91 Barry Cupples, Group CEO at Talon These roles yielded many invaluable lessons. They exposed me to a diverse range of people, situations, challenges, and, most importantly, opportunities. Some might say after three decades in the industry, it would be time to opt out and take a well-deserved rest. And that was precisely my plan... I exited with great sadness from my role at Omnicom and took some time out. I was surprised how quickly I missed corporate life and, as a result, joined the World Golf Group as CEO, but this lacked the challenge I was craving and the agency buzz I had become accustomed to. I quickly realised it was not for me and – as fortune would have it - it was on the red eye back from New York when I received an unexpected call from Eric Newnham, the beating heart of the Out of Home (OOH) industry, and a close friend. He invited me to breakfast, and shared his vision for the future of OOH and how expansive that future could be. Eric never fails to impress with his uncanny knack for identifying advertising trends well ahead of the market, and the conversation we had that morning was no exception. “Out of Home advertising is evolving fast but needs to join the top table in media terms,” Eric told me. “However, to stay relevant and grow share, we need to keep up with the changes other mediums, such as TV, audio and print are experiencing through the explosion of tech-supporting digital and video.” Eric wanted someone to lead his agency Talon into this future. And that person was me. So that was compelling as a challenge, and having built multi-market capabilities several times, this was an attractive opportunity. At first, I was sceptical about the idea of joining an agency that solely focused on OOH. I knew that OOH campaigns could be impactful - but I was not aware of the quantum leap the medium was taking. Eric, in his usual insightful manner, convinced me that my experience and relationships were more important than being an expert (a piece of advice I regularly pass on to young people entering the industry today). And the deal was done. The next week I took up the role of Group CEO at Talon, an agency at the forefront of a renaissance in OOH advertising. The tech capabilities were already clearly advanced – but we saw the opportunity to widen the gap between Talon and our competition through investment and aggressive development and deployment of those tools.
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