Noel Cook has a long history in Australia’s OOH market, having been at oOh!Media almost right from the start. Now the Australian managing director of European-based OOH firm Wildstone, Cook is bringing the international expertise of the brand over into the local market.
London-based Wildstone CEO Damian Cox and Cook spoke with Marketing about the future of the outdoor industry, the challenges, and the opportunities presented with the digitisation of the market.
Marketing Mag: Some say ‘OOH is dead’. Is this the case and if not, why not?
OOH is different from many other forms of media because the digitisation process is helping it – not making it obsolete. New technology might have replaced the market for old technology in some areas – for example, video – but it’s expanding the market for OOH. Upgrading screens from paper to digital increases the advertising opportunities and the audience.
MM: Wildstone expanded into Australia not long ago. What unique opportunities does the Aussie market pose?
Noel Cook: Australia is a sophisticated OOH market with growing audiences in all states and regions. There is huge advertiser demand for OOH assets in all areas, in particular, large format digital billboards.
But because it was ahead of the curve in terms of digitisation, some of the earlier digital boards are now coming to the end of their useful life and need upgrading, as does the portion of the infrastructure that is still static. We will continue to support and further the conversion of classic billboards to digital boards. In addition to the estates of some independent operators ageing, their owners are, in many cases, reaching retirement age and lacking the desire to invest heavily in new technology.
We see Wildstone as being a critical partner to such owners, allowing them to upgrade their infrastructure and grow the overall market without making large capital investments. We can also support larger players in the market who want to focus on sales rather than infrastructure.
L-R: Mark Buckley: general manager of Alliance Outdoor Media Group, Damian Cox: CEO and founder of Wildstone, Jonathan Chandler: group managing director of Wildstone and Noel Cook: managing director of Wildstone Australia
MM: How does Wildstone’s approach to OOH infrastructure in Australia differ from the strategies used in Europe or the UK?
DC: Fundamentally, we’ll be adopting the same approach we’ve used successfully in the UK, whereby we purchase the assets and lease them back to operators to leverage their advertising potential.
One notable difference is that Australia has a lot of supersites (12.66m x 3.3m) and spectacular (19m x 4m) billboards, thanks largely to the size of the roads and overall landscape, which obviously far exceeds the United Kingdom.
We’re also sensitive to the slight cultural differences between the UK and Australia, which is one reason we were keen to recruit someone with Cook’s pedigree for the local market.
MM: Are there key localisation efforts that have been essential to your Australian expansion?
NC: Having been in the market for many years, I’ve seen other foreign firms attempt to crack the Australian market and fail. Largely, I think that was because they failed to appreciate the smaller number of players in the market and realised that didn’t leave a lot of room for error.
In the Australian business world, people tend to play very much with a straight bat. Success comes from laying things out clearly, being honest on timelines and not overpromising – that’s the best approach in this market and something that’s always worked for me.
After meeting the Wildstone team at the World Out of Home Organization conference in Portugal in 2023, I could tell the team understood that each market is different and needs a localised approach. Hearing their impressive growth story and having the opportunity to combine that with my long background in the market made me confident their offering would be welcomed with open arms here and it has been.
We’re really excited to have already done our first deal in Australia, having agreed terms to fund the digitisation of two Alliance Outdoor sites in Victoria, leasing the sites back to the company to sell advertising. This is the first infrastructure funding deal ever in the industry in Australia and is just the start for us.
Wildstone’s new monopole site on Craigieburn Bypass in Epping
We’ve also recently joined the Outdoor Media Association and are looking forward to working with them to drive the Australian outdoor industry forward.
MM: With the shift towards digital OOH, what role does data play in driving more targeted and measurable marketing campaigns?
NC: Australia has the world’s best OOH audience measurement system, now called Move 2.0, which has been used successfully here for more than 20 years. Its unique quantitative audience measurement ability has helped guide the industry in terms of justifying the spending of more than $20 million on upgrades for digital billboards, investments in regional Australia and other placed-based products.
Along with mobile data, this data set has been critical to the success of OOH, but just as importantly, it has demonstrated the power of OOH.
Worldwide, cross-media measurement has also demonstrated that OOH is the perfect media partner for online and TV.
MM: What does the future of programmatic advertising look like in D/OOH?
DC: I think programmatic advertising is a growing and important part of the media revenue supply chain, and certainly our media operator partners are leaning into this technology. From an outdoor perspective going forward, external triggers such as weather, traffic and events are likely to carry more weight than triggers that would be used in, say, online advertising.
From a Wildstone perspective, our focus is on providing media operators with a turnkey solution for their DOOH assets, which can be seamlessly integrated into their existing traditional and programmatic sales models.
MM: How can outdoor complement or enhance other marketing strategies in Australia?
NC: There have been numerous neuro and recall studies that show OOH has the ability to drive quick and efficient reach and frequency. In particular, premium DOOH assets drive excellent emotional responses and build trust in brands.
There was some wide-ranging research carried out recently by Analytic Partners that proved just how effective OOH can be when combined with other media. It found that brands that used OOH alongside TV and digital saw a 27 percent boost in returns, compared with using only TV.
Creative campaigns, such as those run by QMS across Australia for the recent Paris Olympics, have the potential to connect with audiences in an even more engaging way. QMS’s campaign reached 11.5m Australians and served an extraordinary 81,478 pieces of content during that period, which showcases the opportunity for marketers and advertisers using OOH to support mainstream media events.
MM: How does Wildstone’s model benefit marketers and advertisers when compared to traditional OOH media owners?
DC: Wildstone is here to support traditional media owners to better service marketers and advertisers through our ability to fund high-class digital large-format assets via new locations or conversions from classic to digital.
By taking the need to fund capital investments or enhancements out of their hands, we allow media owners to concentrate on what they do best, which is to provide marketers with the platform to deliver the right message in the right locations at scale on a safe and trusted medium.
MM: With Noel’s extensive history in Australia’s OOH market, how has he seen the sector evolve and where does he think it’s headed in the next few years/future?
NC: When I started in 1991, we were still painting directly to metal panels, with long-term, one to five-year media contracts the norm. With the change in laws around tobacco advertising, the industry had to evolve quickly. It pivoted fast and has thrived since then.
By developing moveable skins with digital printed advertising to speed up copy changes, billboard owners started rotating billboards to improve the reach and frequency of campaigns, and this also allowed clients to buy one-month campaigns.
Moving forward to today, advertisers now have a huge amount of flexibility in terms of timeframes and placement, and are even able to upweight programs subject to real-time product sales.
As for what’s next, digital billboards allow so much more flexibility for advertisers to boost their campaigns and ultimately sell more products. The industry will and must continue to add enhancements to better drive outcomes for advertisers and Wildstone can provide the infrastructure that supports this.
MM: Are there any key emerging trends in OOH that marketers should be aware of?
DC: Advertisers are already leveraging real-time data based on sales. I think we’ll see more of this in future, with issues such as weather conditions, sports scores and even flight delays triggering specific messaging to make outdoor ads more relevant and timely.
I think mobile will play a big role in OOH in future. As 5G networks roll out, OOH sites will be able to take advantage of faster data transmission speeds, allowing more sophisticated content such as ultra-high-definition video and real-time interactions.
Mobile also increases the potential for more data-driven targeting, which allows for greater personalisation and customer engagement. I think we’ll see more coordinated advertising aimed at bridging the gap between physical and digital advertising; by using data insights an advertiser will be able to display a mobile ad to someone who has recently driven past a particular OOH site, therefore using an omnichannel approach to increase recall.
I also think that as more digital billboards are rolled out, we’ll see more hyperlocal advertising campaigns taking place. This is particularly relevant to the Australian market, where there are strong regional and suburban identities.
Noel Cook is the Australian managing director of European-based OOH firm Wildstone, and has spent more than 32 years building oOh!Media and working across all aspects of the out of home industry.
Damian Cox is the global CEO and founding partner of Wildstone. Created to provide property owners – public and private – with a resource to assist with the capitalisation of land that could be utilised for outdoor advertising, Wildstone focuses on design and visionary implementation.
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