Million-dollar Baton Rouge company traces roots to a coin toss 125 years ago
How Lamar Advertising grew from a single sign to the nation’s largest billboard company
Billboards seen along local roads are largely operated by a company based in Baton Rouge. Lamar Advertising has become the largest in the country, with more than 160,000 billboards nationwide.
Sean Reilly leads Lamar Advertising.
“We’ve now become the largest outdoor advertising company in the United States by far and the most valuable out of home advertising company in the whole world,” Reilly said.
A company built on a coin flip
Reilly said the company’s history began 125 years ago at a Florida opera house with a single sign for Coca-Cola. Reilly’s great-grandfather, Charlie Lamar, later split assets with his business partner, with the outcome decided by a coin toss.
“Well Charlie Lamar lost the coin flip and took over the posting company, changed the name to Lamar and that’s how Lamar got going,” Reilly said.
The company moved to Baton Rouge, went through generations of change and eventually went public, leading to Reilly ringing the NASDAQ opening bell.
“It was an emotional moment because you get to celebrate having become worthy of being a public company,” Reilly said.
Company credits growth to two rules
Reilly credits the company’s growth to two principles: treating others how you want to be treated and leaving communities better than they were found.
“Quite powerful and profound when you think about it because those aren’t the first things you think of when you think about hard nose business guys right? but it’s important to us,” Reilly said.
Digitizing billboards
That approach is guiding the company’s move into digitizing billboards. Lamar Advertising put up its first digital billboard off Interstate 10 in Baton Rouge twenty years ago.
“We had no clue what we were doing, we just put it up and said, wow this is cool I wonder what we can do with this,” Reilly said.
Reilly said the company now leads the industry in digital billboards.
“I could take your picture with my iPhone, and I could have you in front of 150 million eyeballs in five minutes,” Reilly said.
Thousands of digital boards nationwide are controlled from the company’s operations center in Baton Rouge. Reilly said the Baton Rouge headquarters will remain in place.
“We’re purple and gold, so it has a lot to do with the legacy, the heritage, our love for this place,” Reilly said.
Source: WAFB 9 News