OOH Agency Today —Harmelin Media
by Sarah Druhan, OOH TODAY Journalist
Transparent? Check. Transformative? Check. Top-tier? Double check. Yes, you guessed it—all of these words describe our OOH Agency of the Day, the advertising services group Harmelin Media. Based in Philadelphia with additional satellite offices extending their reach in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Pittsburgh, Harmelin’s pitch has always been one of complete honesty and clarity with their clients. They know that the best way to get a foothold in the business is by operating on the straight and narrow: cutting corners as little as possible so that their every pitch is smooth, streamlined, and refined. On that note, let’s get to streamlining this intro, and hearing from Associate Media Director Michal Komemi about the important work at Harmelin Media Services.
How long have you been in business? Staffing? Size? Specialties? Billing? Regional Offices?
Harmelin Media just celebrated our 40th anniversary in October. We have regularly increased staff through our history and now have over 300 media professionals with 15 dedicated OOH specialists.
Harmelin specializes in full-funnel performance media and marketing solutions and helps our clients navigate the rapidly changing, increasingly data-driven media landscape. Harmelin’s current media billings exceed $900 million across all brand, demand and performance channels. With a diverse client roster including many Fortune 500 companies across an array of industries Harmelin is now one of the largest independent media service firms in the United States.
Tell the story of your most memorable campaign. What about it makes it so special to your and your company?
We’ve implemented a lot of unique campaigns across a plethora of industries and clients, so it’s difficult to narrow down to just one. We’re always looking for ways to make our clients’ campaigns stand out. A few examples of this are:
- Purposefully posting a billboard upside down to gauge reaction in the market. While this was a risky move, it was extremely successful as demonstrated by an increase of phone call volume and social media interactions.
- Erecting a statue in downtown Branson, MO, to draw attention to a client’s venue
- Hand painted murals to create buzz
- Dynamic ad creative for real-time updates
- Transit station dominations to own specific areas
- Pairing location-based OOH and programmatic OOH to address several layers of the customer journey (we ran retargeting campaigns across multiple channels, driving measurable action from our OOH investment)
More than just your people, what do you think sets your agency apart from all the others? Do you have a story of a certain moment or campaign that you think exemplifies this?
Harmelin’s expertise is in managing massive client and campaign data sets to develop strategic, innovative executions that generate immediate growth and long-term return on investment. We accomplish this through our proprietary technologies and data platforms, all while maintaining a long-term focus and operating with 100% transparency. Our approach has resulted in unprecedented retention rates with both employees and clients.
What would you like the OOH Industry to know about your shop? What is it about Out-of-Home advertising specifically that keeps you showing up and doing the work?
We offer a multi-channel OOH approach to accomplish our clients’ strategic marketing goals. We stay at the forefront of technological advancements in the OOH industry. Our OOH specialists are all Geopath-certified, and our VP of Research is a member of the board of directors for Geopath so we stay current on Geopath trends and updates. Harmelin Media was also one of the first agencies to offer programmatic OOH through our in-house trade desk and we continue to grow that offering, as we get a lot of positive feedback from clients.
What’s next for you guys? Anything else you’d like to shout out?
We are making our programmatic OOH offering more robust by building custom reporting and mapping tools. We are always thinking creatively about how OOH is included in our multi-channel approach and how it positively impacts an overall campaign.
Interested in seeing more of Harmelin Media? Click here.
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