‘OOH is becoming increasingly data-rich’

What were the 3 most important factors that influenced OOH business in the Australian market in 2018?

2018 was a significant turning point for the Australian Out of Home industry. It was a year that saw significant industry consolidation, further digitisation of Out of Home assets and as a result of the growth of the sector, we also started to attract top talent from not only the media, but also from the technology and data industries.

For oOh!media, one of the highlights for 2018, was the successfully acquisition of Adshel, which added street furniture and rail to our diverse portfolio. This consolidation not only enables us to better deliver even more unmissable opportunities for our advertisers to connect with their audiences, but also places us in a strong position to grow the Out of Home sector’s share of media to 10% in the near future as we will be able to better demonstrate the value we deliver in building brand fame.

We also saw increased digitisation of assets, as property owners recognised the role Out of Home can play as a public space medium and how it can be used to provide important community announcements and enhance the local amenity through the provision of content being displayed in addition to advertising.

Finally, 2018 marked the transformation of the people that make up the industry. While Out of Home has and will always continue to attract leaders in media, we are now seeing new skills driving the next stage of the development of our industry. Who would have thought a couple of years back that that we would have a chief technology officer, let alone data scientist, software engineers, Data Architects and mathematicians.

What would be the top 3 factors that will drive OOH growth in the year 2019?

Of all mediums, OOH is the one that is undeniably unmissable – unlike other media channels it can’t be switched off, skipped or blocked. As a result of its physical presence, it also the most transparent of mediums – something that we at oOh! are proud about. The simple fact of the matter is that advertisers are left with no doubt what they are buying and that they get what they are sold. They just have to go to the site they buy to see it – yet for other mediums such as social advertising, it is not that easy. Nevertheless we have new systems for real time transparency on posting and digital plays.

But transparency is just the beginning of the attribute of OOH that will drive further growth of the sector.

The industry consolidation that occurred in Australian in 2018 will help the industry really demonstrate to advertisers the benefit of the new OOH industry and the vast array of capabilities it offers including content opportunities and the display of advertising in a more contextually relevant way. Creativity has been the heart of OOH since the beginning, we know the creative community can amplify this again with all the new capabilities we offer.

But more importantly, we have seen OOH become data rich and this makes the Out of Home offer a compelling one for advertisers. At oOh!, for instance, we are now able to provide advertisers with data on buyer behaviour by location, enabling advertisers to better plan and amplify their media spend by reaching more targeted audiences beyond the traditional demographic spend.