IBO Fall 2024
Independents Can Make a Creative Impact
You might think you can’t make creative ads because…
“We’re just a small company.”
“We’re in a small market.”
“Our clients don’t get it.”
Well, we think…
Those are all myths.
Size doesn’t dictate creativity.
You’re easier to work with.
You’re flexible.
You’re nimble.
And you can make creative your unfair advantage over the big guys.
The Jolt
Billboards don’t have to be this bad.
Great creative can happen anywhere.
Rochester, MN
Population: 122,692
Galveston, TX
Population: 53,695
Enterprise, AL
Population: 28,513
Morehead City, NC
Population: 9,958
Mio, MI
Population: 1,358
And the same goes for your self-promo.
Huntsville, AL
Population: 221,993
Johnson City, TN
Population: 72,514
You can be the billboard company that people actually know by name.
The Push
It’s one thing to acknowledge these misconceptions. It’s another to hit ‘em head on. Luckily, you’re not alone.
We can help. A few ways.
We work directly with media owners, tackling their best clients’ creative.
Better creative on the street means more attention on your media.
And more businesses saying I gotta get me a piece of that.
But that’s just part of how we assist media owners …
The Out of Home Creative Training Academy
A series of webinars where we teach our creative insights from 20+ years in OOH.
Stuff that goes way beyond the basics.
Stuff they don’t teach you in school.
Before
After
Before
After
Stuff that’ll help your team create unexpected and compelling campaigns for your clients.
And it goes a little something like this …
Term 1: Foundations
Typography, Imagery, Color, Content, Concept
Anyone can search “out of home best practices” and get the same old dry nuggets about simplicity, word count, and bold colors. The problem with these old notions is that, if taken at face value, or as the only rules to go by, you’re only going to get bland, boring—often ugly billboards. There are major gaps.
Our Out of Home Creative Training Academy foundations establish a series or principles. You’re getting deep dives into the how’s and why’s, the do’s and the don’ts and perhaps most importantly, the knowledge of when to use ‘em and when to ditch ‘em. Because, as you know, out of home is not one-size-fits-all.
Term 2: Advanced
Copywriting, Creative Briefs, Portfolio, Advertising Strategy, Client Interaction
Once you’ve mastered the basics, it’s on to how to elevate your clients’ ads, through technique, presentation, and client interactions and relationships so that when it comes down to it, your client retention—goes up.
Term 3: Expert
1:1 Creative Collaboration, Project Management, Special FX, Unique Media
After that, we’ll collaborate alongside your designers, helping them to maintain the new creative standards within your market. Building upon the solid foundation laid out in the previous two terms, and setting your teams up to continue on, confidently long after the training ends.
The Impact
You absolutely can make an impact on this industry and for your clients.
It’s time you get recognized for it.
The IBO is bringing back their creative awards rebranded as …
This is going to be for IBO members, indie operators, and their clients.
No huge agencies with bazillion dollar budgets. No national advertisers winning on name-recognition alone.
Just a showcase of your talent. With your clients. In your markets.
More info coming soon from IBO.
The Jolt
We hope that by now, we’ve jolted these myths and misconceptions about independents and their creative chops right outta you. The “we’re too smalls” and the “our markets are unknowns”—have gotta go. They’re just not true.
The Push
While this realization might seem overwhelming, it doesn’t have to be. As an industry we can push each other. All working together to raise the level of creative throughout the country. Who knows maybe we get lucky and we as Up To Something get to work directly with you and your team to make this happen.
The Impact
And as a result of all of your hard work, it oughta be your clients, your efforts, and your talent that we celebrate next Spring at the IBO Indie Impact Awards.