Big Debt Big Spending Big News

A busy week filled with lots of news, here’s the March 4-9 weekly recap of the top OOH stories you may have missed, along with colorful commentary from BB.

1. Top Spenders of 2023

Geopath released two new OOH spending reports showing the top spenders in OOH for Q4 of 2023 and the top spenders in OOh across all of 2023. These reports provide a summary of OOH ad spending across 100+ DMAs nationwide. The top 3 spending categories for OOH in 2023 were Legal Services, Hospitals, Clinics, & Medical Centers, and Hotels & Resorts.

B.B.’s Take: This is a tremendous resource for sales. Contact Geopath today and get the top spenders reports in your hands now.

2. Top 10 Creatives in OOH 2024: Rob Jackson

Mentioned as a mentor by multiple other top creatives highlighted in our recent Top Ten Creatives Series, Rob Jackson of Extra Credit Projects, has won 21 OBIEs. In 2019, Jackson was awarded the Out of Home Advertising Association of America Ray L. Vahue Marketing Award of Merit, the outdoor industry’s top marketing award.

B.B.’s Take: Hands down considered the number one OOH creative person in the Industry. Hell of a guy as well. 

3. Six Things You will Be Surprised to Know About Geopath

A list of things you may not know about Geopath. It is the only true Joint Industry Committee in the US, and has been since 1934. It has a unique structure and board requirements made up of a tripartite structure comprised of agencies, media owners, and advertisers bound by strict rules such as that the chairperson must always come from an agency. Learn more in the article!

B.B.’s Take: Of the 6 things listed in this well written piece by Scott Fiaschetti, Sr. Exec at Geopath, the number one difference which sets it apart from all the other OOH measurement groups is it is not only non profit, but its governing structure is made of of ad agencies, brands and OOH owners. While in recent years the level of active participation has been top heavy lead by OOH Owners compared to past years where advertisers and brands had significantly strong leaders actively involved in the organization, the undeniable fact is the interests of the OOH Industry had been and will continue to be best served with a model similar. The recent competitors driving a narrative of their own measurement lack the independent interest and are indeed for profit with too many strange bedfellows alliancing promoting their own self interests. Beware of the for profit self interest driving organizations looking to topple Geopath’s importance as the authority for OOH measurement.

4. Big 3 Have Big Debt, Big Hopes for 2024

Though all three of the big three companies are projecting a promising Q1 2024, they are also all carrying billions of dollars of debt. Their year end 2023 results are weak at best. Decide for yourself how these organizations are faring by looking at the numbers and trends in coverage from the past year.

B.B.’s Take: Numbers don’t lie. 2023 was marginal at best. There is no holy grail to increased revenues. Measurement, research, programmatic and other shiny solutions are a small part of the solution. The real answer is we still have to sell our medium. Focus on sales. Hire and train sales people. RETAIN strong managers. Embrace diversity in the C-suite. And the number one solution is to employ OOH experienced personnel in at the top, especially in the C-Suite specifically CEO’s, COO’s, CMO’s, CFO’s. No OOH experience means not in leadership positions. Imagine what are Industry’s leadership would look like today if that were the policy and who would NOT have their job. 

5. Programmatic DOOH Shakes off its Nascent Label and Enters the Mainstream

For the second year in a row, JCDecaux, the UK’s leading out-of-home media owner, has released new research into the programmatic digital out-of-home (pDOOH) landscape in the UK. Their findings show that over the past year pDOOH is being used more frequently. In fact, it’s widely used as part of an always-on strategy. Their findings also show that advertisers like pDOOH for its operational efficiency. JC Decaux’s Dom Kozac, Head of Programmatic, JCDecaux UK claims that over the past 12 months, pDOOH has proven its role in the marketing mix. Measurement, while still important, is being superseded by delivery-focused objectives. Delivery objectives are the main reason marketers choose pDOOH.

B.B.’s Take: These are strong graphics introduced in the Decaux / mtm post. We don’t dispute DOOH programmatic’ s future role in assisting in growing OOH. We do dispute the extent which success has been achieved. It is still a long road ahead for DOOH programmatic in obtaining the level of sound reliability necessary to declare pDOOH as a success let alone a solution. Calling the race and a winner at this point is premature. Still in the 3rd inning. For our friends in the majority of the sport world, still in the first 10 minutes. 

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