Ooh Media joins Boomtown and becomes the initiative’s first out of home partner
Outdoor company Ooh Media has become the eighth media owner to join the Boomtown initiative, which aims to drive up ad spend in regional areas and encourage advertisers to reach the 8.8m people living in ‘Boomtown’.
Ooh Media becomes the first out of home company to partner with Boomtown, and says its roadside, retail, airport and location-based assets give advertisers the opportunity to reach and engage regional audiences.
The company, which owns publisher Junkee and last year bought street furniture business Adshel, joins Southern Cross Austereo, Prime Media Group, Win Network, TRSN, Australian Community Media, Imparja and News Corp Australia.
Chair of the Boomtown committee and SCA’s chief sales officer, Brian Gallagher, welcomed Ooh Media to the “history-making collective”.
“Out of home advertising is an important medium for brand building, as it can reach large audiences in ways that no other format or technology can. We are now a stronger, broader-reaching collective,” Gallagher said.
News Corp’s general manager of sales and operations at News Regional Media, Belinda MacPherson, added that the committee is continuing to “showcase regional Australia” to national brands. Just 10% of national media budgets are spent regionally, despite regional audiences making up 36% of the Australian population; this is the imbalance Boomtown wants to remedy.
Ooh Media added that it has a “solid history of investment into regional Australia, citing its $40m acquisition of regional outdoor advertising company, Sports and Outdoor Media, in 2008. It said since acquiring the company, it has frequently invested in upgrading the portfolio, including digitising assets.
Cook’s Ooh Media becomes the eighth media owner partner
“We are excited to be partnering with Boomtown, as regional Australia is a crucial market for advertisers and a very important part of our business,” CEO Brendon Cook said.
“We’ve invested in regional assets over many years, as we strongly believe there is still massive potential for advertisers to reach wider and more relevant audiences across Australia, and build their brands by using the latest, sophisticated data analysis techniques.”
In August, the out of home company reported that its profits slumped 94.4% for the six months to 30 June 2019. Its underlying net profit after tax (NPAT) was $9.0m, down 24% on last year.
Brittney Rigby was Mumbrella's deputy managing editor - news and analysis. She left Mumbrella in April 2021.
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