It’s time to look ahead at the Out of Home media trends we see lining up in 2023. Last year was a recovery year for Out of Home media. As the world begins to fully emerge from the social and economic shadow of the pandemic, confidence in Out of Home media is returning, and so are advertisers. The industry is seeing historic growth in 2022, despite having weathered historic lows in previous years, but in the big picture, that means OOH is on the fast track to returning to normal.
And while the past year has been difficult, the Out of Home industry is not sitting idly by, twiddling its thumbs and crying, “woe is me”. During the pandemic, the industry has worked diligently to improve itself in all areas. From planning data to programmatic platforms to campaign measurement and attribution, the industry is making progress across the board.
Now we are in a position to see those improvements and progress produce real results. Instead of just attention-grabbing buzzwords, programmatic OOH is becoming a more standard part of media planning. New ad tech and attribution providers will continue to improve their capabilities and refine their measurements to provide advertisers with more accurate, more specific and more relevant data.
This year’s big Out of Home media trend is less about innovation or new technology and more about refinement, adoption and strategic use of the advancements of the past few years.
Out of Home Media Trend #1: Programmatic out of home will continue to be mainstream:
Programmatic DOOH has been at the top of everyone’s Out-of-Home media trends list for the past few years, and with good reason. While it only accounts for a relatively modest portion of all OOH media purchases, it is growing at a steady pace, and as more Out of Home media is converted to digital formats, it will continue to do so. There are still refinements to be made, but most of the pipe connections have been made, and the mechanism for pDOOH is now fairly well established.
The important trends we see are not about technology and platforms, but more about the understanding and adoption of programmatic DOOH by advertisers. Over the past few years, advertisers have shown interest in the channel but have not been ready to jump in. Now, with continued education, advertisers are finally seeing how DOOH can fit into their marketing plans, work with, and complement other media, including traditional static OOH.
Out of Home Media Trend #2: Data Privacy Issues Will Make Out of Home Media Even More Important:
With growing consumer concerns around data privacy, along with all the “will they/won’t they” uncertainty around cookies, the ability to access targeting data is becoming increasingly important. As third-party data becomes less accurate, desirable, and perhaps even less available, it is imperative for brands to look for new sources. This will make first-party and zero-party data a critical asset.
Zero-party data in particular, will be invaluable to brands for their targeting purposes, and while the focus is definitely on its use for digital targeting, it can also be leveraged for OOH targeting. By finding new ways to use location information from their internal data sources, brands will be able to create geo-targeted audiences from their own customers and extrapolate lookalike audiences from there.
For Out of Home media trends, this means that planning and targeting platforms should facilitate the easy absorption of advertisers’ proprietary data into their planning frameworks. Data is only as valuable as the insights that can be derived from it, so it’s imperative for the industry to make it as easy as possible for advertisers to utilize the assets they have.
Out of Home Media Trend #3: Advertisers Will Return to Using Out of Home for Brand Awareness:
Arguably, it’s been a tough couple of years, and with the uncertainty of a possible economic recession and various global political & social crises, people are feeling tired and restless. In times like these, consumers turn to what is familiar and comfortable to provide a sense of stability that may be lacking elsewhere in their lives. Brands need to keep this in mind when it comes to creative and media selection.
Recent surveys show that brands are really looking to shift their budgets towards brand building and awareness from performance marketing in the coming year. In fact, 31% said that they will rebalance their budget to branding by 2023.
Changing the Way We Think About Out of Home Media:
For the Out of Home industry, from media suppliers to agencies to advertisers, it’s time to change our thinking. There has been tremendous progress made in our technical, logistics and industry data sections over the past few years. Now is the time to put it into practice, and that means changing the way we think.
The most important Out of Home media trend for this year, is that we have to change the way we think about every aspect of Out of Home planning and implementation, whether it’s staying on top of the latest data for targeting, learning the most effective ways to include programmatic in our plans, or making sure we have the correct attribution techniques that will relate back to key objectives. to include programmatically in our plans, or making sure we have the correct attribution techniques that will relate back to the main objective.
However, that doesn’t mean throwing out everything old – Out of Home’s ability to be a powerful brand awareness tool hasn’t been lost, it’s just been enhanced to be even better at hyper-local, data-driven targeting. It’s not as simple as an either/or question. The challenge is to shift our thinking to apply both when necessary.
Out of Home is a vast, vibrant and ever-changing media channel that has made great strides through tough times. Now it’s time for us to take on the biggest challenge – ourselves. How we, as OOH professionals and marketers, capitalize on these changes over the next few years will greatly impact the future of the industry.