Rosemary Valenti, Outdoor Solutions Group

The 16:9 PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY SCREENFEED – DIGITAL SIGNAGE CONTENT New York City is a massive out of home media environment, but much of the attention gets directed to the giant LED boards in Times Square, when there all kinds of other interesting and high opportunity environments that also generate a LOT of eyeballs ... like the ferries across the Hudson River. Outdoor Solutions Group has many, many years under its belt doing static advertising on the ferries that take commuters back and forth from New Jersey - from wraps on boats and shuttle buses to ad posters and big banners in the ferry terminals. The company had been slow-walking its digital plans for a variety of reasons, but when COVID hit, the company decided it was time to start converting some of that printed stock to digital. Part of that was triggered by the simple observation that as the economy and riders started coming back from lockdowns, digital interest and buys were coming back faster. I spoke with Rosemary Valenti, who has spent a long career in New York OOH media circles and fully took over the business when her husband died a few years ago, after a long scrap with cancer. She now has a son helping her out, and partnerships with established digital partners in Broadsign, Pearl Media and TSItouch. In this podcast, we get into why Valenti's firm took the digital plunge, its challenges and benefits, and her plans to convert more of the print positions to quickly refreshed digital displays. Subscribe to this podcast: iTunes * Google Play * RSS TRANSCRIPT Rosemary Valenti: I'm Rosemary Valenti. I'm the CEO of an Outdoor Solutions Group in New York, and I've been in this out-of-home world for a very long time. I started this company with my husband, Mark Valenti in 1996, but we were both in the out-of-home world prior to that, we were in companies that are now considered outfront media. And your son's still involved in the business, right?  Rosemary Valenti: Yes, actually, Matthew was an infant when I started OSG, and then by the time he was 15 we had him, as a courier almost, going in, dropping off mail, that's how he earned his allowance, did some inside of the ferry postings and he was an intern, he was great. He learned a lot of the business and now he is Vice President of Outdoor Solutions Group.  Nice, and you've run it on your own since you lost your husband?  Rosemary Valenti: Yes, in 2018, we unfortunately lost Mark to cancer. I took over the helm, but Mark and I did this for years. I had a backseat for a while, and he was more in the forefront when the kids were little, and then I would in those say 10 years, we were just in tandem running it pretty much, and then when he got sick, we needed a little help, and then after that, I just started to run it and then Matthew had some experience at Clear Channel Outdoor for a little bit, and then came in and joined forces with me and is instrumental in everything that we do together. He's great.  Good. It's nice to have him involved, I guess.  Rosemary Valenti: Yeah, even my other son has posted things. It was a family affair for a while. But that's not my other son's career path. But we do all participate in this.  Your environment is transit, and particularly the ferries, along the New York waterways, correct?  Rosemary Valenti: Yes, New York Waterway Ferries are our business partner, and they specialize in ferrying people from New Jersey waterfront properties or New Jersey over to Manhattan, and then we have locations in Midtown and Brookfield Place, and it was static for a long time, and then we decided to introduce the digital, which we needed to do, especially after COVID.  We got shut down for a little while in COVID, and had to rebuild it from the ground up, basically. So we had a lot of entertainment, a lot of Broadway, so we lost everything, and also New York Waterway had only essential service for a few months, and so they were shut down, and so we slowly have come back just like man