Presence, personality and performance in out of home advertising
“I still get excited about being on a billboard,” said Charlie Day, “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” star and founder of Four Walls Whiskey.
Day joined co-founder Malte Barnekow and Out of Home Advertising Association of America CEO and President Anna Bager on stage at the 2025 OOH Media Conference, presenting one of many discussions focused on the event’s theme, “The Power of Presence.”
Exhibitors, presenters and attendees gathered in the Omni Seaport Hotel during a typically rainy May week in Boston to discuss the latest trends in out of home advertising and how companies can adapt without sacrificing the images that built their brands. With 1,100 guests and 24 exhibition booths, it was a lively gathering.
Cracker Barrel Chief Marketing Officer Sarah Moore and Talon Global CEO Sue Frogley talked about how the chain is maintaining the emotional connection that made it an “iconic” example of OOH advertising. Moore said that the first year of the company’s planned three-year transformation is focused on testing and development to find out what works for a chain where “OOH is baked in.”
Back at the Four Walls presentation, Bager and Barnekow agreed with Day about the role of billboards even in today’s digital world. Barnekow described a spirits campaign that involved getting two billboards up within 24 hours of the beverages’ launch, as well as organizing tailgating parties and spots on local radio. “Look up from your device,” he said, and billboards are right there.
Bager agreed, noting that they’re “really the only modern way to create a landmark.”
Technology and the future
Some vendors in the exhibition hall offered non-landmark options, though, with digital billboard trucks that can keep different advertisements circulating throughout a region – a far cry from the standard employee with a sandwich board, if a more energy-intensive form of advertising. Static billboards have sustainable options with technology like KA Dynamiccolor’s DigiTile, revealing the industry’s growing awareness of environmental concerns.
Sophisticated use of data made an appearance as well, with vendors touting geolocation services, audience targeting and augmented reality previews that show how billboards and other ads would look in their intended locations.
LUMA Partners CEO and founder Terence Kawaja took a look at technological developments in his speech, “Navigating the New Media Landscape.” Kawaja mentioned that OOH, particularly programmatic OOH, constitutes a major part of omnichannel marketing and noted that it’s much safer than other forms of media where ad fraud is concerned.
Naturally, AI came up a lot in general. Kawaja addressed that as well, contrasting it with NFTs and similar trends by saying that it has staying power and that “not all trends are created equal.” He also discussed the different ways in which AI can affect industry, especially OOH marketing, by using a pyramid model. The bottom two layers use AI for optimization, first by automating tasks and then by creation and communication. On the third layer, AI leads to new interfaces for web browsing and searching, and the peak involves “unknown unknowns,” which Kawaja explained as “new tasks or goals we haven’t thought of yet.”
“Unknown unknowns” speaks to the vast potential for the OOH advertising market. The highlights I covered here were just a sample of all the conference had to offer, from workshops for independent companies to track sessions on measurement and growth strategies and more. As in mental health and – so I hear – in parenting, presence seems like a crucial factor in the advertising world, and OOH marketing is a great way to establish it.