DOOH breaks out: Programmatic growth fuels global ad push
Illustration by Robyn Phelps / Getty / Shutterstock / The Current
From the U.S. to Germany to the U.K., the digital out-of-home (DOOH) market is booming, fueled by a wave of commercial activity and tech improvements attracting ad budgets.
Just in the past few months, in the U.S., T-Mobile acquired OOH media company Vistar in a $600 million deal; in Europe, Bauer Media Group snapped up Clear Channel Outdoor Europe-North, Ströer is in talks to sell its OOH business to private equity in a €4 billion deal and JCDecaux plans to double its London footprint of roadside screens.
Industry leaders say DOOH’s unique appeal — especially with the integration of programmatic buying — is driving this activity.
“[OOH’s] position as the only remaining mass medium without audience reach degradation or fragmentation all contributes to more deals being done,” says Wade Rifkin, EVP and GM of programmatic and commerce at Clear Channel Outdoor.
“When you focus in on the Vistar deal specifically, programmatic DOOH has been on a growth track that outpaces the OOH industry, and it’s been bringing incremental investment into the space,” Rifkin adds.
Data collated by Outsmart, the trade body for OOH advertising in the U.K., shows spending reached £1 billion during 2024, a 12% increase from 2023. The DOOH market in APAC is predicted to surpass $30 billion by 2030. Meanwhile, a global study by GroupM predicts DOOH could make up 42% of all OOH revenue in 2025.
Tech advancements are key to this growth, according to Vaughn Ericson, SVP of activation strategy at True Media.
“The rapid growth of technology built into digital screens from higher resolution, video capabilities, interactivity, real-time dynamic creative capabilities and personalization has made DOOH ads more relevant, engaging and effective for advertisers and audiences,” he says.
Research by the Out of Home Advertising Association of America (OAAA) found that 76% of American consumers have taken an action after being exposed to a DOOH placement.
Programmatic DOOH is another growth driver. Real-time buying and selling has simplified entry to the market and enabled messaging that is timelier and more engaging. “Programmatic DOOH has achieved critical mass in both inventory supply across formats and venue types, and in buy-side utilization,” Rifkin says.
DOOH is also becoming a key part of omnichannel campaigns, allowing brands to use first-party data to segment audiences and tailor dynamic messages by location or demographic details.
“The combination of audience-based planning on top of the premium and high-quality contexts that OOH offers is a powerful one-two punch,” Rifkin says.
“You can’t truly be omnichannel, in the sense of reaching customers across the totality of their daily journey without OOH. It’s a channel that makes the rest of the mix more performant, and ultimately, that’s what marketers care about,” he adds.
And DOOH is integrating with another fast-growing channel: connected TV (CTV). “DOOH extends the campaign’s reach beyond the living room, effectively turbocharging results by reaching audiences in dynamic, high-impact environments,” says Thomas Allemand, VP for adtech and supply at Jellyfish.
Allemand says DOOH works particularly well with younger consumers who aren’t as reachable with traditional TV.
“Moreover, with TV ad costs rising, I see advertisers increasingly leaning into DOOH for its flexibility and cost-efficiency,” Allemand says. “Brands are increasingly viewing DOOH and CTV as parallel digital video channels, using DOOH to fill the gaps where TV reach is declining.”