Geoff Lyons, CEO PML Group, on why OOH will deliver IMPACT in 2026.
Each year at PML Group we challenge ourselves with a simple but powerful question: How can we Be More Now for our clients, for our industry, and for our business?
Delivering OOH with Impact is our driving ambition for 2026 – a commitment that fuels bold thinking, creative excellence, and strategic precision across every campaign. Impact is the power to create meaningful change, influence outcomes, and leave a lasting impression. In the year ahead, we’ll bring this ambition to life through six core pillars: Inspire, Measure, Place, Audience, Captivate, and Track. Each one reflects our belief that impactful OOH is not just seen – it’s felt, remembered, and acted upon.
OOH remains one of the most trusted, visible, and creative media channels, yet many advertisers are still underinvested in it. While media grapples with fragmentation and diminishing trust, Out of Home continues to deliver scale, accountability, and sustainability in the real world. The question for 2026 isn’t “why OOH?” – it’s “why not more OOH?”. The opportunity for brands on the medium is enormous. For example, only a fraction of advertisers is fully leveraging data-enhanced and dynamic Digital OOH. That gap is pure opportunity, and 2026 is the year we close it.
Out of Home is evolving, and we’re leading that evolution with sharper insights, smarter technology, and standout creativity that delivers results where it matters most – in the real world.
Inspire
OOH advertising has long been a powerful medium for reaching audiences in the public sphere, but its true potential shines when campaigns push creative boundaries and inspire through innovation. We know the most effective OOH doesn’t wait to be noticed; it earns it through creativity and relevance. By leveraging physical space in imaginative ways, OOH can transform everyday environments into moments of wonder, reflection, or action.
Innovative OOH campaigns increasingly fuse technology, storytelling, and design to deliver memorable brand experiences. A standout example is dynamic OOH, where our Liveposter platform has played a key role over the past year – delivering contextually relevant content for brands like Rockshore, Fulfil, and IKEA. This reactive content adapts in real time to triggers such as weather, time of day, and location, showcasing the programmatic capabilities now embedded in modern OOH advertising. Dynamic content allows creative to move with its audience, seamlessly integrating into the rhythm of their day.
Creative use of scale and placement continues to be a powerful driver of impact in OOH advertising. Unexpected formats, such as special builds or interactive installation, can surprise and delight, sparking curiosity and conversation.
We inspire through smart planning and bold media choices – making the media the message by executing brilliant creative that respects every format. Because the real magic? It happens when formats work together.
True OOH impact comes not from spectacle alone, but from emotional resonance achieved through uninhibited, imaginative execution. When done right it transforms the urban landscape into a dynamic canvas for attention. It used to be all about getting noticed. Now, it’s about something bigger – connection. People engage with OOH in real, human ways: stopping, snapping, sharing – moments only OOH can create.
2025 was a landmark year for innovation on the medium, and all signs point to even greater creative momentum in the year ahead.
Measure
In the progressive landscape of OOH advertising, audience measurement is essential for ensuring campaigns are effective, accountable, and optimised. 2026 is set to be a transformative year for the medium in Ireland, marked by the highly anticipated relaunch of JNOR. With Impacts as a core currency, advertisers will have sharper tools to evaluate reach and performance. The upgraded model will also incorporate Digital OOH and a new consumer travel survey, offering richer insights and a more comprehensive view of audience behaviour across formats and environments.
The relaunch of JNOR marks a watershed moment for accountability in Irish media, and we’re ready to help clients translate that data into growth. For our team at PML Group, JNOR will be one of many sources that turn data-driven insights into campaign reach, frequency, and effectiveness. By fusing these data sources to understand who sees an ad, when, and where, we can optimise placements, tailor messaging, and prove the channel’s effectiveness.
Audience data transforms OOH from a static medium into a dynamic, measurable channel that drives meaningful consumer connections and business outcomes and 2026 will see a step-change in measurement in this market.
OOH measurement is no longer optional, it’s the benchmark for media accountability.
Place
Location-based marketing harnesses the power of place to deliver highly relevant, context-aware brand messages. The combination of multi-format OOH roadside media, retail-based channels, transport environments and advanced mapping technology, delivers a potent tool for driving connected attention.
Multi-format OOH campaign – spanning roadside panels, transit formats, digital screens, and ambient installations – allow brands to create layered, omnipresent messaging across a consumer’s journey. By tailoring creative to specific environments, or upweighting investment by place or environments, brands amplify relevance and resonance.
Retail-based media adds another dimension by reaching consumers at the point of purchase. OOH POS ads influence decision-making in real time. These formats are especially powerful when integrated with broader OOH campaigns. our focus for clients is delivering connected attention, from street to store.
Our mapping technology at PML Group supercharges location marketing by enabling precision targeting and smarter planning through data. Heatmaps, mobility analytics, and geofencing tools allow marketers to deliver dynamic content based on real-world behaviours – whether it’s promoting a product near a competitor’s store or tailoring messaging to local events.
Location marketing thrives on relevance and OOH advertising is uniquely positioned to deliver it by engaging people where they live, work, and play. It’s not just about being seen, it’s about being seen in the right place, at the right time, with the right message.
Ultimately, location marketing transforms physical spaces into strategic touchpoints. Where people move, OOH moves with them, turning movement itself into a marketing channel. The effect is transformative, with research indicating that OOH delivers an 80-120% lift in real world footfall to physical locations, compared to digital only benchmarks.
Audience
The audience for OOH advertising in Ireland is expanding rapidly, driven by a combination of population growth, urbanisation, record-breaking public transport usage, and nationwide traffic congestion, all of which contribute to increased exposure and engagement with OOH media.
Ireland’s population continues to grow, particularly in urban centres like Dublin, Cork, and Galway. This urbanisation fuels demand for public infrastructure and services, placing OOH advertising in high-traffic environments where it can reach diverse and mobile audiences. As people spend more time outside their homes – commuting, shopping, and socialising – OOH becomes a natural part of their daily journey.
In 2024, Ireland recorded more than 328 million public transport journeys, the highest ever. Dublin Bus alone carried 177 million passengers, while Luas and Irish Rail saw significant increases in ridership. These figures reflect a growing reliance on public transport, positioning transit-based OOH formats, such as bus shelters, train stations, and transport vehicle, as prime real estate for advertisers.
Meanwhile, traffic congestion across Ireland has intensified. Although not good news for everyone, traffic congestion is favourable for Ireland’s OOH advertisers. According to TomTom, Dublin ranks as the 15th most congested city globally. Galway and Cork also face mounting delays. While frustrating for commuters, this congestion creates longer dwell times for roadside and vehicular OOH formats, increasing the likelihood of ad recall and engagement.
More journeys mean more moments to connect; mobility is fuelling visibility, and visibility drives effectiveness. In a crowded media world scale still matters, and OOH delivers it in motion.
Captivate
At PML Group, one of our key strategic focuses in recent years has been championing OOH advertising as a powerful attention-driving medium. OOH’s unique presence in public spaces means it cannot be avoided, blocked, or skipped, making it a persistent and impactful part of the consumer journey. Its ability to deliver repeat exposure across diverse environments and audience touchpoints reinforces brand messaging in a way few other media can. Attention isn’t won by chance; it’s earned through relevance, scale, and creative excellence – all the qualities that define Out of Home.
Our proprietary IMPACT Attention research has identified the core drivers of attention in OOH, including scale, contextual relevance, innovation, and creative excellence. In an era where attention is the ultimate currency, OOH stands out as a high-value medium that captures interest, drives engagement, and amplifies multi-channel marketing strategies.
OOH is a pure advertising medium, distinguished by its unmatched creative canvas. Compelling creative is essential to capturing and sustaining attention, and our in-house creative team plays a vital role in optimising this impact. We actively encourage clients to leverage campaign pre-testing to refine their messaging and maximise the effectiveness of their investment. By focusing on attention and creative excellence, we help brands unlock the full potential of OOH and deliver campaigns that resonate in the real world.
Our independently conducted IMPACT research programme, in partnership with Ipsos B&A, has revealed consistent characteristics shared by the highest-performing OOH campaigns particularly in terms of creative execution and format mix. These insights empower our clients to optimise their campaigns and elevate their overall OOH performance.
OOH’s ability to captivate audiences lies in its bold scale and strategic placement, making it ideally suited for attention-grabbing visuals and strong brand recall. In an environment where consumer attention is increasingly fragmented, OOH distinguishes itself by being unmissable, memorable, and measurable, cementing its role as an essential tool in the modern marketer’s arsenal.
Track
Measuring the Impact of OOH advertising has evolved significantly, enabling marketers to assess impact with greater precision and accountability. In 2026 OOH will continue to be one of the most accountable and transparent of media.
At PML Group, our suite of tools and services places us at the forefront of campaign tracking and effectiveness measurement in the OOH space. From post-campaign effectiveness research to verification platforms for both classic and digital formats, and, increasingly, sustainability metrics, our approach delivers a holistic view of campaign performance.
Prior to a campaign even hitting the street, our PREVIEW creative intelligence tools can read key design attributes to refine and optimise creative performance.
The relaunch of JNOR will further enhance this by enabling us to assess OOH impacts across demographics, offering a more comprehensive coverage and frequency model that will include digital OOH panels.
In 2026, our IMPACT research programme will celebrate 30 years of measuring campaign effectiveness. Since its inception in 1996, IMPACT has tracked more than 25,000 OOH campaigns, with almost 200,000 individuals contributing their opinions. This unparalleled body of work reflects our long-standing commitment to accountability and provides a rich source of data and insights for our clients and the wider industry.
Verification is a cornerstone of campaign delivery. Our physical monitoring of more than 20,000 OOH panels across the island of Ireland each cycle is now complemented by Liveposter Verify – a global-first platform offering real-time verification for Digital OOH. These services not only ensure transparency and peace of mind for advertisers but also generate valuable market intelligence and competitive insights for our clients.
Sustainability is also becoming an increasingly important dimension of OOH measurement. Advertisers are seeking to understand the environmental impact of their campaigns, from material usage and energy consumption to carbon footprint. PML Group has pioneered fully recyclable materials, actively upcycled campaign assets is proud to offer a pioneering sustainability solution that measures and reports emissions for both classic and digital OOH media at the campaign level, supporting our clients on their strategic journey toward net zero. Our solution is aligned with the Global Media Sustainability Framework established between the WFA’s Global Alliance and the Ad Net Zero community.
Together, these pillars – effectiveness, verification, and sustainability – ensure that OOH campaigns are not only creative and impactful, but also accountable and future-ready.
As Out of Home continues to evolve, so too does our ambition – to measure smarter, create braver, and invest better. In 2026, that ambition takes form as OOH With Impact, our commitment to help brands Be More Now, delivering real results in the real world.
OOH’s presence in everyday environments enables brands to connect with people during the moments that matter most.
When combined with innovation, creative excellence, and dynamic digital content, OOH evolves into a sophisticated mass marketing solution driving real world connections.
Be More Now. With Impact.
