By Bob Meyer

Dean White (former owner of Whiteco Industries of Merrillville, Indiana) was #287 on the Forbes 400 Richest Americans list last year worth an estimated $1.3 billion.

He built the nation’s largest private company in the billboard business and then he sold out, in 1998, to Chancellor Media for $960 million. (Whiteco Industries had 21,800 displays in 34 states.)

Needless to say the 83-year-old founder is proud of the billboard business despite continually hearing about the new era of web-site marketing, flashy television and radio campaigns.

White quickly points out that outdoor advertising is still a darned good way to get a message across and the price (to advertise) is right. Costs are less than radio and local TV.

How did White creatively build his business through barter? In 1956 White spotted his first Holiday Inn while calling on an account in Louisiana.

Impressed with Holiday Inn’s sleek modern look, White tracked down founder Kemmons Wilson in Memphis and asked, “Do you need any signs?” “Sure do,” Wilson replied.

White offered a barter deal: He would provide a Holiday Inn sign on a motel site if Wilson or franchisees would take space on White’s highway billboards (as in “10 Miles to Holiday Inn”).

White extracted three or five-year contracts from Holiday Inn and its franchisees. Then he persuaded a bank to lend him 50% of the contracts’ value, which he then used to build additional billboards as well as buying or leasing additional land. White subsequently did similar barter sign deals with Mobil, Amoco, Citgo, Motel 6 and Red Roof Inns.

Chancellor Outdoor group now owns and operates 35,000 outdoor advertising displays in 37 states and is among the top five billboard companies in the U.S. (Additionally, the Chancellor Radio Group has 465 radio stations in 105 markets that reach a weekly listener base of 65 million people.)

This entry was posted on Monday, February 19th, 2007 at 8:28 am and is filed under Uncategorized, Best & Brightest Barter, Media & Travel, Real Estate, Marketing, Purchasing & Financing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.