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Rethinking Local OOH: Not Just Seen — Acted On · Leading Local Insights

• 0:34
  Celine Matthiessen: Hello and welcome to BIA Advisory Services Leading Local Insights Podcast.
• 0:38
  Celine Matthiessen: My name is Celine Matthiessen and I'm the VP of Insights and Analysis here at BIA.
• 0:42
  Celine Matthiessen: Today we're diving into the world of digital out-of-home advertising.
• 0:46
  Celine Matthiessen: Out-of-home advertising, or D O O H is digital out-of-home advertising as part of it, is a space that's been evolving fast and growing in advertiser spending.
• 0:56
  Celine Matthiessen: We're thrilled to have Dave Rivera, VP of Channel Partnerships at Vistar Media, here with us.
• 1:02
  Celine Matthiessen: If you're advertising, you already know Vistar's name.
• 1:05
  Celine Matthiessen: They've built a powerhouse tech backbone for how companies buy, sell, and manage campaigns on digital screens pretty much everywhere, as Auto Home and Digital Auto Home is everywhere, right?
• 1:16
  Celine Matthiessen: Welcome, Dave.
• 1:18
  Dave Rivera: Hello there, Celine.
• 1:19
  Dave Rivera: Thanks for having me on the pod.
• 1:21
  Celine Matthiessen: Well, thanks for coming.
• 1:23
  Celine Matthiessen: You know, but you know, besides you being here and being a rock star in Digital Auto Home, what's the real headline?
• 1:31
  Celine Matthiessen: T Mobile is acquiring Vistar Media.
• 1:33
  Celine Matthiessen: So let's start with that big news.
• 1:35
  Celine Matthiessen: What does this mean for the future of AutoHome and Vistar Media?
• 1:39
  Dave Rivera: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:40
  Dave Rivera: This is huge news.
• 1:41
  Dave Rivera: T-Mobile, it's the best network in America.
• 1:44
  Dave Rivera: They have great data, insights, they have a great customer experience.
• 1:49
  Dave Rivera: They also, which a lot of people don't know, they operate a physical network of screens in their store.
• 1:55
  Dave Rivera: So they know out of home.
• 1:57
  Dave Rivera: So it's a really good marriage there.
• 2:00
  Dave Rivera: Um the other thing is what they're one of the biggest marketers out there, right?
• 2:04
  Dave Rivera: T-Mobile does a ton of brand marketing, so they're leveraging that expertise, that scale, um, making best in class products for themselves, and then bringing those to other marketers.
• 2:17
  Dave Rivera: And I think that's really powerful.
• 2:19
  Dave Rivera: We're looking a lot, we're looking to add a lot of value to the advertising industry with that.
• 2:25
  Celine Matthiessen: Well, yeah, what they have a name for their in-store network, right?
• 2:28
  Celine Matthiessen: Um that they that T-Mobile has.
• 2:31
  Celine Matthiessen: Um is it like pink or red or something?
• 2:33
  Celine Matthiessen: Wasn't it?
• 2:35
  Dave Rivera: The magenta network?
• 2:36
  Celine Matthiessen: Magenta network, yeah.
• 2:39
  Dave Rivera: Yeah, every everything, as I'm learning, everything is magenta around here.
• 2:44
  Celine Matthiessen: Magenta.
• 2:45
  Celine Matthiessen: Yeah, well, that's kind of it's a good color, right?
• 2:47
  Celine Matthiessen: Anyways, um, so how will this integration capability play into your new partnership with T-Mobile?
• 2:52
  Celine Matthiessen: And what should partners expect going forward?
• 2:54
  Celine Matthiessen: What exciting news do you have for them?
• 2:57
  Dave Rivera: Yeah, I, you know, I think a lot of our partners and our customers, they expect things to work, right?
• 3:04
  Dave Rivera: And that's what they should continue to expect.
• 3:07
  Dave Rivera: Excellent customer service and products that are built to last.
• 3:11
  Dave Rivera: And that's not gonna stop.
• 3:13
  Dave Rivera: That this is just more power and more engineering resources towards that vision and that goal that we've had for a while.
• 3:23
  Celine Matthiessen: Great.
• 3:23
  Celine Matthiessen: You know, let's talk a little bit about 2026.
• 3:26
  Celine Matthiessen: We just released our new update of our BI forecast and out of home advertising, it's growing at more than 3% a year.
• 3:33
  Celine Matthiessen: And even the growth is expected to jump 5% between 25 and 26.
• 3:38
  Celine Matthiessen: And for digital out-of-home, which now makes up 42%, I couldn't believe this, of all out-of-home spending, it grew another 3% last year alone.
• 3:47
  Celine Matthiessen: Um, so why are brands putting more money into out-of-home and digital out-of-home?
• 3:51
  Celine Matthiessen: And what can marketers do about it?
• 3:53
  Celine Matthiessen: What can they do to benefit from it?
• 3:57
  Dave Rivera: Yes, Aline, these numbers are great, but in my view, out-of-home and digital out-of-home still aren't getting their fair share.
• 4:06
  Dave Rivera: So in 2026, I guess it's I think it's estimated now that $400 billion is going to be spent on advertising.
• 4:14
  Dave Rivera: Digital out-of-home is about $4 billion.
• 4:18
  Dave Rivera: It's about 1%, right?
• 4:21
  Dave Rivera: This is the oldest format of media.
• 4:23
  Dave Rivera: This is where there's a huge opportunity, is a, you know, and I saw the stat where they estimated up to 30% of the programmatic marketplace is fraudulent, right?
• 4:34
  Dave Rivera: So you have a hundred billion dollars going to programmatic advertising on the internet, and they estimate up to $30 billion of that is going to bad actors.
• 4:47
  Dave Rivera: So, in my view, going to marketers is maybe there's a reallocation, right?
• 4:52
  Dave Rivera: Maybe there's a reset that we need to do, and maybe that $30 billion that's going to maybe nefarious websites or robots clicking, maybe that should be reallocated to some tried and true marketing mediums like out of home.
• 5:08
  Dave Rivera: And that's what we're really saying to the market.
• 5:10
  Dave Rivera: And that's where we think the opportunity is is migrating some of these dollars that maybe aren't working, maybe are going into fraud or you know, some type of other uh capability that's not impacting your brand.
• 5:23
  Dave Rivera: How can we use out of home, the oldest form of media, to really get that message out there for brands?
• 5:29
  Celine Matthiessen: Mm-hmm.
• 5:30
  Celine Matthiessen: Mm-hmm.
• 5:30
  Celine Matthiessen: Interesting.
• 5:31
  Celine Matthiessen: Yeah.
• 5:31
  Celine Matthiessen: And for out of home, there's all sorts of new product types that are out there because I seem to see for digital out of home, I seem to see a lot more um screens and different unique screens to catch attentions, right?
• 5:43
  Celine Matthiessen: And so there's a lot of opportunity with that.
• 5:46
  Dave Rivera: Yeah, no, absolutely.
• 5:47
  Dave Rivera: I mean, we get a call every day of somebody that is deploying a screen network.
• 5:53
  Dave Rivera: Digital in out of home is fairly new, right?
• 5:56
  Dave Rivera: These screens have been around forever, but the the cost of putting up a digital screen and maintaining that, that's gone down over time.
• 6:06
  Dave Rivera: So we're starting to see these out-of-home placements that have traditionally been, you know, vinyl or some type of static paper, um, those are being converted to digital.
• 6:18
  Dave Rivera: And that's why you're seeing that growth in digital programmatics also helping because we're able to take budgets from potentially other media channels where they weren't getting the most bang for their buck and allocating that to digital out of home.
• 6:33
  Celine Matthiessen: Great.
• 6:34
  Celine Matthiessen: So let's bust some myths.
• 6:35
  Celine Matthiessen: People often say that digital out of home is just for brand awareness, right?
• 6:39
  Celine Matthiessen: Not for getting people to act.
• 6:40
  Celine Matthiessen: So is that fact or fiction?
• 6:43
  Dave Rivera: In in my view, this is fiction.
• 6:45
  Dave Rivera: Um, I think about out of home as a conversation starter, right?
• 6:49
  Dave Rivera: When people go to the search bar, they already know what they want, right?
• 6:53
  Dave Rivera: They're typing in, I need this, right?
• 6:55
  Dave Rivera: Like I need a plumber, or you know, my my AC is not working.
• 7:00
  Dave Rivera: So they know what they want when they come to that that search bar.
• 7:05
  Dave Rivera: Out of home is a great way of telling people where they should be going, where they should go and what they should be looking at.
• 7:11
  Dave Rivera: Um, so and and not only that, when people are exposed to digital out of home after they take action.
• 7:17
  Dave Rivera: On average, when we're running campaigns, we see an increase of 80% across search.
• 7:23
  Dave Rivera: So when people see it, they'll go and search it.
• 7:26
  Dave Rivera: We also see higher engagement and conversions from their performance marketing because when people see these ads, they're more willing to engage with them when they see it on social, on display, on CTV, and it really drives them to commit an action.
• 7:40
  Dave Rivera: So I would overall say that digital out of home is not just for brand awareness, it's driving that conversation home and impacting those other channels, which you're seeing a lot of that performance come from.
• 7:53
  Celine Matthiessen: Wow.
• 7:53
  Celine Matthiessen: Yeah, 80% uh take action.
• 7:55
  Celine Matthiessen: That's incredible.
• 7:56
  Celine Matthiessen: So now let's zoom out a little.
• 7:58
  Celine Matthiessen: People are glued to their screens all day at work.
• 8:00
  Celine Matthiessen: We're seeing um this that you know, people want to unplug, and there's like a big trend in the news, too, about unplugging when they're out and about.
• 8:08
  Celine Matthiessen: How does uh auto home and digital auto home cut through the noise?
• 8:12
  Dave Rivera: Yeah, totally.
• 8:12
  Dave Rivera: And I I'm one of those people.
• 8:14
  Dave Rivera: I just I just listened to this podcast where they were talking about people taking social media fast, and it changes the whole way that they look at everything.
• 8:24
  Dave Rivera: And you know, as humans, we want to experience life.
• 8:27
  Dave Rivera: We want to get out there, we want to hike.
• 8:29
  Dave Rivera: Like I want to ride my bike, I want to go snowboarding.
• 8:32
  Dave Rivera: And out of home is right there along that journey.
• 8:35
  Dave Rivera: It's at the airport, it's at the gas pump, it's on your drive, and it's not this intrusive, interruptive ad experience that you get on some other mediums.
• 8:45
  Dave Rivera: People are in a great mindset for a conversation when they're at, you know, when they're going on these trips, right?
• 8:50
  Dave Rivera: They're typically ready to make purchase decisions.
• 8:54
  Dave Rivera: It's a really good time to reach people when they're in this positive mindset and they're thinking about these decisions that they might want to make.
• 9:03
  Dave Rivera: So I think it plays really well with getting people off their screens, getting them out and about.
• 9:08
  Dave Rivera: We know these screens are not helping us.
• 9:11
  Dave Rivera: You know, I say to my kids all the time, right?
• 9:13
  Dave Rivera: If these devices made us smarter, we would be geniuses by now.
• 9:18
  Dave Rivera: And I haven't seen that, right?
• 9:21
  Dave Rivera: You know, there's not that that it that evolution hasn't happened.
• 9:25
  Dave Rivera: It's just really taking time away from the human experience.
• 9:29
  Dave Rivera: And out of home really plays along with that human human experience.
• 9:33
  Dave Rivera: It's woven into that fabric.
• 9:36
  Celine Matthiessen: Well, let's get real world for a second.
• 9:38
  Celine Matthiessen: I actually have a story, uh, case study, um, but I also want to hear yours.
• 9:43
  Celine Matthiessen: So my my daughter works for a museum, and one of the things they did this year for marketing was they took out a digital auto home ad on the main highway that comes into where the museum is, which is a vacation area.
• 9:55
  Celine Matthiessen: And they have had such great uplift because they've been, you know, asking about where did you see us?
• 10:02
  Celine Matthiessen: And people say, well, we were coming and we didn't know what we wanted to do.
• 10:05
  Celine Matthiessen: And we saw your we saw your museum sign and we checked you out.
• 10:09
  Celine Matthiessen: Um, and so she was telling me the other day that they're probably gonna do another one a little closer into town uh now, too, that we have um because they've had such great um experience with it and bringing in new people, people that didn't even know they existed, um, which is incredible.
• 10:24
  Celine Matthiessen: So can you give me some other that's that's a local nonprofit, you know, um case study, but can you give me any case studies that stand out for you with your clients?
• 10:35
  Dave Rivera: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 10:36
  Dave Rivera: I'm I'm gonna give you one personal story and then I'll I'll give you a case study about how we've really made some impact in the local space.
• 10:44
  Dave Rivera: So, you know, I remember when I was growing up, um, my dad and I would take road trips down to visit my grandparents in North Carolina, and there's this place in South Carolina called South of the Border.
• 10:55
  Dave Rivera: And I remember our drive, it these mile markers for this place, they for me were like a distance.
• 11:03
  Dave Rivera: How far away are we from the destination we're going to?
• 11:06
  Dave Rivera: Right.
• 11:06
  Dave Rivera: And I vividly remember this marketing campaign.
• 11:09
  Dave Rivera: I can envision the boards.
• 11:11
  Dave Rivera: It had like a big gorilla with a sombrero, and every mile it was like 88 miles to south of the border, 87 miles to south of the border.
• 11:19
  Dave Rivera: And you know, I even begged my dad to bring me there one time because I was like, I have to go see this place.
• 11:26
  Dave Rivera: So it did drive us to go there, but I've remembered this campaign my entire life, right?
• 11:31
  Dave Rivera: That's the type of impact that this has had on me and that out of home has on people, right?
• 11:36
  Dave Rivera: When you're driving home, these become parts of your daily life.
• 11:41
  Dave Rivera: Um, so we have tons of case studies showing how out of home helps brands, but I think there's a huge opportunity with our channel partners in the local space.
• 11:51
  Dave Rivera: Most advertisers, especially in the local space, today they're not buying out of home.
• 11:56
  Dave Rivera: They're not even thinking about it as a mainstay in their media bags.
• 12:00
  Dave Rivera: And that's a huge problem, and it's a gap largely due to education.
• 12:07
  Dave Rivera: In the local advertising space, there's over a hundred thousand sales reps.
• 12:13
  Dave Rivera: They're selling radio, they're selling newspaper, they're selling TV, but in out of home in the local space, maybe a few thousand.
• 12:21
  Dave Rivera: And I'm probably being generous there.
• 12:24
  Dave Rivera: So for broadcasters, whether it's radio or TV, newspaper, their legacy product is shifting, and it's not their fault, right?
• 12:33
  Dave Rivera: It's due to consumer behavior.
• 12:35
  Dave Rivera: Our habits are changing.
• 12:37
  Dave Rivera: When I grew up, my mom used to read the newspaper, she'd have it out all day on the kitchen table.
• 12:42
  Dave Rivera: She'd be like haggling with the paper boy.
• 12:45
  Dave Rivera: That doesn't happen anymore, right?
• 12:47
  Dave Rivera: Um and right now there's an opportunity for these organizations to replace some of that revenue that's shifting by adding digital out of home.
• 12:58
  Dave Rivera: And what we found is it's a fairly high product, uh, a high margin product for them compared to some of the other products that they sell.
• 13:06
  Dave Rivera: I've seen, you know, single digits on search or display, whereas, you know, a lot of the customers we're working with on the channel side, they're marking up the media, they're taking 30 to 50 percent margins, and that's impactful for their business, right?
• 13:22
  Dave Rivera: They could hire more journalists, they could get people in the newsroom.
• 13:25
  Dave Rivera: And one example that stands out for me is a longtime partner we have uh out of Pittsburgh, Steel City Media.
• 13:31
  Dave Rivera: At their core, they're a radio group, but they do offer a full funnel marketing experience for their clients.
• 13:38
  Dave Rivera: We started working with them in the pandemic, I think it was like 2020, and within six months, their team generated 400 RFPs for digital out of home and closed 25 deals.
• 13:49
  Dave Rivera: And they're probably running around a million dollars out of a couple cities today.
• 13:54
  Dave Rivera: So that's the opportunity I see there where you could really grow this and create a whole new marketing channel for a lot of these local organizations that can become potential channel partners with Vistar.
• 14:09
  Celine Matthiessen: That's great.
• 14:10
  Celine Matthiessen: So, yeah, so that's opportunity for marketers.
• 14:13
  Celine Matthiessen: Um, anything, anything, any final thoughts?
• 14:16
  Celine Matthiessen: Um, you know, uh what else, what else is in the future?
• 14:21
  Celine Matthiessen: You know, what should they be looking for uh you know forward to, or what's the easiest um transition for them?
• 14:27
  Celine Matthiessen: I I know digital out-of-home and out-of-home measurement is a lot like digital, so it's easy for them to show the success, correct?
• 14:34
  Dave Rivera: Yes, yeah, yeah, we could definitely uh show success in really interesting ways.
• 14:41
  Dave Rivera: Um, but I would say it's not easy, right?
• 14:46
  Dave Rivera: And and I found like you don't always make a huge impact doing something really easy.
• 14:54
  Dave Rivera: There is a little bit of a lift when it comes to education, but once you have that education up front, when you train the sellers at these organizations, when they're going out to their clients, it becomes a no-brainer for most of these advertising clients.
• 15:10
  Dave Rivera: It's just today they're not having a conversation, right?
• 15:13
  Dave Rivera: If you went into a local marketer and told them they could get on these huge billboards and screens in their community and really reach people that are in their, you know, in their local space, I think a lot of them after that 15 minute conversation, they say, Oh yeah, totally.
• 15:29
  Dave Rivera: I wanna, I wanna do that.
• 15:31
  Dave Rivera: Today the conversations just aren't happening at scale.
• 15:34
  Dave Rivera: And that's what we really need to change is how can we educate the market so they know that digital out-of-home should be a mainstay and it should be a part of their media mix.
• 15:44
  Celine Matthiessen: So, all right, so sum it up.
• 15:46
  Celine Matthiessen: If you're a marketer, what's your case for digital out-of-home?
• 15:50
  Dave Rivera: Yeah, absolutely.
• 15:51
  Dave Rivera: Number one, it's the oldest format of media, it's battle tested, right?
• 15:56
  Dave Rivera: We've been, I you know, I go to advertising conferences all the time, and the backgrounds of the slides are like Times Square.
• 16:03
  Dave Rivera: It's what we use to describe the advertising industry as out of home.
• 16:07
  Dave Rivera: It's got massive scale, it's a non-intrusive buying experience, the price points are great, it's fraud-free, it increases engagement across all performance media.
• 16:19
  Dave Rivera: And the real question I would have for a marketer is do you want more effective media?
• 16:23
  Dave Rivera: And my guess is the answer in most of those cases would be, yeah, we totally do, right?
• 16:29
  Dave Rivera: So that's that's really what we say to folks that that ask this question.
• 16:34
  Celine Matthiessen: Well, thank you so much for being here today and sharing your data, thoughts, and insights and case studies.
• 16:40
  Celine Matthiessen: We always appreciate and value your time with us.
• 16:42
  Celine Matthiessen: And for everyone out there listening, thank you for joining us as well.
• 16:45
  Celine Matthiessen: I invite you to learn more about Vistar Media at Vistarmedia.com.
• 16:49
  Celine Matthiessen: We hope you are enjoying our podcast this year.
• 16:51
  Celine Matthiessen: And if you have any topics you'd like to suggest or want to come on as a guest, reach out to us at podcast@bia.com.
• 16:58
  Celine Matthiessen: We look forward to bringing you more insightful conversations on local media throughout the year ahead.