Kevin Jones, New CEO, on the Future of Adams Outdoor

by Amber Larkins, OOH Today

Kevin Jones was announced as Adams Outdoor’s CEO in May of this year, taking over from Kevin Gleason, the former CEO. Jones stepped into the CEO role at Adams Outdoor with more than 30 years of experience in the technology industry—and, like several new hires for top-tier positions across the industry, no out-of-home advertising experience.

Though this is his first role in OOH, he feels like he’s been training for this role his whole life. “This is the fourth company that I’ve run. It’s my fourth CEO role,” Jones said. “And I’ve run companies across different industries. So my common theme is running ambitious businesses that want to grow fast. And that’s exactly what we have here at Adams.”

Jones was initially contacted by Searchlight Capital, which is part of the Board of Directors for Adams. He had worked with them before. He was informed that Gleason would be retiring after 30 years and that they needed a new person to lead the company. Jones describes his role as an operating partner at Searchlight Capital as a way to gain more resources by leveraging the relationship with the private equity firm.

Adams Outdoor has two major shareholders, British Columbia Investments (BCI) and Searchlight Partners. As Adams looks to buy more companies to expand and invest in cloud-based software and new IT processes, the investments from the shareholders allow Adams more resources to grow quickly, as Jones hopes it can.

Why Adams and Why Outdoor Advertising?

Jones said there were a few reasons. The OOH market is growing. “I believe out-of-home is by far the best type of advertising out there.” He believes Adams is the premier player in the industry. “You know, we’re the best, and I wanted to be part of the best. We’re number one in all our markets, so that was really enticing.”

“I fell in love with the culture of the company. The culture of Adams I would say is really unique. It’s a very creative and innovative culture obsessed with advertisers and high quality. We provide our advertising clients with extremely, extremely high-quality services. So for all those reasons, I went for it and here I am,” Jones said.

Before starting at Adams, Jones knew very little about out-of-home advertising, and it took a while for him to come up to speed. To learn more about the industry and Adams in general, he has traveled and visited all of Adams’ markets.

The Importance of CEO Skills Over Industry Experience

With so many companies, including Adams Outdoor, looking to change up how they operate their OOH businesses by hiring someone from outside the industry, does this mean that the CEO skill set is more important than the industry skill set? Jones says that it depends, but in his case, he has worked in several different industries or has become very familiar with how different industries operate because the companies he worked with either had a client or a business unit focused on those industries.

“I think there are a lot of skills for CEOs that are very transferable. However, I do think it’s important when you’re coming from a different industry that you really go deep and you learn the specific industry that you’re leading. So for example, in out-of-home, it is really quite different than a lot of industries. It’s very unique. And I think it’s a very powerful industry,” Jones said.

His approach has been to visit all of Adams’ markets, meet with the teams, listen to them, and go out with the teams to understand how they talk to the advertisers, take care of them, and how they actually deliver.

He estimates that in his training on OOH he has seen thousands of Adams’ billboards, which he describes as pristine works of art. He spoke with reverence of the Adams operations team, many of whom have been with the company for over 20 years. Seeing the billboards in person on market rides and meeting with different people from the company and learning about what they do is what he says has gotten him up to speed on the industry.

What Makes OOH Unique and Powerful?

“In terms of the industry, I mean, if you look at the research and the statistics, you know, out-of-home advertising is the most effective type of advertising in the world. You know, out-of-home has the best recall rate of any advertising. Our advertisers’ customers truly engage with our images, right? You cannot swipe past it. There are no bots skewing our attribution statistics. And one of the things that really turned me on about Adams and about the industry was in a period of 24 hours, in our industry and at home, we can literally, you know, paint a town red and get immediate recognition for a brand, a person, or a message. And I don’t know any other, you know, form of media that can do it that fast. And the other thing about our industry is we are very strategic to our clients, right? We’re incredibly strategically important for our clients because we help them grow, right? When you’re focused on helping companies grow, you’re much more important and much more strategic to them. So, yeah, so I’m loving out-of-home.”

But he recognizes there’s still a lot he needs to learn and that it will take time. He wants to learn more details about the industry and what makes advertisers tick. He wants to know what clients are truly looking for and what the trends are going to be. He would also like to get to know some of the other firms in the industry.

“I don’t know our competitors as well as I will six months from now,” Jones said. “I always like to make sure I can understand what our competitors are up to.”

Future of Adams Outdoor

Jones says he feels he’s off to a pretty good start. As far as the future of Adams, he sees a lot of different paths it could take in its growth. Possibly Adams could be grown and sold in the future, but that is just one possibility, Jones said. His number one goal is to invest organically in more capabilities, improve processes, and buy more businesses so that the company can grow. Another possibility Jones sees for the future of Adams is that it could go public. Or they could just keep on growing as an investment for the two firms.

Jones says he wants to see Adams scale and grow and to be a part of that mission. But this extends to the industry as a whole. “I would say our mission is to prove that outdoor advertising is more powerful than anybody has yet to imagine,” Jones said. “We are very passionate about the industry.”

Jones is very thankful for the support Adams has given him in his onboarding and the legacy of Kevin Gleason. “They’ve built the very best of out-of-home business, and we’re at the top of our markets,” Jones said.

Adams may be around fourth or fifth in terms of revenue in the United States, but Jones says it is the number one provider in the markets where it operates. In his quest for growth, is he trying to contend with the likes of Clear Channel, Lamar, and OUTFRONT? “I don’t know if size as a metric is what we’re as focused on as growing and scaling beyond where we are now and maintaining our focus,” Jones said. “One of the things we don’t want to do is go into 100 different areas, right? And 100 different types of advertising. We’re very, very focused in the billboard space, digital and static, and we want to stay focused where we are the best and we want to be in markets where we can be a leader in the market.”

Rather than taking market share from the larger companies, he sees Adams as taking inventory from the other companies that are in the markets where Adams operates. Another planned change for Adams is a higher investment in digital advertising, but Jones sees static billboards and digital billboards as working hand-in-hand because they give their advertisers more choice. “We’re going to grow digital everywhere we can, but static billboards we think also have a place,” Jones said.

Leveraging a Tech Background

He sees his tech background as very helpful in helping internal operations, such as getting into the cloud to modernize Adams Outdoor, as it can help internal staff to do their work more efficiently and serve advertisers better. But he thinks one of his greatest strengths coming into this role is that he has a track record of coming up to speed quickly in the different industries where he has worked and of bringing success to those companies.

“I think I still have a lot to learn, certainly, but it’s absolutely not a concern. In fact, it’s really quite exciting. And I think what I can bring is a different perspective on how to grow and how to scale a business. I think that will be beneficial for both Adams and the industry,” Jones said.

Jones’ past experience includes running a software company, a transportation company, in the UK and US public sector, and also spent time running Hewlett Packard Americas as well as two years working overseas for HP in Japan. He feels the industries where he was strongest were retail, public sector, financial services, healthcare, and transportation. “After 35 years I’ve been around a few industries and having a sales, growth, and marketing background where I spent most of my career has helped me and translates pretty well into this advertising space,” Jones said.