Out of Home Video Advertising Bureau (OVAB) Announces Ad Agency Advisory Board

NEW YORK, July 30 /PRNewswire/ -- The Out-of-Home Video Advertising Bureau (OVAB), today announced the formation of its advertising agency advisory board. The board will provide OVAB with guidance and input to help support the industry growth. Advisory board members hail from leading edge advertising agencies, including Starcom, Universal McCann, Carat, OMD, Zenith, Sequent Partners and Hill-Holiday. OVAB formally launched in January of this year with a mission to make it easier for advertisers to plan, buy and evaluate the effectiveness of digital networks through the creation of best practices and standards.

"The agency advisory board is key in helping OVAB to break down the barriers to adoption of digital advertising networks," said Kim Norris, president of OVAB. "As top executives at major advertising agencies, these board members will work closely with OVAB to strengthen our knowledge of how agencies evaluate media and make buying decisions for their clients."

"There needs to be a better process in place to help agencies understand the power of digital advertising networks and how they can be used to maximize results on behalf of clients," said Alec Gerster, CEO of Initiative. "The work with OVAB will initiate a dialogue between the agencies and these networks to find a method for ease of planning and execution."

  The newly formed advisory board consists of the following members:

  --  Alec Gerster, CEO, Initiative
  --  David Verklin, CEO, Carat
  --  Robert C. Martin, vice president, Group Media Director, Universal
      McCann
  --  Jack Sullivan, senior vice president, Media Director, OOH, Starcom
  --  Jim Spaeth, founder and principal, Sequent Partners
  --  Heather Armstrong, director of Out of Home Media, GSDM
  --  Judi Crisileo, vice president, Outdoor Services
  --  Norm Chiat, vice president and director of Out-of-Home, Media Vest
  --  Dan Wilkins, chief operating officer, Wilkins Media
  --  Kris Magel, National Broadcast account director, Zenith
  --  Damon Peirson, vice president and group director Out of Home Services,
      Zenith
  --  Ryan Laul, managing director, Hyperspace Digital
  --  Baba Shetty, executive vice president and director of Media,
      Hill-Holiday
  --  Jeff Minsky, director, NEXT OMD

Several recent reports on the out-of-home advertising category point to the continued growth of the industry. According to the Emerging Media Forecast from MAGNA Global, the out of home advertising space continues to grow at a predicted rate of 24.7 percent from 2007 to 2008. Research firm Profitable Channels claimed similar findings, showing marketers are investing $1.2 billion of their national media budgets in out-of-home digital advertising. And research firm PQ Media recently stated that new out-of-home media, digital billboards and other new out-of-home advertising soared 27 percent in 2006 to $1.69 billion. They predict more of the same in 2007, with an additional growth of 28 percent.

ABOUT OVAB

Founded in 2007, the Out-of-Home Video Advertising Bureau (OVAB) represents leading out-of-home video networks and the advertising community that is actively engaged in planning, buying and evaluating the effectiveness of the medium. On behalf of its members, OVAB seeks to foster ongoing collaboration between agencies and out-of-home video advertising networks; provide standards, best practices and industry-wide research; and promote the effectiveness of out-of-home video advertising. For more information, please visit http://www.ovab.org/.