The media and food categories were the two biggest spenders on out-of-home (OOH) advertising in 2020 according to the final quarterly Posterwatch review of the OOH market in 2020 which is carried out by PML Group.
Media advertisers increased their OOH investment by 80% in 2020, thus increasing their share of voice on the medium by 4.4% to 7.9%. Sky and Disney were the two biggest spenders in the category, using a mix of formats and environments to drive subscriptions and increase viewership.
As grocery spending increased in 2020, so too did OOH investment by food and FMCG brands, with the point of sale and the path to purchase proving to be key OOH battlegrounds for brands, according to PML. Food brands increased their OOH spend by 14% and their share of voice on the medium improved by more than two points. Kellogg’s, Dr. Oetker and Kraft Heinz were prominent in this category.
Categories such as Alcohol, QSRs, Films and Tourism/Travel all declined in spend on OOH in 2020. The closure of pubs, cinemas and restaurants for much of the year and a curtailment on foreign and domestic travel was behind this of course, but advertising by brands that could offer an in-home alternative such as Just Eat and Disney+ helped the medium bridge that gap.
Although alcohol spend on OOH decreased significantly in 2020, Diageo remain the channel’s top advertiser, followed by Sky and Mondeléz. Overall, Retail, Finance and Media were the three most active categories for the year.
“2020 was an extraordinary year for Out of Home with a challenge on a scale we’ve never seen before. However, we can look back on many positives for the medium. It played a key role in public information messaging on Covid and we saw some exceptional creative work in response to the pandemic. The crisis also accelerated and escalated ways in which data is managed and applied to OOH campaigns and the evolution of the medium’s digital infrastructure was not halted by the virus. It all means OOH is better placed than ever to create meaningful solutions for agencies and brands in 2021,” says Colum Harmon, marketing director, PML Group:
