OUTFRONT’s Chicago inventory is 90% sold out leading into the Democratic convention with campaigns by Fox News, J.B. Pritzker and Grubhub.  Here are some of the trends OUTFRONT is noticing

• Ahead of the most recent changes to the presidential race, OUTFRONT was already seeing significantly more action on OOH from political advertisers than in previous cycles. Advertisers have become more comfortable using OOH for persuasion messaging and are leaning into the unskippable, larger than life nature of it, as well as the natural social amplification that comes from people sharing these political billboards on their own social media platforms (OUTFRONT calls it “social OOH”).

• Additionally, with the ease of activation on DOOH via programmatic and on OUTFRONT’s ad server, it is seeing newer, first time OOH advertisers, as well as those posting for just a few days surrounding events in markets. With such a fast-moving political season, driven by news headlines, digital OOH opportunities allow for quick buys and creative changes as needed.

• One trend we are seeing is copy focused on buzzwords such as ‘weird’ or ‘brat’ – taking advantage of the viral nature of political memes that are popping up this cycle. Over the past few elections, we have seen this from both the right and the left, with organizations such as Mad Dog PAC (this year) and Citizens for Sanity (2022 midterms) pushing boundaries and using satire in their creative.