Recent figures released by OMA/Nielsen, which for the first time includes ‘targeted media’ spend, have once again shown a positive increase in the first half of 2015 with spend increasing by 4% when compared to the same period last year.
Overall expenditure for Out of Home (OOH) was €50.4 million across large format billboards, 6 sheets, transport, targeted media and digital OOH formats. This has resulted in large format billboards seeing a 5% increase in spend from H1 2014, now accounting for 31% of all OOH spend at €15.7 million.
The launch of new digital OOH formats and new networks has attracted new advertisers. Digital now accounts for approximately 10% of OOH spend as advertisers start to take advantage of its flexibility.
Drink, encompassing alcoholic beverages, soft drinks and also hot drinks, is now the largest category in OOH accounting for €8.6m and 17% of total spend. Diageo was the top advertiser with spend of €2.8m. Heineken and Coca Cola were the 7th and 11th overall biggest advertisers, spending €1.2m and €970k respectively. The most recalled campaign unprompted from January to June 2015 was Coca Cola’s ‘Kiss’ campaign at 73%, according to Kinetic’s post campaign researcher service, Researcher. Heineken launched its first cider product, Orchard Thieves, in April/May of this year with an innovative tease & reveal campaign.
In second place stands Household Services accounting for a total spend of €8.4m. Broadband providers continue to battle it out with both Sky and UPC investing heavily in OOH across the first half of 2015. Sky pipped UPC to the post as the 3rd biggest advertiser with spend of €1.8m versus UPC’s €1.7m.
Food was the third top spending category, accounting for €6.4m of the total OOH activity for H1 2015. Mondelez and Unilever were the top advertisers within the category.
Finance, was the fourth biggest category at €6.3m. Spend was driven by sub-category insurance with a number of providers advertising their health services in advance of the levy being applied to over 34’s taking insurance out for the first time. Vhi Healthcare was the 6th largest advertiser with spend of €1.3m.
Retail accounted for €6m of the total spend, driven particularly by activity in the Fast Food and Supermarket subcategories.
Simon Durham, Director of Kinetic said: “2015 has started on a positive note with continuous growth in the OOH market. We continue to see an improvement in the quality of formats as well as an increased use of innovation within the sector. The media owners have invested heavily, particularly in digital OOH and as a result we are seeing increased expenditure. Advertisers are now taking advantage of the flexibility that Digital OOH offers. However, 6 sheets still remain very popular specifically on the Path to Purchase.”
Speaking about the future of OOH, Durham continued: “Kinetic estimates overall growth of approximately 5-7% for the full year, helped by the additional lightbox locations anticipated in Q4 2015. We expect further Digital OOH growth helped by the launch of new AerPods at Dublin Airport, JCDecaux expanding their iVision digital formats to Jervis and Whitewater and Exterion bringing dPods to Tallaght Shopping Centre.”
