Welcome to an end-of-week update from Unmade. Today: Growth stories in outdoor, and the Unmade Index stages a slight recovery.
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Outdoor shapes up (apart from the occasional pandemic…)
It dawned on me recently that in the back of my mind, I’ve drawn a mental map of how each linear medium has been affected by the arrival of digitisation.
Among the most disrupted media are printed magazines and newspapers. Slower to be hit, but now feeling it, broadcast television. In the yet-to-be-decided category: audio, where the opportunities for digital growth may yet balance out the downside.
And then comes the sole medium where digital media has unarguably been a growth driver: outdoor advertising.
With digital billboards came the ability to vastly increase inventory. And as a second growth driver, that also gave advertisers more say in when and how their messages update and appear. It crept up on us, but over the last decade that has transformed the prospects of the medium.
Except for the black swan event of a population being ordered to stay home during a pandemic, outdoor has become the only unskippable medium. With audience metric MOVE 2.0 around the corner (although the wait for a launch date is beginning to get a bit awkward) digital out of home has to be the medium with greatest growth potential
Yesterday, the IAB and Outdoor Media Association almost filled the auditorium for the Powering DOOH event. Even in the midst of a wider advertising downturn it felt like a roomful of people seeing an upside. It made a nice change from being among worried television execs. (One of the only TV references I heard yesterday came from Ooh Media’s sales boss Paul Sigaloff who declared television to be in “terminal decline”. Shots fired.)
On Tuesday, SMI Guideline released its data on agency adspend during February. In yet another down month across the board, outdoor was the only medium to (just about) stand still, losing 0.4% on the same month a year before. Meanwhile the video market was down 12.3%, audio down by 4.2%, news publishing by 20.6%, magazines by 4.4%, standalone digital by 3% and cinema by 9.6%.
AdNews reports today that investment analysts at UBS have labelled the ASX-listed Ooh Media a buy.
Mind you, the medium still faces challenges with the arrival of programmatic buying for outdoor. With the US-based Association of National Advertisers publishing a credible report late last year suggesting that 64% of marketing dollars invested in programmatic advertising disappears into a black hole of fraud and ticket-clipping, the industry needs to be careful about the vampire it has invited across its doorstep.
Digital verification - giving advertisers confidence that their billboards actually ran - may be the name of the game there. In a Q&A with London-based OOH consultant Nick Parker, who until recently led WPP’s global operations around out of home, he suggested that Australia was a market leader in verification.
In a survey of 286 agency execs shared at the event by the IAB yesterday, more than 82% said they were using digital billboards (what the hell are the other 17% playing at?) But only just over half are doing it in a significant way programatically.
Retaining social licence also matters on outdoor’s growth. In the UK, Sheffield City Council last month banned outdoor advertising for categories of product it considers undesirable including airlines, fossil fuel powered cars, gambling, vaping, alcohol, and fast food. In Sydney, Ooh Media only just got through its last renewal of its Glebe Island Silo billboard after City of Sydney labelled it a blight.
And all that upside does not guarantee the current players will be the winners. Woolworths and Coles will gobble up much of the out-of-home spend around shopping centres.
One other thought occurred based on coffeebreak conversations. The outdoor industry is increasingly seduced by the idea that thanks to programmatic and better data, it can position itself as a targeting medium. Isn’t outdoor’s real strength the ability to broadcast a marketing message?
Nonetheless, as much as anything can be, outdoor feels like the last bulletproof medium.
Declaration of interest: Through my super fund I’m an investor in Ooh Media and verification company Veridooh.
HOLD THE DATE: REmade - Retail Media Unmade, October 1
Unmade Index comes back off the bottom
The Unmade Index recovered somewhat yesterday after Wednesday’s slump, however the bounce was unevenly distributed. Our index of listed media and marketing stocks rose by 0.74% to 568.3 points.
Ooh Media enjoyed the biggest rise of 4.46% after losing 5.08% the day before. Domain and IVE Group were among the other stocks regaining ground.
Meanwhile, ARN Media slipped by 3.35%.
Time to leave you to your Friday.
I’ll be back tomorrow with Best of the Week written somewhere on the road home to Tasmania
Have a great day.
Toodlepip…
Tim Burrowes
Publisher - Unmade
tim@unmade.media
A very perspicacious post Tim.
One thing I would like to emphasise is that when MOVE 1.0 was developed, the committee was focusing on the future as well as the existing inventory such as posting paper on a billboard from a maintenance truck.
It not only was considering the flexibility, posting speed , campaign duration, new location opportunities etc. benefits, but also that sites of the future would be very different.
The back-bone was based on OTS (Opportunity to See) but also included LTS (Likelihood To See) as it was clear that not all sites are the same, and also that not all the passers-by see the site. LTS was used for the 'currency' even though it was lower than OTS, but as it was the same playing-field for all it was adopted.
With digital, the principle remains the same as Static, but new measurement vectors are needed and then 'injected' them into the calculations (and thoroughly tested).
And I'll bet London to a Brick that the Likelihood to see a digital panel will be significantly higher than seeing a static panel. The thinking ahead, despite the increased complexity, was very wise and will surely pay dividends.
Cheers.
JG.