Outdoor ads back in business as Covid rebound begins

The out of home advertising industry has witnessed a 277% year-on-year rise for April to June 2021, the strongest quarterly growth ever recorded by the medium and generating total revenues of £198m, following a near wipe-out of activity during the first Covid lockdown.

According to figures released by industry body Outsmart, and collated by PwC, traditional and digital revenues increased by 339% and 247% respectively.

Digital’s share of revenue was 63%, and this remains significantly higher than its pre-pandemic share (53% in Q1 2020).

After a challenging start to the year, OOH saw strong sequential recovery throughout the months of the second quarter and it is expected to continue into the second half of the year.

The figures indicate that the recovery is now well underway in the sector, triggered by the lifting of Covid-19 restrictions on July 19, when most legal measures on social contact were axed in England.

With no limits on how many people can meet or attend events; nightclubs reopening; and table service scrapped in most pubs and restaurants, suddenly the population is on the move again, and the OOH industry is back in business.

The outlook for the remainder of 2021 is positive with the Advertising Association/WARC forecasting total UK advertising spend to grow 18.2% this year and OOH predicted to grow 29.3%, albeit from a very low base.

Outsmart chair Justin Cochrane said: “OOH’s strongest growth quarter ever, based on a very challenging Q2 2020, is great to see. We’ve felt the momentum building and are looking forward to this continuing through the rest of the year.”

PwC head of entertainment and media Mark Maitland added: “As restrictions in the UK continued to ease in Q2 and more people were out and about, it’s good to see that advertising spend has started to come back to the OOH advertising sector. With each passing month, the industry is getting closer to parity with pre-pandemic performance.”

Kinetic Worldwide UK chief executive Alistair MacCallum is in equally bullish mood. He said: “These figures are testament to the transformation seen across the industry to make OOH smarter, faster, and more adaptive throughout Covid, and its unique ability to publicly and inclusively, reach and engage audiences at scale.

“With the UK returning to ‘real life’ in large numbers, there’s every reason to be hugely optimistic as both classical and digital OOH return to the sustained growth path we were seeing in the years before the pandemic.”