• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, September 15, 2010

Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings this morning announced a new business unit to help advertisers and agencies plan and buy "multi-platform" and multi-market out-of-home campaigns. The new unit, Clear Channel Outdoor National Sales Group (NSG), is part of a major push by Clear Channel to energize the out-of-home advertising marketplace, and comes as other traditional media are making a push to leverage digital extensions to their core advertising businesses.

Clear Channel said NSG will create packages of both traditional and digital signage targeted at specific consumer demographics either nationally, or by specific local markets, and that the program will utilize the out-of-home media industry's so-called "eyes-on" measurement system, which the industry asserts gives it more accountable audience exposure than any other medium.

The new unit will be led by Lou Giordano, senior vice president-national sales, and will report to Rocky Sisson, executive vice president-sales and marketing at Clear Channel Outdoor.

Concurrently, Clear Channel Outdoor is breaking a new branding campaign, tagged, "Out Works," which touts out-of-home's ability to "reach mass audiences faster and more efficiently than other media, and, at the same time, out-of-home's proximity to the consumer sale enables a direct impact on ROI."