Aaron Poole, marketing executive, PML Group with this week’s Out \ Look on Out of Home
Walk through Dublin this cycle and it’s hard to miss the arrival of Oatly. The Swedish oat drink pioneer has launched its biggest Irish campaign to date, taking over streets, stations and screens with a message designed to stop coffee drinkers in their tracks: in a blind test, 58% of those sampled preferred Oatly in coffee.
It’s a claim with bite, underpinned by independent research with almost 300 local coffee drinkers. The result leaned in Oatly’s favour. Rather than keep that story in the fine print, the brand has brought it out into the open in the most public medium available – turning a taste-test result into a citywide talking point.
OOH gives the creative the stage it deserves. Large formats like 96 and 48 Sheets deliver scale on the city’s busiest arteries, while Luas Portraits, Adshel Live, and Transvision screens extend its reach across everyday journeys. In Connolly and Pearse stations, full tunnel and digital gallery takeovers push the campaign further still, surrounding commuters with Oatly’s trademark mix of confidence and wit.
And that wit matters. Our IMPACT Attention research shows that 52% of people find clever or humorous taglines more attention-grabbing, while 69% say strong visual imagery makes ads stand out. Both are central to the campaign, which strips away complexity to land a single-minded line with humour and standout design.
The timing is equally telling. Oatly is making a splash in Ireland at a time when audience is at a height and the medium is playing a central role in brand discovery. In fact, our IMPACT Attention study showed 2 in 3 consumers have found new brands through OOH, while 7 in10 say seeing ads across formats makes the message clearer.
The campaign is planned by billups and Source out of home.
Ireland on the move creates a strong backdrop for OOH
Ireland’s economic and mobility backdrop continues to provide fertile ground for Out of Home. The latest Dublin Economic Monitor in tandem with new public transport and travel stats reveal audiences are more “out”, active, and ready to engage than ever, meaning OOH is operating against one of the strongest backdrops in recent years with the months ahead promising even more with a stacked event calendar and the impending Christmas ramp up.
When it comes to consumer activity, resilience remains clear, even in the face of higher household costs. Dublin retail sales climbed to a record high index of 147.4 in Q2, part of a five-quarter upward trajectory. Nationwide, card payments on retail and health are now approaching €10 billion monthly, highlighting the sheer scale of daily consumer activity. Employment is also at a record figure in Dublin, meaning the cities are surging with footfall during the week as offices return to regular patterns of in-person meetings.
Discretionary spending also grew in Q2, showing that households are not only covering essentials but are continuing to spend on lifestyle and leisure. This resilience underpins OOH’s role in influencing purchase decisions – especially towards the end of the year. Our IMPACT Attention research showing that 61% of consumers say OOH influenced them to buy a product or service, while 66% said the same specifically around Black Friday/Cyber Monday.
Ireland’s hospitality sector also enjoyed its strongest early-summer performance since the pandemic, with Dublin hotel occupancy peaking at 91% in June. High occupancy and high spend combine to create captive, high-value audiences. Tourist spending in the capital rose by 2% in Q2, with US visitor spend up 3.7% and inbound tourism from Asia up 6.4%. At the national level, retail spending by tourists rose by 1.5%, with US visitors a key driver up 4.2%.
Major concerts from global acts such as Dua Lipa and Zach Bryan brought tens of thousands into the city, while Dublin Airport handled more than 9.3 million passengers in Q2, its busiest quarter on record. June alone was the airport’s busiest June ever, with 12 separate days topping 120,000 passengers. Airport OOH is operating at peak flows.
These audiences overlap perfectly with OOH’s strengths in city centres, airports, and cultural hotspots – our iQ research shows % of 18–24s and 60% of 25–34s agree that brands seen sponsoring sports events feel more relevant to the occasion, with OOH the most effective medium for communicating sponsorship among these groups.
Public Transport
The capital’s public transport network carried 71.6 million journeys in Q2, up 5.5% year on year. Rail services were the main driver of growth, reflecting increased connectivity across the commuter belt. These networks are key touchpoints: our research shows that 40% of Dubliners use public transport for city centre shopping, 35% for commuting to work, and nearly 30% for entertainment or family days out. These behaviours create natural intersections between movement, mindset, and media.
In this high-mobility environment, OOH’s ability to capture attention is unmatched. Our research shows that 83% of consumers noticed OOH ads in the past year, peaking at 87% among 16–24s. This aligns with their role as brand discoverers – 75% of 16–24s and 73% of 45–54s said they discovered new brands through Outdoor.
The months ahead promise even greater momentum. Dublin will host an NFL International Series clash in Croke Park later this month, while World Cup qualifiers, the Dublin Marathon and a run of regional half-marathons are set to draw tens of thousands onto city streets. Seasonal landmarks such as Halloween and the return of international rugby add to the mix, before the retail calendar builds towards Black Friday and Christmas, two of the year’s busiest shopping peaks. Longer term, the €275bn National Development Plan, with projects like MetroLink, DART+ and BusConnects, is set to reshape how people move through the city – and with it, how they encounter OOH.
