10% growth in five years? OOH leaders ‘have to get united’, says JCDecaux co-CEO
Week in focus: The Future of OOH
Out-of-home (OOH) could grow faster globally if industry leaders collaborate, take action, and shift the narrative around the sector, according to JCDecaux co-CEO Jean-François Decaux.
Speaking at the World Out of Home Organization’s (WOO) Annual Congress in London today, Decaux’s keynote speech titled ‘Let’s Get Real’, outlined the four challenges and four opportunities for the sector, all within the acronym REAL.
Decaux said: “I believe this is a point in time, a unique moment, where the industry can take advantage of the current media landscape. But to do that, we have to get real.”
The call to arms echoed sentiments from WOO president Tom Goddard’s opening speech, who also suggested that, for the sector to grow, the industry must change the narrative around OOH.
Challenges
The first challenge Decaux identified is the rise of regulation in OOH, citing examples such as the less-healthy food (LHF) restrictions implemented across Transport for London in 2019 and the recent ban on meat and fossil fuels in city contracts in Amsterdam.
Decaux contrasted this strict regulation with Meta, where he said Rima Amin, Meta’s security policy manager, announced that 70% of advertisers would be verified in 2025, leaving 30% unverified.
Decaux argued the sector should capitalise on the current sentiment towards tech giants by being louder about “the good we do”, referring to the redistribution of OOH resources, with almost 50% of OOH resources going back into public infrastructure.
“[OOH] is a force for good, not a force for fraud, scams, or addiction,” he said, which was received with warm applause from the audience.
The second challenge is effectiveness, which Decaux argued has been a struggle due to the impact of Media Mixed Modelling (MMMs), with 49% of global marketers using these models, but OOH has historically not performed well.
Decaux cited work from 2024 in which Omnicom, Talon, JCDecaux, and Nielsen rewrote three MMMs for retail, inputting audience data at a low-tier postcode level, and found that correlation improved by 78%.
“Better data in, better results out. We can do something about it,” he said.
The push for better inputs into MMMs comes following the announcement in April that Route is developing an integration with Playout data, set to launch later this year.
Route developing integration with Playout data for use in media mix modelling
The third challenge was the shift from “agency to agentic”, putting pressure on discoverability.
Decaux shared a statistic from a 2024 Dentus study that forecast 79% of all media planning and buying will be driven by AI in 2027.
He argued: “How we work with AI will define our sector going forward,” and referenced dynamic creative optimisation (DCO) as a key opportunity for OOH to use AI effectively.
The final challenge Decaux identified was the ‘long tail’. He shared that Facebook has 10m advertisers, whereas OOH has 200,000, suggesting that ease of purchase and accessibility is essential to compete with digital platforms.
Opportunities
In the second half of Decaux’s speech, he identified opportunities for OOH, starting with the shift among younger people, particularly millennials, who are embracing the ‘real world’ and experiences.
JCDecaux spoke with Londoners earlier this year to better understand the perception of OOH compared with digital platforms.
One person surveyed said that OOH makes the brand “feel bigger” and that they must be a “serious company”. Decaux suggested that conveying this message to brands that the OOH channel can make them appear more legitimate and trustworthy is key.
When facing the challenge of effectiveness, Decaux further emphasised the opportunity for ease of purchase to compete with platforms like Meta. He referenced JCDecaux’s sell-side platform VIOOH, which has 135,000 (33,000 of which are JCDecaux screens) and argued that consolidating platforms like this is essential to compete.
The third opportunity Decaux identified was the growing audience for OOH. With 70% of the global population expected to live in cities by 2050, and air travel forecast to increase, there is an opportunity to tap into a younger, more affluent audience.
But to take advantage of this, Decaux argued: “We have to get united.”
To finish, Decaux called the final opportunity ‘leadership’, rallying the industry leaders in the room to take on board the action points to help the sector grow faster.
The current sector is forecast to grow at a 5.5% CAGR over the next five years. Decaux implied this could reach 10% if the leaders in the room worked together and took action.
He concluded: “You have a choice.
“Now is the time to get real.”