Barton F Graf 9000 wins new account to make US posters more creative

Barton F Graf 9000 has won a new account to promote The Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA), the national trade association representing the $7bn out of home industry.

“Innovation in OOH advertising has made it the place to be for groundbreaking creative. We want to remind advertising professionals of the endless possibilities for amazing ideas that stop people in their tracks and make them take action,” says Barton founder and CCO Gerry Graf (left).

OAAA CMO Stephen Freitas says: “Barton F. Graf is the ideal partner to help communicate the creative impact of OOH within the agency world. They are big believers in OOH, and they’re well suited to tell OOH’s creativity story.”

It’s interesting that Barton’s brief is to highlight the creative potential of outdoor rather than other issues like its scope and reach, although these will doubtless come into it. You can do much more on posters and the other manifestations of OOH than ever before, thanks to digital among other developments. But, with a few honourable exceptions such as Coke’s big Cannes winner from Ogilvy a few years ago, creative has failed to keep up.

Barton’s first campaign is due to launch in Q2 2016, which is a pretty long gestation period but dealing with trade associations tends to be a lengthy task. Doubtless we’ll be seeing some eye-popping poster campaigns.