doing any learning process with anyone, but we did a study that you can find in the Phoenix News. It's an article where you can actually see how we documented ourselves and everything we did. I brought all the documentation done together with the Romanian Sustainability Embassy in front of everyone.

In the event we had now on September 18, I said that we come exactly like a psychologist. You can't tell me you didn't know about the problem. It is known! You can't say you don't have choices. No, you have choices! It's all up to you, but realize that we all have a problem. Absolutely everyone!

All the haystacks, all the chicken coops covered, you name it! How many more polyplans should we make, can't you see we don't have any more chickens, let's put them over them?! I think that all the brands in Romania have seen those, so if you ask a rooster like that, he will know the brands better than our advertisers do.

That's it, it helps you from the rain, with this, with that, but we don't need Goretex in Outdoor. Apart from that, there is another very big opportunity, and we are counting on it, also with the Embassy, ​​now. We want to see the carbon footprint of Digital. Because every impression means some computers in the back and servers, every impression! And to collect an impression is to have a man come. After which you multiply until you feel sick. We calculate, we don't know exactly, but we calculate. So, once again, let's face it, nothing more. The decision is everyone's, but you must know about it!

You often talk about leveling up and educating the market. What does Phoenix Media concretely do for this?

In 2023 I went to Lisbon, to the first WOO International Congress. One thing absolutely shocked me there. I liked many things; I'm talking about why it shocked me. It was a presentation called "Educate, Build & Grow". It tells you everything. I came home, rolled up my sleeves and did the Phoenix News. It's a site, a platform dedicated to Outdoor news. Do you know how many times I have heard in this life "well, if we had a way to see what those outside are doing, what would we do in this market"? Some read but others have not entered their lives. We know this, that we see everything, it's a platform.

You can't come after that and ask me "give me an idea too, about something strategic." Read, it's your job. It's yours too, not just mine! Do you want me to make a summary for you, to 50 articles? It's tough. Or do they come up with the next thing, namely who is the specialist? How is this positioning? So, is he a buyer, specialist, seller?!

We educate, we do our best for the willing people in the industry, for the big agencies, the serious agencies that come and ask for our help, that read. These things where I'm like, "wow, look how cool this is." We are making all possible efforts because they will help us set and take the Outdoor market higher than it is at the moment, with them we will grow.

That's why in Milan, on November 4-6, the Romanian delegation will have 12 people, 12 people. I think we will be one of the biggest delegations there. Although the UK will come, which reassures us all, with France and Italy at home. Anyway, we will put Romania on the map. It is me, Bogdan and a lot of accounts from the Romanian market, our guests, to whom we will show them what a European Outdoor Congress means, but you realize that it has the same structure as the world one, in which we can see what happens, let's see where we end up, let's see where they end up, however they end up, that we don't know here...

We have 40 million, 50 million euros, please. The UK has 1.4 billion, America has 10. Europe has 10. "How much do you represent with 50 million, out of 10 billion? Do the math and you'll see how important you are and how much you know. How would you know?! You have no way of knowing; you have to look at the bigger ones!" It is valid for everything. Especially in this industry. We go there to see, to learn and I think to pick up what can suit us too, so that we can put this gap that we have to one side, in the shortest possible time. This is what Phoenix wants to do in the future.

In addition to this, naturally, next year we told you we will launch a bunch of other things. We still have one more platform under development, but that's not for the general public, it's just for our customers, which will launch sometime in February-March. It's a brand-new platform with some brand-new information that will help. It's going to be DOOH Analytics, which I told you about and described earlier, it's going to be something really cool. Because you will have a comparison between what you wanted to do between the Golden Campaign, which is a kind of What If, between what happened, with what you did, and what would have happened, if you listen to us. At the end of the year, we want to make some comparisons, with all this data.

There will be a lot of data, I don't know if I mentioned, not all agencies will have access to DOOH Analytics. The biggest, logically, will have free. For the others there will be a subscription. We can't, I mean we already bring far, far, far too many things to the market, at some point they have to be monetized, but I am convinced that in a pitch they will matter. To go and get all your information, to go and make a story to the client from A to Z, not just the price?! Sounds more professional like that, May 2025.

2025 is coming, it will be very interesting! I'm telling you; I can't wait. It's hard, but I can't wait, that's what we're going to do: Educate, Build & Grow.

Article first appeared on weinvent.ro