Creative Summit DCC

Since 2019, Anna Bager has spearheaded the OOH industry’s transformation into one of the most exciting media platforms for brands today, with a focus on tech innovation, ease of buying and integration with other mediums. Before joining OAAA, Bager was Executive Vice President at the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), the leading global trade association for digital media. Prior to joining IAB, she led business intelligence at Ericsson Multimedia and headed research at Ericsson’s enterprise consulting unit. She serves on several boards including the Ad Council and the Makers Conference and was named one of the 30 most powerful women in mobile advertising by Business Insider six years in a row.

In this Top Voices interview we are talking to someone who definitely understands the wider media landscape and backs it up with experience and eye for what's coming next for Out Of Home.

OCEAN: You've now been President and CEO of OAAA for 4 years and you are on the World Out of Home Organization board. You have seen this channel take, and continue to take big steps within creative facilitation, ways of buying, new products and formats. How has it been monitoring and leveraging this from your vantage point as the head a big industry organization?

AB: As a champion for this industry, it’s been exciting to see the growth and increased interest in the medium over the past few years. With the rapidly increasing digitization of out of home, consumer demand for responsive experiences and an explosion of location data – not to mention the creativity possible in OOH – there’s no doubt there’s a fundamental shift happening around the perception of OOH advertising. We’re seeing incredible innovation, from immersive experiences to 3D anamorphic billboards, which have been a game changer for the industry, encouraging more marketers to shift spend toward out of home. There are so many more opportunities now to leverage the power of OOH and more brands are catching on to its sheer power.

OCEAN: You get to interact with C-Suite marketing professionals from some of the world's largest advertisers. From the outside, reading interviews and listening to keynotes with some of them, one gets the sense that Out Of Home has made its way up the ladder, now being an even more prioritized media. Would you say that's accurate and are there any specific areas within OOH being highlighted as interesting and beneficial to these brands?

AB: Out of home is absolutely seeing more prioritization in the marketing mix. Year over year, we’re seeing fantastic growth, in fact, OOH was the fastest-growing ad medium in 2022, and we’ve continued the upward trajectory this year, compared to other traditional media which are expected to decrease (according to MAGNA).

Our most recent numbers show that U.S. out of home advertising revenue increased 1.1% in the third quarter of 2023 compared to 2022, accounting for $1.96 billion in spend. And digital OOH is a big driver of that, accounting for nearly one-third of sales in Q3.

Digital will continue to be the most significant driver for OOH growth. By 2027, it is projected to be almost half of total OOH spend. And new digital and tech innovations, like AI, will certainly play a part in driving wider use of contextual OOH advertising, especially in the programmatic area. This will translate to even greater OOH relevancy with consumers. We’re very encouraged by the continued growth and strength of digital OOH, which allow marketers to be nimble, innovative, and adaptive. Amid ongoing economic uncertainty in the U.S. and globally, marketers have been asked to do more with less this year, and the fact that they continue to shift more spend to out of home proves the innate value they see in the medium.

OCEAN: If we flip the coin, are they pinpointing any areas where the Out Of Home industry needs to evolve or focus more?

AB: Like everyone across the marketing industry, we’re focusing more on privacy and measurement. We are actively working to improve OOH measurement and make sure it’s comparable to other media.

In the past three years, we’ve also released data privacy principles to set foundational standards that uphold consumer privacy and data usage. As a one-to-many medium, OOH is well-positioned to navigate the evolving privacy landscape. Knowing how important data privacy is and how many consumers are concerned about the use of their personal information, we closely monitor state and federal privacy developments and regularly advise our members to help ensure compliance and best practices.

We’re actively working on standards and guidelines to reduce friction and simplify out of home transactions. We’re collaborating with several other trade associations, including Outsmart and IAB Tech Lab, in the creation of programmatic standards, industry guidelines, and taxonomy that will help the market grow. With my many years at IAB, I’m a big believer in the power of standards and cross-industry collaboration.

OCEAN: In 2023 you wrote an article in the Drum that I found intriguing. One section read "While generative AI is still in the “shiny new toy” phase, OOH has the innate ability to connect new ideas to practical use cases. No matter what, OOH’s longevity has proven its versatility and ability to absorb the shock of the new. It always has. And that’s why brands and agencies are leaning into this medium — which existed long before TV or the internet — to “future-proof” their businesses." Is this also about acting and thinking integrated? Optimizing to maximize results within our medium while at the same time priming other media? We've all seen what OOH does for social and earned media.

AB: There’s definitely a symbiotic relation between OOH and other media, and social media is a great example of that. OOH has an incredible ability to drive online activation and social sharing, especially when it comes to mobile. Recent data shows that OOH has some of the highest recall and engagement levels. For instance, 91% of Gen Z and 82% of Millennials would reshare an OOH ad on social media.

Other studies have shown that OOH has a major impact on consumers’ in-store purchase decisions and drives online activation more efficiently than TV, digital display and video, radio and print. All this to say, OOH holds a unique place in the marketing mix, and can certainly be used in an integrated way to help prime other media.

OCEAN: There are clear signs of a rebalance between performance and brand marketing where brands seeing they are not getting as much out of short term marketing as the general perception might have been. Out Of Home which has always been associated with its brand building abilities is still hovering around 5% of the global spend. Any thoughts on why that is?

AB: OOH advertising is one of the oldest forms of marketing and has seen normal ebbs and flows as a result of cultural shifts, digital advancements, and economic pressures, but our growth has been consistent these past few years, even making a full COVID recovery ahead of schedule.

OCEAN: Lastly Anna, budgets are currently being set. Any predictions for 2024 or advise for marketers as they allocate their means for media?

AB: We actually just released findings from a new study which found that increasing out of home's share of the media plan leads to increased effectiveness, with measurable impact on sales, brand awareness, consideration, and purchase intent. As marketers look to optimize media plans for next year, it’s becoming more and more clear that OOH should receive a higher allocation of brands’ overall budget.

In terms of predictions, I think our industry will continue to see a lot of change next year through the further adoption of digital and emerging technology and wider use of contextual OOH advertising. For one, we see out of home and CTV becoming a new power couple. As touched on earlier, out of home definitely has the ability to amplify other media and ads. The ability to retarget consumers who previously have been exposed to a CTV ad, holds great promise. Another interesting area is the powerful connection between OOH and retail media.

All comes down to the importance of location, context and reach, and OOH is the most effective in all three of those areas.

OCEAN: Thanks a lot for taking the time Anna.