Cathy O’Connor on how oOh Media has ‘ridden the momentum of sector growth’
oOh Media’s earnings released yesterday marked the company’s third full-year report under the leadership of Cathy O’Connor. But in 2022, for the first time during her tenure, the company turned the net loss into profit.
The out-of-home media sector was hit hard during the pandemic but has been on the mend for quite some time now. While the SMI figure for 2022 suggests outdoor’s total spending was up 24.6% year-on-year, the Outdoor Media Association (OMA’s) figure showed the total sector revenue hit $1 billion at the end of the year.
Ooh Media CEO Cathy O’Connor
O’Connor said oOh Media has really just “ridden the momentum of sector growth”, and tried to capitalise on it with “strong creative strategies”.
“oOh Media is the largest player in the out-of-home sector, it’s well positioned against a sector that’s growing, so first and foremost, the message is one about the health of out-of-home as a medium,” she told Mumbrella.
Looking at the group’s revenue breakdown by format, street furniture and rail alongside road were the backbones of oOh’s growth in 2022, collectively accounting for over 65% of the total revenue.
One of oOh’s street assets
While road revenue has exceeded the pre-pandemic level by 30% this reporting period, street and rail saw a slower recovery rate as the 2022 revenue was still 16% less than the 2019 high.
O’Connor, though, didn’t see a reason to worry about this difference. “It’s a fair comment to say that road has been the strongest performing of the channels over the recent history of the sector, and that trend continues into 2022 and 2023.
“I think the byproduct of some of the lockdowns that we went through in the pandemic has meant that, in relative terms, the rail environments have not gone as well as road, but I think that is well and truly on the path to recovery now.
“Street furniture has been a really solid performer. It’s heavily suburban, it’s national, it’s mass reach, and assets are being upgraded all the time, both in CBDs and suburban precincts. So I don’t see anything to get in the way of the long-term growth of rail or street furniture.”
Apart from road, the only other format outperforming the 2019 level in this reporting period was retail. The group’s results highlighted the launch of Reooh last October, a turnkey digital solution for retailers to build their in-store digital OOH networks.
O’Connor said oOh Media is “progressing nicely” in terms of conservation for Reooh, but no commercial partners are to be announced at this stage yet.
Meanwhile, with the return of airline passengers and its new Chairman’s Lounge assets under a premium media contact with Qantas, alongside exposure through several major airports, oOh Media’s fly segment had a 176% boost in revenue during 2022.
“It’s [Chairman’s Lounge] the first time that advertising has been opened in what is effectively a highly lucrative, valuable audience,” O’Connor said. “We’re very upbeat about the potential for incremental growth into the airports because of this brand new opportunity.”
With the MOVE 2.0 system from OMA on the horizon, the industry can also expect better ways of audience measurement looking into 2023 and beyond, especially for digital formats.
O’Connor said: “The momentum is with out-of-home so I think we just need to continue to improve measurement, continue to build great digital assets, open up new channels like programmatic, give advertisers new ways to buy out-of-home, make it easier to buy and keep demonstrating good ROI. They’re the things I think will be a focus for this year that will keep that growth coming.”
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Darcy Song was a reporter at Mumbrella, covering media owners, adtech and social platforms. She left in October 2023.
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