Grant Kirkby.
The AdNews end of year Perspectives, looking back at 2024 and forward to next year.
Grant Kirkby, co-founder of Outdoor Advertising Collective
My top six predictions as we edge into 2025:
The Rise of the Independents: While Out-of-Home (OOH) advertising has been performing strongly, independent OOH suppliers have been seeking new opportunities, particularly with national advertisers. Brands, in turn, are increasingly looking for optimal solutions and locations for their campaigns, rather than being directed toward prioritised or owned assets within established networks. To address this challenge, OA Collective was created to support and elevate premium independent OOH suppliers, offering a curated selection of new sites from a single source.
Our primary focus is to champion indie operators, but our approach goes beyond simply raising awareness. It's about giving these suppliers a seat at the agency table and presenting them with real opportunities. This is especially important given that most OOH assets in Australia are owned by independent operators. By consolidating these assets under a unified banner, we can disrupt the industry and give independents a collective platform to be represented en masse and at scale.
Looking ahead to 2025, we expect media decision-makers to increasingly recognise the value of supporting this sector. They will see that keeping more media dollars in Australia, in the hands of small businesses, is not only beneficial but also sustainable. There will be a growing recognition that there is a more equitable and transparent way to access the country's premium outdoor sites—one that doesn't rely on the traditional, multinational players.
As the industry continues to evolve, OA Collective will grow alongside it. More independent operators will realise that a fairer, more transparent, and more profitable model is available—one that offers a compelling alternative to the traditional dominance of the classic multinational big three OOH players.
Fluid buying models & pDOOH: After a few steady years of growth, Programmatic Out of Home has now proven to be an efficient buying option for trade desks and agencies alike – embedding Outdoor as a channel into the circuit of efficiency and efficacy – no longer just for scale or impact. There’s a lot of predictions around where pDOOH revenue will sit in the overall proportion of Outdoor Media spend and I believe 2025 will prove to be a huge growth year for pDOOH with revenue sitting at around 10% of the channel by year’s end.
Addressability becoming the norm: In recent years, media buyers' ability to target and reach high-value audiences has expanded into broadcast channels, and Out-of-Home (OOH) is no exception. This has seen OA Collective undertake market leading work with Lumos Intelligence to allow advertisers to target audiences (and measure them) based on mobile SDK data. Now, if you need to reach specific groups, such as women over 40 who own a dog, parents of young children, or dual-income, no-kids (DINKs) who love to travel, it's possible. This more granular, audience-focused approach to OOH buying is set to become increasingly common. As a result, OOH will offer advertisers even more reasons to invest in the medium—combining its longstanding ability to deliver broad, high-scale reach with a new layer of precision targeting. This evolution is redefining how OOH is bought and measured, making it a more powerful tool for today's marketers.
The Retail Boom: Many retailers have long been dominating the onsale of their own asset space—supermarkets and major pharmacies, are key examples. Now, we're seeing a growing number of other big brands such as real estates recognising the opportunity to turn their space into a sellable asset.
Banks, hardware stores, and even rideshare companies are jumping on board, and this trend is expected to grow exponentially through 2025. But the key takeaway here is that some will succeed, and some will fail. Just having space to utilise doesn’t automatically make it an appealing option for advertisers. The real value lies in how the space is leveraged and whether it resonates with the right audience.
3D & Anamorphic creative flexing the channel’s creative muscles: While we’ve hopefully seen the peak of the fake-OOH and Virtual-OOH creative builds (which seem to only gain traction on Linkedin within the industry but don’t connect with consumers) on the flip side, there is some outstanding innovation happening in the real world creative space for Out of Home, with 3D and Anamorphic billboards setting the standard when it comes to creativity. The main barrier right now is the cost of entry – but it will become the norm in the near future. If I was a creative agency right now, I would be doubling down on my ability to produce 3D OOH creative, efficiently –it’s going to be a hot prospect over the next few years.
OOH to buck economic standard & outgrow market: While many channels dealing with fragmentation and facing increased scrutiny over measurement and accountability –especially the traditional ones – Out of Home is holding strong and positioned to rise above it . Deloitte recently reported that video consumption overall – not just linear TV – dropped by around 4 hours per week 2023 vs 2024. If this trend continues – whether its due to content saturation and proliferation, or Aussies are just actively trying to consume less and cut back on their screen time – brands are going to need to rethink how they build their visual presence. Out of Home is in a great spot right now and showing no signs of slowing down. In fact, I believe it is set to grow around 10% in 2025, well ahead of the broader market.
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