By Nick Coston
Just this week I received an email blast from the kind peeps at OAAA, titled “The 10B 2026 Election: Capturing Political Ad Dollars with OOH”. In fact, they are running a webinar on the subject matter on December 9th discussing just this. It’s a terrific idea to start pushing OOH for political in 2026. I know, I’ve been after political dollars since the 2008 national election when I sold one spot on a digital board for the McCann for President Campaign. That’s right, one as in #1 spot. Of course, there were a few advocacy ads but overall, ever since I got into OOH, whether selling or buying it in 2001, it’s been a huge dud revenue wise.
Every two years we go through this.
In 2016 I worked on the buying end for a seven-figure OOH media buy on behalf of the Democratic Party, specifically the “Hillary for President” campaign. At the last minute, they pulled the buy and decided to stick with more TV and online advertising. You know how that election ended up, the fella with all those OOH yard signs won. Bigly.
As we barrel into these 2026 mid-terms, us good guys need to find a way to end this every two-year disappoint. Not on who wins the elections but how many dollars come our way. We’ve been shut out for too long.
So, I have some thoughts on how to jump start 2026 political buys that I’ll gladly share here, at no charge. Who knows, maybe I’ll get invited onto the December 9th Political Ad Dollars webinar.
Probably not.
Anyway, with the experience of being both an OOH buyer and seller, my professional tip is this: make buying political OOH more user friendly. Way more. Right now, we make it with far too many conditions. Example: drive down a busy state highway anywhere in Florida and what do you see? Lots of Personal Injury Law Firms, right? Why is that? Because OOH works for them. It’s efficient, you can negotiate great rates based on avails, use numerous copy changes on digital, and brand their name, coinciding with TV ads.
However, how would PI Attorneys do if we charged them all full rate, or used a similar full rate style “Political Rate Cards”, made them pay in advance and had them go through a dedicated “personal injury attorney rep”, not their own local rep?
I tell you what would happen, the PI Attorney business would scale back, enough to affect your local budgets. Right now, we have a user-friendly system for this category and it’s thriving.
Why not run political like that? Treat the category the same way as everyone else buying space. Go for the bigger grosses, stop making it like they’re buying a house with a mortgage.
It’s a billboard and it’s no good unless it’s filled.
Insider’s Note: Nick Coston has been writing opinion pieces for the OOH industry for 10 years now. His weekly pieces also appear on Substack where you can view the last 2 years worth. Full-time, Nick is the VP, Sales and Sales Strategies for Moving Walls, the Singapore based media and ad tech giant, here in The America’s.
If you are interested, here is Nick’s Substack LINK
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Great article Nick