‘Groundswell of support moving towards out of home’: OOh!media CEO confident about group’s 2024
OOh!media CEO Cathy O’Connor is confident about the group’s prospects in the year ahead, as the growth of the out of home (OOH) begins to “take share from other sectors”.
The company’s 2023 financial results, realeased yesterday, recorded a 7% YoY lift in revenue to $633.9 million, net profits of $34.6 million, up 10%.
Cathy O’Connor is the CEO of oOh!media
Whilst impressive, these results fell below the total revenue growth witnessed by the OOH industry in 2023, which rose 12.2 per cent compared to the previous year according to the Outdoor Media Association’s (OMA’s) end of year results. The outlook was even stronger for the industry according to the latest Standard Media Index figures, which recorded a 15.1% increase in OOH ad spend in 2023.
Speaking to Mumbrella about the results, O’Connor said that oOh!media had benefited from the performance of the OOH industry, due to a “groundswell of support moving towards out of home”.
“The mass reach that out of home has is really starting to become quite significant relevant to other broadcast channels where the audiences are fragmenting,” said O’Connor.
The growth of OOH home audiences, paired with improvements made to measurement, the growth of programmatic, and creative innovations such as 3D anamorphic and dynamic display, has helped the sector go from strength to strength post-COVID.
With the OOH’s future success driven largely by new technology, O’Connor said that varying levels of growth recorded between OOH channels was largely down to the “movement in and around those assets and the level of digitisation going on”.
Touching on the suite of new talent welcomed by oOh!media in 2023, O’Connor explained that the majority of these appointments were in response to the growing dominance of digital OOH, which now accounts for 73.9 per cent of net OOH media revenue according to the latest figures from the OMA.
In bolstering the group’s digital credentials, O’Connor told Mumbrella that oOh!media will be better equipped to participate in emerging areas like data-led OOH buying, programmatic trading and the Outdoor Media Association’s new MOVE 2.0 measurement system.
“So we’re just bringing in more talent and balancing that with all of the traditional sports match you also needed out of home,” she said.
Aside from investing in its digital capability, oOh!media is also looking to take its own slice of the booming retail media sector, last yeah launching its retail media network, reooh.
The solution, O’Connor said, is about helping retailers to build out their instore offering, and is the product of significant investment in specialised retail media talent and capabilities.
As announced in the company’s results, one major Australian retailer already signed onto a pilot program with reooh, and O’Connor suggested to Mumbrella that another is expected to sign on in the coming days.
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