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Nearly 200 years on, the media and advertising landscape has changed dramatically. Some may even say it has become a circus! What hasn’t changed, however, is the power of out-of-home (OOH) advertising. Despite some sounding its death knell in the early 2000s, OOH revenues have continued to rise while other channels have stalled.
Here, Wildstone founder and CEO Damian Cox sheds light on the drivers behind the enduring relevance and exciting future of the not-so-humble billboard.
Here we are, in the midst of an adtech revolution in which advertising has become gamified on our computers, executed through augmented reality on our phones, and delivered, fully tailored and targeted, through our smart TVs. Yet it is one of the oldest forms of advertising – outdoor advertising dates back to 1835 – that is embarking on perhaps the most remarkable digital transformation journey of them all.
For years, industry naysayers predicted the demise of out-of-home (OOH) advertising, branding it an antiquated, inflexible format in an increasingly digital world. Yet fast forward to today, and the OOH sector has not only survived, but is flourishing. In Wildstone’s home market of the UK, the latest figures from Outsmart and Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC) show that annual revenues rose 7.7 percent to a record £1.4 billion (AUD $2.9bn) last year. In Australia, a market Wildstone entered in 2024, Outdoor Media Association figures show that net revenues rose by 8.1 percent last year to $1.3bn.
Driving this growth in large part is OOH’s digital transformation journey – a shift that has served as the greatest disruptor to OOH in nearly 200 years, helping establish an almost entirely new advertising medium that enables brands to engage with their audiences like never before.
Today’s digital out-of-home (DOOH) screens offer a rich, tailored, interactive digital experience, and one that is both more flexible and adaptable than its traditional OOH predecessor.
One of the trends that has occurred alongside and contributed to the shift to digital in OOH has been the development of programmatic advertising, which enables brands to target audiences more efficiently and effectively by ensuring their adverts are appearing at the right time, in the right place.
Just as ad buyers can use programmatic advertising to ensure their online campaigns get maximum cut-through, the digitisation of billboards means they can do the same with their OOH spend.
No longer do adverts need to remain statically in place for two weeks; thanks to digitisation, creatives can be amended and updated, or campaigns scaled up or cut back, based on external factors and different data triggers – ranging from the weather on a specific day to who won an AFL match on any given weekend.
New technologies physically built into the boards are also enabling brands to better understand both who their audiences are, and how they are engaging with their digital adverts. These can provide better performance metrics, which generate greater reassurance and trust in DOOH as an effective advertising platform.
Other immersive technologies are increasingly being integrated into digital billboards, such as 3D and virtual reality, which enables DOOH to execute interactive, creative storytelling on a mass scale in public environments that no other advertising format can replicate.
The outcome of all these technologies is more effective, responsive campaigns, which are better integrated and delivered at lower cost. The environmental benefits of the shift to DOOH are clear too: digitisation means fewer billboards, as each advertising screen can accommodate up to six campaigns at once, along with reduced vehicle kilometres for poster replacements and less waste produced.
It’s little wonder, therefore, that demand for DOOH is growing so dramatically: just a few years into the DOOH revolution, digital already accounts for 75.2 percent of the Australian OOH sector’s revenue. This figure is rising steadily – 2024’s figure was an increase from 73.4 percent in 2023. This puts the Australian DOOH market share even higher than that of the UK, where Outsmart/PwC put the percentage at 66 percent last year.
It’s a remarkable shift when you think the first digital billboards were installed only about 20 years ago. Meanwhile, Generation Z’s demand for authentic, outdoor experiences and the rise of digital creators are just some of the broader advertising market shifts that are further driving more and more advertisers towards DOOH.
As the owner of more than 5400 billboards across six countries, we have been involved in the digitisation of the European OOH sector for more than a decade. Though we entered the Australian market less than a year ago, we can already see there is huge potential not just to convert traditional OOH billboards into digital, but also to establish new locations.
There’s also strong demand from land and building owners who want to maximise their assets, and the enormous size of the country means the opportunities are plentiful. When we take on new sites, these are being developed as DOOH assets from day one.
According to market research firm Mordor Intelligence, the global DOOH market is expected to double from US$26.6bn this year to US$52.9bn by 2030. That’s a pretty impressive outlook and one that allows brands an enormous opportunity to connect with both new and existing audiences.
Damian Cox is a serial entrepreneur and current global CEO and founding partner of Wildstone, which, since its founding in 2010, has become the largest owner of outdoor advertising assets in Europe.
