Media Mayhem: Elizabeth McIntyre – ‘Legislative change should involve genuine collaboration between industry and government’
These are interesting times, and the challenges faced by Australian marketing and media are frequently diabolical. There is always opportunity in a crisis, but rarely a single solution that is easy to see. Many are worried, searching for answers, and seeking guidance from our best thinkers. At Mumbrella, we want to interview industry leaders to understand their insights and learn how they handle the challenges and structure for the future. We hope this can help inspire our industry to trade through the storms and deliver the best work on the global stage.
In this week’s Media Mayhem, we sit down with the CEO of Outdoor Media Association, Elizabeth McIntyre.
How is the operating environment impacting your team, clients and partners?
A more complex operating environment is the result of increased economic pressures and is demanding that every advertising dollar works harder while clients are also expecting increasingly measurable ROI. That’s propelling the industry to innovate in attribution and analytics.
Within an economically challenging environment, OOH has seen strong growth compared to the market this year and a WARC study predicts overall OOH advertising spend will continue to grow, by 7.3% in 2025, fuelled by digital innovations making buying easier and OOH delivering strong contextual reach.
In parallel, partnerships with councils and tech providers are evolving to ensure seamless integration of digital technology in public spaces, requiring mutual investment and trust.
What changes are you seeing in consumer behaviour and preferences?
Behaviours have largely returned to pre-COVID levels, with public transport, road traffic, holidaying, and visits to key destinations experiencing significant growth.
Australians are spending more time outdoors for leisure, work, and fitness. For example, unique people in our cities’ CBDs is up by more than 20% YOY, enabling even greater reach of the 82% of people leaving home each day. MOVE2 will provide a granular understanding of this scale of audience across the year with seasonal variation.
Consumers now expect advertising to align with their values, emotions, and local context, making real-time, hyper-targeted campaigns a growing opportunity, and audiences also expect ads to guide them to immediate action nearby – whether visiting a store or attending an event, putting OOH front and centre when they’re close to point-of-purchase or point-of-play.
How are you using technology to your advantage?
Advancements in tech have enabled the development of MOVE2s capabilities, processing mass amounts of data to produce granular seasonal audiences, by demographic, on 330K+ signs across Australia.
Advanced digital screens allow dynamic, data-driven creative tailored to weather, traffic or even audience demos and attribution technology like geofencing and mobile tracking.
Streamlined ad purchasing also makes it easier than ever for brands to integrate OOH into broader digital strategies and technology, which is also enabling us to establish industry standards and automation processes for the market, like OASIS, making it easier to manage OOH workflow.
How are you using generative artificial intelligence?
We’re utilising AI to identify insights and trends in the 29 billion trips Australians make each year and to assist with real-time campaign performance analysis to inform and implement adjustments to improve reach, engagement and conversions.
On the creative front, AI tools are being explored to generate dynamic content for DOOH. Looking ahead, also for improved efficiency across methodology, future campaign planning, cyber security and predictive modelling to forecast foot traffic and consumer behaviour trends, so that outdoor campaigns are placed in the right locations at the right times.
When you lift your eyes from the screen to the media and marketing horizon, how are you planning?
At launch, MOVE2 will shift from having an average weekly number (MOVE1.5) to 52 weeks of the year, with seasonal variation. MOVE2 has also been built with hourly data in its background, fuelling standard Impression Multiplier for the industry at launch. All accessible from a single platform. And from 2026, planning will focus on delivering an increase in the granularity of available data along with the integration of third-party tools.
Recently the OMA united with the industry to support the launch of the AdNet Zero sustainability initiative. OOH is a comparatively low-carbon alternative that produces minimal emissions. For instance, static OOH installations have extremely low ongoing energy requirements, and digital OOH is increasingly powered by renewable energy sources. Many OOH campaigns also utilise recyclable or eco-friendly materials, aligning with broader efforts to reduce waste and environmental impact, highlighting why OOH is recognised as one of the more sustainable advertising channels. We are committed to ensuring it remains so.
What proposals for legislative change would you prioritise?
Legislative change should involve genuine collaboration and engagement between industry and government and an acknowledgement of the role OOH plays in placemaking, city activation and connecting the community at no cost to the taxpayer.
We’d also advocate for consistent planning legislation across states that fosters members’ confidence in further investing in OOH, planning legislation that’s flexible, forward facing and future proofed and removing red tape to encourage a regulatory environment that embraces creativity, technology and innovation.
What opportunities do you see, and how are you positioning your organisation to exploit them?
While consumer confidence is likely to build slowly next year, studies show that people trust OOH messaging more than other mediums. Our credibility advantage means that for advertisers, outdoor remains a reliable and resilient medium for reaching cautious consumers during economic uncertainty.
As Australia’s number one broadcast medium, OOH’s ability to deliver mass reach efficiently at a time when people are 98% more alert and receptive to messages, makes OOH a highly effective and valuable medium, with research indicating that brands allocating more of their budget to OOH achieve a 17% stronger ROI.
Of course, technological advancement an the rise of DOOH and prDOOH provides more opportunities than ever to engage with audiences as they journey through life. These technological capabilities open new doors for creativity. With around half of the impact of an outdoor campaign attributable to the strength of creative, we remain focused on supporting, recognising and celebrating bold, innovative creative work as a cornerstone of effective OOH advertising. We have some exciting plans in the works in support of outstanding creativity. Watch this space!
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Neil Griffiths is the Managing Editor of Mumbrella. He joined the company in October 2023.
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