OMA reports 2020 losses, $92m of donated inventory
The Australian outdoor media industry suffered a net media revenue decrease of 39.4% in 2020, down to $566.5 million from $935.5 million in 2019 as COVID-19 forced people to stay home and away from central hubs.
The Outdoor Media Association (OMA) 2020 Annual Report has also detailed how the industry assisted the community during the worse of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Despite significant financial losses of its own, OMA members donated $92 million of advertising space to more than 140 not-for-profit organisations including arts, sports and charities across the country, an increase of 6% from $87 million in 2019.
OMA members generate close to 80% of OOH advertising revenue in Australia. During the pandemic, government, retail, ecommerce, and banking brands were some of the top advertisers in the sector.
Outdoor advertisers
While lockdowns and restrictions posed a major challenge for the industry’s audience measurement system, MOVE (Measurement of Outdoor Visibility and Exposure), it still undertook its tenth annual data update during 2020.
In 2020, the OMA also finalised a tender process and appointed global media measurement experts Ipsos to evolve MOVE for the digital age. Ipsos will upgrade MOVE to a national model and enhance the system’s capability to measure Digital Out of Home (DOOH). The new system will be launched in 2023. Digital outdoor inventory represented 56.1% of total revenue in 2020, up from 55.8% in 2019.
OMA CEO Charmaine Moldrich commented: “We are well placed for future growth, and this includes the development of our new audience measurement system MOVE 2.0 which is in the test and learn stage. We will also launch the results of our $1.3 million neuroscience study in July, which proves how memory encoding and emotion play into the impact OOH signs have on audiences.”
Recent figures released by SMI (Standard Media Index) Australia show that overall advertising spend in April 2021 is 20% above what was recorded in April 2020.
“It’s great to now see the market bounce back with automotive, tourism and entertainment brands returning to using OOH signs as part of their advertising mix. This speaks volumes about growing advertiser and agency confidence in the channel,” concluded Moldrich.
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Olivia Kruimel is the managing editor at Mumbrella. She has more than 15 years of experience in journalism, communications and marketing. Her journalism career began at Fairfax Media (now part of Nine) and includes various B2B publications such as B&T, Travel Today and ALB. As a marketer Olivia has worked for Standard Chartered and various global law firms.
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