How ADstruc Aims to Reinvent the Billboard Business The web-based exchange connects advertisers with billboard owners without the need for document swaps and epic location-scouting.

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Signs of the Times

John Laramie regularly bikes around Manhattan, but in 2008, he briefly wished for a car. One of his small brand-consulting agency's first clients wanted to buy outdoor advertising near Bed Bath & Beyond stores, so Laramie was forced to spend hours pedaling from one store to another, cataloguing the nearest billboards and scrutinizing them for any hint that might identify their owners. Then he contacted dozens of billboard companies, which drowned him in massive documents and pricing spreadsheets.

"I had no idea how that system worked," he says. "The whole messy and horrifically fragmented industry was run on Excel and PDFs."