CANNES, France – This publication’s correspondent and Consumers in Motion managing director Dan Hodges yesterday interviewed Dan Levi, executive vice president and chief marketing officer of Clear Channel Outdoor, at the Cannes Lions Festival in Cannes, France.

Cannes Lions attracts the leading advertisers and marketers from across the world, discussing advertising, marketing and media issues of the day in a glamorous setting. The conversation, which is part of this publication’s Cannes Lions Interview Series, is below:

What are your goals for Cannes Lions?
Cannes Lions offers a unique opportunity to meet with senior brand executives and agency leadership, tech companies and data partners. We come to Cannes Lions to meet people and to get business done. We accomplish both.

What is the role of mobile in outdoor and what is Clear Channel’s unique offering?
Mobile is already a big part of everything we do.

Our research shows that 25 percent of all media spending will be on mobile in the next two to three years.

Americans spend 70 percent of their working hours outside of the home, which is our market.

Mobile combined with outdoor gives advertisers the ability to understand audiences like never before.

When you overlay mobile and outdoor data, it is efficient and effective in targeting. This is a real win for brands.

Earlier this year, we launched Clear Channel Outdoor Radar, which is a suite of data and audience insight tools. This tool set helps marketer understand how to reach audiences on outdoor and mobile. It provides an attribution model, which enables ROI tracking.

How is the addition of mobile to outdoor changing the game for brands and advertisers? What is the learning to date?
When you speak to marketers, they understand how out-of-home works.

When you drive down the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles or walk in Times Square in New York City, you see the impact of out-of-home.

In 2016, brands and agencies require data that shows how it works. Our team provides the data upfront, which demonstrates to agencies how the data can be used in the planning process.

We have strategic partnership with mobile companies such as Placed and PlaceIQ to understand the impact on consumer behavior after exposure.

Mobile data allows us to determine who is exposed to what screen and in what direction they are moving.

We just completed a pilot for a large domestic automotive company where we found that people who were exposed to the automakers ads were 27 percent were more likely to go into a car dealership after exposure to the ads.

We worked with a retailer to see if we could drive awareness for their social mission. Those who were exposed to the out-of-home message were 25 percent more likely to visit the store and to support their mission.

What is the power of combining mobile’s ecosystem with outdoor reach?
There is an entire rich data and ecosystem that we are tapping into on the mobile phone.

The mobile phone is a data-rich proxy for consumers. This is very powerful and growing data set and an exciting time to be a marketer.

Dan Hodges is managing director of Consumers in Motion Group, a New York-based strategic consultancy offering business, marketing, and technology services. He is also head of the New York chapter of the Location Based Marketing Association. Reach him at [email protected].