DOOH: The creative imperative

Now’s the time to really care about creativity. Can DOOH become the last true broadcast medium where you can display genuinely great creative? Ocean Outdoor’s chairman hopes so.

Expect some old razzle dazzle on the streets of London next month as the World Out of Home Organization (WOO) comes to town for its annual congress following a 37-year hiatus.

It’s a significant opportunity for us evangelists to show how far the outdoor industry has come since then. Adapting to modern-day audiences. Delivering outstanding work which is head and shoulders above the mediocrity of algorithmic media.

With its Outernet, Piccadilly Lights, and the wide variety of the TfL estate, London sits at the forefront of OOH creativity – a hotbed of innovation as digital screens become smarter, static formats and special builds become bolder, and campaigns become more interactive, contextual, and culturally relevant.

Specsavers, KitKat, Apple, BA, IKEA, Adidas, Marmite, Waitrose – just some of the brands delivering sassy, stand-out OOH. These players are at the top of their game in their given categories, but they never coast.

Nor do the little guys, given half a chance (and an enviable in with the best creative minds). This year, we’ve seen Dodge the Finger, the world’s first-ever billboard controlled by a bottom. An unconventional game rooted in a deep need to deliver a highly important health message about prostate cancer to men aged 50+. TBWA\MCR’s humorous, award-winning activation saw enquiries to Prost8, its charity partner’s patient triage service, increase fivefold, a direct sign that this campaign mobilised the people who needed to hear it the most.

At its creative best, outdoor advertising like this stops people in their tracks, turning environments into high-value places that deliver real-world results.

The functional shot brand MOJU  has just landed a big award for its interactive Bring on the BOOM billboard, a two-day experiential activation which drove consideration and participation.

The agency also used the event as an opportunity to cast the star of its new campaign. Neil Mendoza was selected to front it, extending the experiential narrative to 50m people.

Supporting social content also delivered 1m views, and sales surged 43.7% year-on-year to reach £32m. All credit to Bicycle London, working with Leo UK and Ocean Outdoor.

In many ways, outdoor advertising behaves like art. It has the power to move you; it creates discussion. So, where’s the but, I hear you ask?

For us, it’s the very obvious downward slide in marketing effectiveness. The preponderance of brands that are putting efficiency ahead of effectiveness, an overinvestment in performance marketing, is impacting negatively on long-term brand building and business growth. A dumbing down, if you like, of creative endeavour.

The job of WOO’s newly appointed creative task force, one of the organisation’s four delivery pillars, is to put creativity and innovation back on the agenda. To prepare the terrain and present the arguments which will unlock the myriad, but all too often overlooked or unseen opportunities to increase the value of our medium.

It’s widely accepted that creativity drives business growth. And substantial DOOH contracts can be won, lost, or retained based on the strength of the creative ideas presented, not just the commercial numbers alone.

This is why, in London, we will increase the representation of creativity in the room, introducing a narrative which positions DOOH as an effective storytelling channel, calling on the experience of renegades like Katy Hopkins and Dino Burbidge, who are bringing a new energy as the craft of DOOH embraces versatile ideas that flow naturally across other channels.

Raising the bar and the quality will be the WOO creative awards, which will reward the agencies and the people behind the work that resonates, delivering on the holy grail of reach, attention and trust.

And then, through the lens of System 1’s Orlando Wood and Ocean Outdoor’s Melanie Blood, the fundamentals of great creative will be dissected, highlighting the artistic elements that will Make Outdoor Creative Again (#MOCA). This was my rallying call to the industry in Mexico last year, and the jumping-off point for London 2026.

As I write, I hear that TikTok’s “out-of-phone” program has ditched the repurposing of brands’ mobile ads for OOH and will start building billboard creative from scratch instead, working in partnership with Vistar Media. Music to my ears. Maybe the #MOCA message is filtering through.

To the industry, I say this. Now’s the time to really care about creativity. Can DOOH become the last true broadcast medium where you can display genuinely great creative? I hope so. But to grow our medium and play to its strengths, we have to nurture creativity without risking undermining effectiveness and, in turn, investment.

Tim Bleakley is the chairman of Ocean Outdoor