The Numbers Don’t Lie: The Rise And Rise Of OOH

By John O’Neill, Chief Executive Officer, QMS

The March 2023 ad spending numbers published recently by SMI are a sharp reminder that the media universe is changing. In this changing world, out of home (OOH) has greater and growing prominence, as

Old media players, new players and redefined media players all have appealing propositions and all of them are evolving, often at a rapid pace. As a result, advertisers need to reimagine the way they think about media channel choices and the expectations about what they can deliver. At the same time, the industry’s view on revenue shares by sector needs to adapt to this new media landscape as well. No algorithm is necessary: just a look straight at the numbers and simple cause and effect.

And almost for as long as I can remember, OOH’s share has hovered in the high single digits. While some of our traditional competitors like TV and radio have slowly lost share to online rivals, OOH has basically held firm.

In recent years, the OOH industry has worked hard and invested significantly in new digital technology (and the resultant data and insights) to create a strong alternative – and to overcome the years of history, inertia and media norms that kept the legacy attributes of traditional media channels largely intact (with the exception of the rise of the online sector), OOH’s embrace of digital and data have made it more flexible, measurable and sophisticated, which have kept revenue shares by sector largely unmoved.

SMI data shows a decline in the linear TV, radio and print sectors’ shares of ad spending over the past six years.

A couple of compelling realities converging have been the catalyst to these numbers changing.

First, consumer patterns have changed through the digital wave to form different habits, needs and movements. In the past, OOH was a reach medium that delivered high impact when people were travelling between places. Now, thanks to the industry’s investment in new digital assets, it’s an attention-grabbing screen wherever and whenever people are on the move.

Secondly, media investment has long required reliable and rich data – delivered quickly – to justify channel spend. For too long, OOH had one-dimensional modelled data. Now it has multi-dimensional real-world data that looks at qualitative and quantitative measures such as the introduction of a neuro impact factor for MOVE, making it equal to any other channel in its capability to drive real results and impact.

Thirdly, for years other media offered compelling creative opportunities which encouraged some powerful campaigns with impressive results, either singularly or as part of a multi-channel strategy. Now OOH can show off its own creative brilliance with similarly impressive results, via digital, 3DOOH, interactive, dynamic or other creative storytelling opportunities.

And finally, OOH remains big, public and standalone, so it has a level of trust that other mediums struggle to match.

The effect is that the legacy revenue share positions that established media channels have held are more fluid. The benchmarks that media planners and buyers have traditionally used to evaluate different media increasingly don’t apply. The power of a screen is still very compelling for many advertisers, but now with different screen options across different media and new forms of audience measurement comes the need to rethink how ad budgets are spent, by screen or format.

As this continues to play out, it’s safe to assume that OOH’s share of the ad market will continue to grow and be a smart investment for brands, even in volatile trading circumstances.

This article first appeared on Mumbrella on 9th May 2023