Definition and context

Street Furniture, Billboard and Transport Advertising are the three main areas in Outdoor Advertising. For several years Outdoor Advertising has outperformed the wider advertising market.

Three main sectors

Outdoor Advertising consists of three principal sectors: advertising on street furniture (‘Street Furniture’), advertising on - and in - public transport, stations and airports (‘Transport’) and advertising on billboards (‘Billboard’). Billboard is the most traditional and still the most widely deployed form of Outdoor Advertising. Other Outdoor Advertising activities, such as advertising on shopping trolleys or in gas stations are grouped together as ‘Ambient Media’. The newest major form of Outdoor Advertising is on street furniture: bus shelters, free-standing information panels (2m² MUPI®), large-format advertising panels (Senior® 8m²) and multi-service columns.

Outdoor Advertising’s place in the advertising market

In 2011, Outdoor Advertising spending worldwide was approximately $31.3 billion, or 6.8% of worldwide advertising spending, which was estimated at $458.8 billion (source: ZenithOptimedia estimates, December 2011). Outdoor penetration rates vary from country to country.

An increasingly relevant communication channel

The rise in digital platforms and mobile devices has led to a major shift in the media landscape as consumers and brands consume media in new ways. For most traditional display media, this has led to a decline as shown by the falling readership of the press and the fragmentation of TV and radio audiences. Conversely, outdoor is benefiting from these structural changes as the world’s population becomes increasingly urban, spending more time out-of-home and more time commuting.

Outdoor Advertising has become an increasingly powerful communications’ channel, able to deliver mass audiences and provide highly-targeted campaigns that reach audiences on the move. The advent of technology such as NFC, QR codes and Augmented Reality is already providing new opportunities for outdoor advertising, enabling interactive, content-rich campaigns that link to social media.

The outdoor industry has invested in robust accountability tools that have demonstrated the effectiveness and return on investment of the medium. Outdoor provide advertisers with audiences at a low cost per contact.

In the United Kingdom, studies have proved that with €1,000, Outdoor Advertising gives around 748,100 contacts, against 584,800 for radio, 358,700 for Internet, 230,400 for TV and 159,600 for daily press.

Source: United Kingdom Magna Forecasts for television, radio, press and internet, Group M for cinema, JCDecaux for outdoor advertising