OOH Driving the Ad Bus as 2022 Unfolds

Consumers have awakened from the pandemic and they're in a buying mood. In an all-out effort to woo them, US advertisers spent 19.2% more this past January than they spent in January 2021. That's the 11^th month in a row advertising spending has increased. And just what type of advertising was responsible for most of that impressive surge?

Out of home advertising blew other categories out of the water, jumping a whopping 133%!

Other categories paled in comparison:

• Newspaper advertising was 40% higher
• Magazine advertising spend increased 31%
• Digital 27%
• Radio 21%
• TV just 9%

Jazzed . . . but not surprised

These new numbers confirm what industry-watchers have been predicting and what we’ve seen ourselves here at OneScreen.ai. Outdoor is hot. And this is just the beginning. According to the just-released "Digital OOH Advertising Market: Global Industry Trends, Share, Size, Growth, Opportunity and Forecast 2022-2027" report, the digital OOH advertising market reached US$ 14.8 billion in 2021. The report predicts that will increase at a CAGR of 13.41% during 2022-2027 to reach US$ 33 billion.

Programmatic digital out-of-home is expected to grow 8.9% by 2025, helping demand-side placement platforms (DSPs) grow more than 30% between 2019 and 2026.

And it's not only US advertisers who are turning to OOH in droves. Down under, oOh!media's chief sales officer Tim Murphy notes, "2022 will be a historic year for the out-of-home sector in Australia. The heightened collaboration of members of the [Outdoor Media Association] and the positive intent to make our medium easier to plan and buy, as well as more accountable to standards of measurement and delivery, should be genuinely motivating for clients big and small."

Why is OOH running so far ahead of the advertising pack? OOH insiders say traditional and digital OOH are:

• The only media that can reach target audiences virtually anywhere in the real world, outdoors or inside
• Privacy-friendly
• Increasingly easy to buy
• Increasingly easy to measure and analyze
• Visually appealing thanks to the uncluttered format
• Uniquely targetable, allowing both mobile and static contextual and proximity placements

Steve O'Connor, CEO at JCDecaux Australia & New Zealand, believes "creativity will be key to success and will flourish as advertisers pursue more dynamic and contextual executions." He notes that the very nature of digital formats allows users to creatively tailor their content to the environment and update it easily. That, he says, makes DOOH "an attractive proposition for brands."

He predicts that, "As programmatic continues to rise and mature, out-of-home will take more chunks of available ad dollars from traditional and digital media channels."

Out of home and on the go

The Insight report produced jointly by the Out of Home Advertising Association of America (OAAA) and Harris Poll says "OOH will intercept even more consumers" during the first half of 2022. For example, 78% of consumers expect to be commuting at least part time, especially Millennials, Gen X and Gen Z and residents of cities with more a million population.

The number of air travelers will increase significantly (Flywire estimates 70% of frequent flyers will spend more on travel this year than they have spent in the last five years.) this isn’t surprising, since the tourism and hospitality industry is expected to be top contender in the OOH advertising market, to reach the expected surge in both leisure and business travel demand.

Other industries expected to lead the way in OOH advertising in 2022 include:

• Tech and online brands, because OOH is their only option to make reach customers and prospects in the physical world
• Restaurants, especially fast food, to reach mass audience and reinforce brand awareness

So look for OOH to continue its meteoric rise in popularity, with advertisers and audiences alike. After all, 42% of consumers say they plan to live as normally as possible in 2022 — a number that has almost doubled just since winter 2021. Whatever their destination, out-of-home advertising can make the trip with them.