Abby Sullivan, Associate Media Director
At the recent MediaPost OOH Insider Summit in Nashville, the conversation wasn’t just about billboards; it was about whether out-of-home advertising is ready to earn its seat at the performance table. One theme surfaced again and again: OOH has the reach and the creative power, but it’s been playing catch-up on measurement for years, and in a media landscape where every dollar needs to justify itself, that gap has real consequences.
The Industry’s Honest Reckoning
Dentsu set the tone early with a line that stuck: OOH has been bringing a showreel to a data fight. Out-of-home now represents just 2.3% of total advertising spend, down from 4%, and continues to lose ground as other channels have built closed-loop measurement, attribution models, and real-time optimization. The medium isn’t broken as attention is actually growing. But the inability to consistently prove downstream impact has made OOH an easy line item to cut when budgets tighten.
What the Data Actually Shows
Four Data Research brought six years of benchmark data (145,000+ survey responses across hundreds of campaigns) and the findings were both validating and uncomfortable. Creative Recall has climbed from 38% to 44%, and Ad Recall has nearly doubled from 18% to 29%. But lower-funnel metrics like Brand Opinion, Consideration, and Purchase Intent have been trending in the opposite direction. Reach is up. Lift is down.
The Human Edge
A session on OOH in 2031 offered a useful reframe for planners: AI will absorb the repetitive, execution-heavy work, but OOH remains uniquely dependent on human judgment. Whether it’s the read on a market, a neighborhood, or a moment, the nuanced instincts that make a placement feel right just aren’t automatable. As hard skills shift to AI, soft skills sharpen.
What We’ve Seen at Connelly Partners
On the final day, I had the opportunity to present our own experience making OOH work under real budget pressure. For the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, a strategy built around physical frequency and emotional connection drove significant increases in ticket sales both in the immediate launch window and year-over-year. The lesson: OOH performs best when treated as an accountable lower-funnel anchor and omnichannel multiplier, not a standalone awareness play.
The Road Ahead
OOH is at an inflection point. The creative case has always been strong. What’s catching up now is the data, and with it, the opportunity to reframe how OOH is planned and measured. Audience precision, category-level thinking, dynamic creative, and incrementality-focused measurement are the levers that will bring the medium back. The planners who build around those principles will be the ones defining what OOH looks like in 2031.
