Key Points
- Clear Channel Outdoor has appointed former Univision CEO Wade Davis as CEO and Executive Chairman following its $6.2 billion acquisition by Mubadala Capital.
- Former Paramount advertising chief John Halley is joining the company as Chief Commercial Officer.
- The new leadership team plans to expand programmatic advertising, improve measurement and simplify how advertisers purchase outdoor advertising.
Clear Channel Outdoor has recruited two former television executives to lead its next chapter as a privately held company, appointing former Univision CEO Wade Davis and former Paramount advertising chief John Halley to senior leadership positions.
Davis, who currently serves as Vice Chairman of Univision, becomes CEO and Executive Chairman of Clear Channel Outdoor, replacing outgoing CEO Scott Wells. Davis helped spearhead the acquisition. Halley, who previously served as President of Paramount Advertising, joins as Chief Commercial Officer after leaving the entertainment company earlier this year.
The appointments follow the completion of Clear Channel’s $6.2 billion acquisition by Mubadala Capital, which takes one of the country’s largest outdoor advertising companies private. The new executive appointments were first reported by Adweek on Wednesday.
The executives will oversee efforts to modernize Clear Channel’s advertising business, which includes more than 70,000 outdoor and airport displays. Their priorities include making outdoor advertising easier to purchase, expanding programmatic capabilities and improving measurement systems that demonstrate how campaigns influence consumer behavior.
“We’re investing in a tech roadmap to make the business operate better, internally and externally,” Halley said.
The appointments bring two executives with extensive experience in TV advertising to a business that has historically relied on different methods of selling and measuring advertising. Halley previously served as Chairman of OpenAP, an advertising technology company focused on audience-based television advertising and measurement. He also worked with Davis when Davis was Chief Financial Officer of Viacom before its merger with CBS.
At Clear Channel, Halley will work with Chief Revenue Officer Bob McCuin, Chief of Business Operations Erika Goldberg and Chief Marketing Officer Dan Levi.
Halley said outdoor advertising offers opportunities that have become harder to find in television, where audiences are increasingly divided among broadcast, cable and streaming platforms. At the same time, he said outdoor advertising remains difficult to purchase and lacks the sophisticated measurement systems available to advertisers on other platforms. The company intends to address those shortcomings through better audience data, digital inventory, automated purchasing tools and systems that connect advertising exposure to business results.
“We’re building the measurement structure to understand not just how many people saw an ad, but how that exposure contributes to things like store visits and customer acquisition, and ultimately ROI,” Halley said.
The executives also want to make outdoor advertising easier to incorporate into broader marketing campaigns, allowing advertisers to evaluate its performance alongside television, digital and social media.
