OOH MEDIA

Out-of-home media rebuilds its momentum, but more growth needed

By our News Team | 2023

Industry must raise its focus from maintaining global share at around 5%, to increasing to 10% by 2030, global gathering hears.

The global out-of-home media industry has recovered the ground lost in the pandemic, President Tom Goddard told the World Out of Home Organisation’s Global Congress in Portugal last week.

However, the industry needed to raise its focus from maintaining global market share at around 5%, to increasing to 10% by 2030 through incremental 1% annual increases.

World Out of Home Organisation (WOO) President, Tom Goddard, speaking in Portugal last week. Photo credit: WOO

More than 500 delegates gathered in Lisbon to hear that the keys to driving growth in OOH are:

Reducing the number of sales points/media owners through greater consolidation. Countries with fewer such sales points enjoy higher than average market share.
Curbing AdTech proliferation which needlessly complicates factors like automation, with too many middlemen in the process of buying and selling.
Creating common standards and language to amplify and describe the benefits of OOH.
Dramatically improving uneven audience measurement around the world. Those countries with better audience measurement, preferably entrusted to Joint Industry Committees (JICS), enjoy bigger shares of the media market through trust and transparency.

Goddard, who has headed WOO and its predecessor FEPE International for six years, also announced his intention to step down after a further year, in line with WOO’s board rotation policy.

He was instrumental in the transformation of 60-yearold trade body FEPE into WOO – and its growth to 200 corporate members, including 27 national trade association members. The latter figure stood at zero six years ago.

Why is industry not gaining market share

Discussing global market share for OOH, Goddard noted: “Why is it, with all the investment we’re making in digital screen conversions, in AdTech, and in high-calibre executive hires, we are not gaining share?

“Some of you might rightly point out that other legacy media channels, especially print, have lost huge chunks of share to online, whilst OOH has held its position quite well.

“That’s true. But on my travels around the world, when I look at the impact of our channel everywhere, I can’t help feeling we’re worth much more than 5%”.

Also at the conference, members of WOO’s new Sustainability Task Force appeared on a special panel to outline their plan to create a practical tool kit for OOH companies of all sizes to improve their environmental performance.

Other panels included a review of programmatic and omni-channel selling, and the need to make buying OOH easier across all sides of the industry: media owners, intermediaries and agencies.

The congress was held from 7-9 June in Lisbon, Portugal.

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