by Nick Coston
I wanted my final piece for Billboard Insider in 2025 to be a gas, something hilariously funny. You know, like a pie in the face funny. Something that ends the year on a high note with media owners laughing and whopping it up at New Year’s and charging into 2026 with some big honking business booked.
Whoopy cushion funny.
Queue the static face emoji, I because I just can’t find that big whoop. My conversations with fellow DOOH salespeople across the varied products in the industry these last 60 days have been rather meh. Many have lost their gigs due to consolidations, slow sales or simply closing. Not feeling their energy, not feeling the eagerness to attract new ad categories or new advertisers. We keep seeing the same top spenders, Apple, McDonalds, Coke, Disney, Amazon, Verizon and now Morgan and Morgan.
Outstanding clients on their own, huge spenders, good copy, buying up lots of key OOH nationwide. We should be thankful for them. But…
What’s behind the top ten advertisers? More fast-food joints, more cell phone companies, more personal injury lawyers? Sprinkle in some financial institutions, health clinics/hospitals and school, that about rounds it out.
One question is what are we doing to attract new biz? It doesn’t help when most of the OOH in big markets are the same categories year to year. Audiences become numb from seeing the same advertisers on our OOH/DOOH. Look at cable television, every other spot these days is that guy hyping nerve supplements, an emu, gecko and Flo selling insurance, and the overweight Jardiance commercial actors singing and dancing while hyping an injectable.
It’s become tedious.
What OOH is fresh on a consistent basis? Transit. Bus sides, bus tails, taxi tops, car cards, platform displays, bus shelters, airport ads and subway products. Mobile trucks, static and digital have seen an upswing in coverage, most with newer, timely ad copy. Transit ads never get old, most of the time they are more entertaining and better than looking at your phone. Less nauseating too. There are always new, local clients using transit, they always have. When I sold for one of the big OOH companies you know where we got our leads?
Transit.
This leads me to my second question. How do all the newer place-based digital networks populating retailers, going to survive? Are we approaching a time when there are too many screens and not enough advertisers? Can programmatic continue to save them? Most of networks don’t have local salespeople who can fill in over 50% of the space as they do with transit. Can these expanding networks keep their space filled using current business models?
Right now, as networks grow there’s less revenue per screen. One doesn’t keep up with the other. Remedies like self-serve buying platforms that can directly feed hyper-local, direct business, screen by screen, block by block, is one cost-efficient option that fills space with fresh clients, mostly paying in advance when the copy posts, bypassing the payment delays that exist now.
Think Google or Facebook online ads.
Think money.
We have options. If you want smiley emoji faces come 2026 then think about expanding your boundaries.
A pie in the face never hurt anyone either.
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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