By Nick Coston

I’m going to start this little ramble off by immediately stating what the point of this piece is, so here it is:

There’s no reason in the wide-wide world why you cannot plan and buy any OOH media in 2026. In fact, you don’t even have to plan it, you can buy it without even talking to anyone.

“Buy it today, wear it tonight” was a tagline from a classic TV commercial in the 1970s for Chicago based department store, National Clothing Fashions. It could also be used as a tagline for today’s OOH media buying. There’s never been easier time to buy outdoor media than right now. Basically, all you need is a computer, some ad copy and a credit card to pay in advance.

That’s it.

So why is that there’s still an overabundance of available OOH space, especially when it comes to digital units? If we’ve made it so easy why aren’t we breaking records every month in ad sales across all OOH products? Do we charge too much, are the digital flips too short, should they maybe be at least 30 seconds each, are some screens too small, or is that poster unit sitting by the railroad tracks covered by trees? Let’s face it, we just had a major countrywide state and local elections where every single OOH unit from highway bulletins to screens in the back of a bodega should’ve least been filled a month in advance prior to this past Tuesday.

The space was there but where were the ads?

With approximately $11.21B, that’s B as in BILLIONS, spent targeting these all important, midterm elections this past year, how much do you think candidates spent with us in OOH? I don’t have that answer but I can guarantee you it was a very small percentage compared with what television and online received. With much of the airtime on television being sold out for a while, why aren’t we the obvious alternative? Generally, we guarantee space, we guarantee X amount of impressions and usually we give you some bonus time.

So, what’s the hangup? What prohibits a candidates agency buying out every digital place-based screen in a whole city for a week, it still can’t be as expensive as all those jacked up TV prices are. Plus, with OOH you get the luxury of passing on your copy to social media absolutely free.

I’ll give this plan a name, let’s call this” city-domination”. We do it at train stations, we do it at Subway stops why not do the whole darn city, or state for that matter. It’s affordable, you can’t change the channel and we guarantee the eyeballs.

You can even do it right on your smartphone. With programmatic DOOH and OOH ad buying platforms such as AdQuick, any candidate can get their mug plastered all over a city or state. You can target by ZIP Codes, counties, demographics, even areas near polling places. You get to choose it’s up to you!

My point is it’s far easier than buying any form of television with less production with a greater chance of extra or bonus impressions.

I think for the next election cycle our industry needs to adopt a catch phrase well in advance of election day. Here, I’ll even write it for you:

“WE HAVE THE SPACE!”. Think Arby’s, but substitute outdoor for the beef. How easy was that?

Let’s face it, we’ve made it so easy to buy OOH these days that during these peak times like mid-term elections we should be filled-up and sold-out. We have more displays than ever, we’ve got them on land, we’ve got them on sea, we’ve got them in the air, we have them in the elevators, we have them when you sit down in a toilet stall, we have them in the airports, we have them when you fill up your car with gas or even charge it at a charging station. “Have I got space for you”,  we should be shouting.

So, tell me, what’s your excuse for not taking advantage of how easy and affordable it is today to buy OOH media?

I’ll wait.

Insider’s Note: Nick Coston was recently welcomed as SVP Business Development and Partnerships at National Experiential. Nick has more than 25 years of OOH experience, both selling and buying media and he’s been writing about the industry since 2015. For the last year plus he has been contributing opinion pieces to Billboard Insider.

If you are interested, here is Nick’s Substack LINK

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