Solomon Partners Christian Bermel (left) and Mark Boidman (right) interviewed OAAA CEO Anna Bager at the Cannes Lions Festival.  Some highlights from the conversation.

Bager says AI can help out of home

I think we should quickly talk about AI, on top of AI vendors being by far among the largest advertisers in out of home. So they like our medium too. Look, we’re all going to use AI. AI is going to make the world more efficient, and in many cases better, and products will be developed faster. But for the advertising world and the media world at large, AI is a bit of a problem. With consumers able to access information from so many different places, it’s sometimes really hard to find audiences. Out of home doesn’t have that problem. Our audiences aren’t going away. If you’re going to work, you’re going to work. If you’re going to shop, you’re going to shop. They’re going to be in these places. We know where they are, we know why they’re there, and we have the context. So as an industry, we don’t face the threat that a lot of other media companies feel they do right now. We can use AI to our advantage; it’s not really a problem for us. And to your point, real estate is always going to be important and valuable, and we own that real estate. So I see AI as a huge opportunity. Advertisers increasingly see that audiences they have a hard time reaching, or audiences they want to extend their connection with, can be reached through out of home. It’s a safe, fraud-free medium that you can’t skip and you can’t block, and more than anything else, consumers appreciate that.

Bager on why out of home is growing so fast

We have the highest growth since 2019, and I think actually higher than 2019, which was a record-breaking year for the industry. In Q1 we grew by 8%. It’s a great year for us. A few things are behind that growth. Obviously, advertisers trust the medium. Increasingly, you can measure it, you can use data, and you can buy it programmatically; we’ve taken great technological strides. And this year has a lot of physical experiences that bring people together, like sports, and we have an election coming up. These are all moments where connecting with consumers physically, in real life, matters.

You can watch the entire 11 minute video here.

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