Clear Channel Outdoor Creates National Sales Group

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Elevating National Sales Efforts to Meet Accelerating Demand for Timely, Flexible and Innovative Multi-Market Out-of-Home Campaigns

Company Embraces Refreshed Branding to Reflect New Advances in the Medium

PHOENIX--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: CCO) today announced the creation of a new business unit dedicated to aiding advertiser and agency partners in the planning, buying and implementation of multi-platform and multi-market out-of-home campaigns - the Clear Channel Outdoor National Sales Group (NSG). Separately, the company rolled out refreshed branding to reflect the resurgence of out-of-home advertising.

"Outdoor advertising is now primed to gain a larger share of overall advertising spending with the advent of new measurement tools like Eyes On that puts out-of-home on par with other media categories, combined with new digital innovations that allow for more creative and flexible campaigns," said Ron Cooper, Chief Executive Officer of Clear Channel Outdoor Americas. "As the industry leader, launching our National Sales Group gives marketers the added advantage of a one stop shop to help them spend where their consumers are and maximize the opportunities that outdoor advertising has to offer. The NSG will enable top-tier marketers to access our national network of traditional and digital signage. And for the first time, marketers can target key demographics on a national scale with one easy purchase and not have to assemble buys across numerous local markets."

The implementation of Eyes On, the industry's new independent measurement tool that allows advertisers to validate audience reach of outdoor campaigns with deep demographic data, is transforming the outdoor medium. For advertisers and media planners, outdoor campaigns can now offer a true, real time network experience - linking opportunities across its traditional, digital and spectacular properties.

Accelerating Demand for Multi-Platform and Multi-Market Outdoor Campaigns

The NSG is tasked with creating new opportunities for national advertising plans across Clear Channel Outdoor's out-of-home advertising properties. This expanded group will be led by Lou Giordano, Senior Vice President of National Sales. The group will report to Rocky Sisson, Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing.

"There is an increasing appetite at the planning agency and specialist level to have one point of contact to help plan, contract and execute large scale out-of-home campaigns across various platforms," said Lou Giordano. "Through the creation of this dedicated team, we're able to solidify existing partnerships and cultivate new relationships with the key evaluators of media plans. Marketers can now execute an out-of-home campaign that is integrated into their national media plan and enhances communication of their core messaging. One mission for NSG is to validate out-of-home as a re-emerging medium and CCO is leading the way."

NSG Account Executives located in major markets, such New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Dallas, will provide proximity to the planning and decision making process and support quick turnaround for national campaigns. Current and prospective clients will also benefit from the speed at which the NSG can make decisions regarding packaging, pricing and inventory across multiple markets and platforms. The NSG operates under a strategic account management plan that clearly identifies accounts that would benefit greatly from adding out-of-home to their media plans. Key verticals that the team will target include consumer packaged goods (CPG), health and beauty aids (HBA), entertainment, media, retail, over-the-counter (OTC) pharmaceuticals and telecom.

"We've always known out-of-home to be an integral part of our communications plan, efficiently generating high levels of awareness in close proximity to point of sale, but it was logistically difficult to buy across markets," said Damon Peirson, SVP, Director OOH/Local Print of Zenithmedia. "Now, with CCO's NSG, we anticipate greater ease of sale, and more flexibility in executing multi-platform campaigns and in reaching consumers in some of the highest-traffic areas throughout the entire day and night across markets."

Refreshed Branding to Celebrate a Re-emerging Medium

To reflect the re-emerging and game-changing outdoor medium, Clear Channel Outdoor today launched a refreshed branding campaign with the tag line, "OUT WORKS," which complements the new sales approach. "The enhanced branding will convey to advertisers and media planners that they should look at OOH with fresh eyes - as a new medium with unlimited digital opportunities and new metrics to measure them," said Debbie Reichig, Senior Vice President of Business Development and Marketing. OUT WORKS speaks directly to out-of-home's ability to reach mass audiences faster and more efficiently than other media, and, at the same time, out-of-home's proximity to the consumer sale enables a direct impact on ROI.

The refreshed branding is accompanied with an updated and modernized logo that projects a truly high-tech quality. It speaks to CCO's leadership - a company that has brought a significant level of technology to the world of signage.

"The appeal of outdoor in engaging mass audiences is growing with new digital innovations, true measurement and the ability to deliver integrated multi-platform campaigns - with its real-time information delivery capability," stated Rocky Sisson. "Created with the key mission of growing share with existing clients and introducing new advertisers to the benefits of the out-of-home medium, the NSG will greatly aid CCO's advertising partners attain their marketing and sales goals."

About Clear Channel Outdoor

Clear Channel Outdoor (NYSE:CCO) is the world's largest outdoor advertising company with close to one million displays in over 50 countries across 5 continents. In the United States, the company operates over 200,000 advertising displays and has a presence in 48 of the top 50 Designated Market Areas. It also operates airport, rail, and mall advertising businesses worldwide. Its Spectacolor (U.S.) and DEFI (international) divisions are the global market leaders in spectacular sign displays, including in New York's Times Square. Clear Channel Adshel is the company's international street furniture division, which operates over 3,500 municipal advertising contracts worldwide. Clear Channel Outdoor also operates digital displays and networks in most of its divisions. More information may be found by visiting www.clearchanneloutdoor.com.

Certain statements in this release constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. 


    Source: Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings

Released September 15, 2010