While ad spend on digital and mobile continue to climb and TV and print are on a downward trend, out-of-home is somewhere in the middle.
IPG Mediabrands’ 2017 ad spend report predicts global growth of 3% for OOH, fuelled primarily by a jump of 11.7%, cinema growth of 3.8% and traditional OOH growth of 0.5%. That’s on par with the 3% predicted growth in ad spend for the space in 2016.
Mike Rumble, CSO at Starcom MediaVest Canada, said the low levels of growth in OOH are partially due to many advertisers not seeing the creative opportunity in OOH.
“As advertisers become more sophisticated at econometrics and attribution, media choices are eventually determined by measured ROI,” he said. “Yet regardless of improvements in targeting and technology, these models consistently report out-of-home as being outperformed by other channels. So what’s the problem? Creativity. Many advertisers are still not seeing the creative opportunity in OOH and, as a result, not realizing its true value to their business, with the exception of a few.”
Aligned with the predicted jumps in DOOH spend and the ability to buy the faces programmatically, Abby Worthington, senior director, head of print and OOH investment at Dentsu Aegis Network’s Amplifii, said that outdoor digital screens will begin to be seen as a fourth screen. She adds that further development and verification of mobile data will drive real-world targeting on digital OOH screens.
Susan Robb, activation supervisor at Gaggi Media, echoed those sentiments, saying OOH and digital device integration will make the platform more actionable and useful. Many OOH media companies, including Astral Media, have rolled out new tools that allow for real-time events such as weather, traffic and even recent sporting events.
When it comes to connecting with consumers, Rumble said OOH simply has something that other platforms don’t.
“OOH is truly the only media channel that can’t be blocked,” added Rumble. “But in 2017 it’s up to advertisers and their agencies to create great work that can’t be missed.”
MiC will be catching up with experts across the media and advertising world to deliver 2017 predictions on TV, digital, social, radio, print and out-of-home throughout the week.
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