Bigger, Bolder, Smarter: OOH Advertising Surges in 2024 with Innovation and Impact
In 2024, we saw out-of-home (OOH) advertising climb to new heights. With Australian ad spend up 5% and net media revenue jumping more than 10% in 2024, it’s clear that brands are turning to the streets to cut through the digital noise. Advertisers across the country have been enticed by the medium, finding themselves looking for both regional and metropolitan sites to take advantage of the mass reach capabilities of digital out-of-home advertising (DOOH).
From supersized digital billboards to classic static sites in high-traffic retail zones, OOH is cementing its role as both a brand-builder and ROI driver, reflected by wait times of up to a month for the most popular assets.
Here are some insights for businesses looking to break into the Australian DOOH market, and how to skip the queue for your campaigns.
Premium Placements, Booked Months in Advance
From speaking to both OOH media owners and media agencies across the industry, the areas to watch heading into 2025 include retail, public transport and airports. In fact, top-tier sites are now being booked months in advance, especially as events like Black Friday and Christmas loom.
Queensland-based Bishopp Outdoor is seeing a surge in interest across its formats, particularly in regional markets and airports. The company is investing in bold displays at key tourism hotspots, responding to increased airport audiences and booming intrastate travel. We’ve also seen innovations with new formats like Melbourne Airport’s full-motion digital walkway, following last year’s rollout of the mammoth Queen Victoria billboard.
It’s not just the usual big players, we’re also seeing growth in smaller markets like Perth and South Australia - particularly in premium locations like airports. Domestic travel continues to bounce back post-Covid, with a significant increase in demand for frequent travel areas. In 2024, Queensland saw a 26% increase in tourist expenditure over the last three years, with 17.9 million people (64.5%) coming from Intrastate locations.
So with DOOH locations booking out months in advance, how do you get your billboard in the right place, at the right time? That’s where programmatic advertising comes in.
Programmatic Power
Programmatic advertising for Out-of-Home (OOH) is the automated buying, selling, and delivery of digital out-of-home (DOOH) ad placements using data and software. Kind of like how you’d book online ads, but for real-world screens.
Across the board, media owners and buyers agree that programmatic tech is transforming OOH. Fast, flexible, and data-driven, programmatic is making it easier for brands to activate campaigns at speed and scale, with targeted messaging that aligns to audience behaviour, location, and even weather.
Instead of negotiating with media owners, signing contracts, and manually booking billboard slots weeks in advance, programmatic OOH lets advertisers buy ad space across digital billboards, transit screens, airport panels, and more.
Key features of programmatic OOH:
- Data-driven targeting
You can target based on time of day, location, audience demographics, weather, traffic patterns, or even events. For example, show coffee ads in the morning, gym ads near fitness centres, or umbrella ads when it’s raining. - Flexibility and speed
Launch or pause campaigns instantly. With the same flexibility as online, it’s never been easier to switch your creative mid-campaign or reallocate budget to higher-performing sites. - Efficient spend
Work your budget in a smarter way - you can bid only for the impressions that match your target audience and objectives. - Measurability
While not as exact as digital click-throughs, programmatic OOH can integrate with mobile and purchase data to estimate reach, brand lift, or even store visits post-ad exposure.
Val Morgan Outdoor (VMO) is seeing a sharp rise in demand for programmatic OOH, now the fastest-growing part of its business. This uptick reflects a broader global shift, as advertisers prioritise more agile, efficient, and highly targeted campaign solutions. According to VMO MD Paul Butler, it’s a clear sign that the industry’s focus is evolving to meet the need for smarter, data-driven outdoor strategies.
According to Bench Media’s Sebastian Diaz, this isn’t about throwing all your budget at a single screen anymore - it’s about slicing, dicing, and sprinkling in perfectly timed placements like a seasoned OOH chef.
“As media buying has evolved from investing all your dollars into a hero screen to allocating part of the budget to time-dependent, contextually placed buys, brands can’t look past time-targeting ads.”
Diaz describes Westfield’s SuperScreens as “statement pieces” that dominate the shopper’s journey, while pointing to the power of JCDecaux’s sound-enabled train platforms and QMS pedestrian panels for dynamic campaigns that capture attention at just the right moment.
Buying a SuperScreen tends to sit at the pricier end of a DOOH campaign, but thanks to guaranteed programmatic spots per cycle, it’s quick and simple to go live and manage your budget in real time. Direct buys that secure placement within a SuperScreen’s rotation can fluctuate significantly depending on demand and seasonality, and often sell out in the lead-up to major events such as Christmas.
At the same time, creativity is climbing to new heights. QMS and JCDecaux point to digital corridors, overhead bridges, and 7-Eleven’s Convenience Network as standout locations for immersive creative and high-frequency reach.
Innovation Meets Measurability
For all the creative ambition in OOH, measurement remains critical. Retail media, in particular, allows advertisers to directly correlate exposure with store sales - something increasingly valuable in today’s performance-driven climate.
“Retail is one of the most in-demand channels right now,” says OMD Melbourne’s group investment director, Sam Hey. “It enables brands to connect at key decision-making moments, and gives us the data to track real outcomes.”
Yango’s Natalie Murray agrees. “Large-format digital and static road billboards offer creative freedom, short lead times, and cost-effectiveness.”
Murray says the most popular OOH assets among her clients are large digital or static road billboards. They’re also time and cost-effective, with digital sites typically requiring artwork 3-4 days before the campaign. Digital billboards, in particular, allow creatives to be submitted as late as a week before the campaign launch, making them ideal for last-minute bookings.
Transit formats, like buses, trams, and trains, are seeing renewed energy in both metro and regional areas. Enigma’s Justin Ladmore says their mobile reach is a key driver, along with the ability to run tactical, multi-message campaigns.
QMS, meanwhile, is leveraging formats like consecutive bus shelters to help brands tell a story across multiple panels, or take over entire precincts for maximum impact.
These measurable, flexible OOH formats give brands the confidence to run their ads while tracking real-world impact. As creative possibilities expand across retail, transit, and street-level assets, advertisers can expand their campaign strategies, setting the stage for OOH to remain a powerhouse in the evolving media landscape.
The Outlook: Bold, Blended, and Borderless
Looking ahead to 2025, OOH in Australia is anything but static. Brands are blending the consistency of classic formats with the flexibility of digital, pushing creative boundaries while staying grounded in measurable outcomes.
Whether it’s a towering SuperScreen, a screen outside a 7-Eleven, or a programmatic play on a train platform, OOH is proving it can be both a creative canvas and a commercial engine.
As Bench Media’s Sebastian Diaz puts it, “Some screens just have that ‘je ne sais quoi.’” Translation? The right screen, in the right place, at the right time. In the end, it’s about meeting your audience where they are, and making sure they remember you when you do.
