French Advertiser JCDecaux Begins U.S. Push With Chicago Billboards

In a public toilet outside Paris, Jean-François Decaux lays out his plans to conquer America. His company, JCDecaux, has become the world’s biggest outdoor advertiser by building posh potties and slick bus stops designed by the likes of Norman Foster and Philip Cox and plastering them with ads. While the French company operates in more than 1,800 cities across the globe, from Berlin to Bangkok, it has just 3 percent of the U.S. market. “We’ve had to create a new way in,” says Decaux, co-chief executive of the company his father founded.

A recent deal with Chicago to erect 34 massive digital billboards, expected to generate $700 million in ad revenue a year, will help JCDecaux catch up in the U.S., Decaux says. Chicago will collect 40 percent of the proceeds: Decaux hopes the deal—one of the most prominent uses ever of billboards on public land in the U.S.—will serve as a model for other American cities.