All about OOH
In recent years I’ve become quite fascinated with outdoor media. Having spent a few years engrossed in the business models of digital platforms — leading to my first book out in early 2020, Platform Urbanism — and a career immersed in various kinds of digital content innovation, I’d never paid much attention to outdoor media.
But then, sometime in 2018, I started to take notice. Where many advertising-funded industries were suffering in Australia as a consequence of digital disruption, the outdoor sector was thriving. Google and Facebook hadn’t yet decimated the local viability of this sector.
Instead, digital innovation was allowing out of home (OOH) media to morph from a relatively static and ‘boring’ medium, to one that positioned itself seriously as a media platform — at least, something far more engaging and interactive than your traditional billboard. OOH was rapidly becoming Digital OOH, or DOOH.
Up until the global pandemic of 2020, revenues were growing steadily. In 2019 OOH revenue was getting close to $1bn, remarkable given only five years ago it was basically half that.
Source: OMA https://www.oma.org.au/Industry-Performance
I noticed the way outdoor media undertook extensive research into the way consumers engaged with campaigns, and designed tools and systems to drive engagement further. “An image is sometimes all you need when it comes to creating awareness, generating desire and driving action” states the Outdoor Media Association, in its ‘Anatomy of Out of Home’ research.
I discovered a sector busy thinking about human cognition, measuring the impact of brand campaigns via ‘MOVE’ metrics (Measurement of Outdoor Visibility and Exposure), embracing technology like programmatic advertising, camera tracking and the internet of things (IoT).
Digital billboards promoting the release of the film Transformers: The Last Knight used optic recognition technology to identify the model of passing vehicles. Source: Gordon Feller (2018) Understanding Smart Cities and the Potential Role of OOH Advertising, Outdoor Advertising Association of America (pdf).
Outdoor media was, I realised, a rapidly-innovating media sector, with massive reach across our cities. The sector worked actively to attract our attention, using more and more sophisticated technologies of high definition screens, tracking, personalisation and interactivity.
The sector did all this as a seemingly inextricable part of the everyday streetscape of the city. As Capitol Outdoor writes on its website: “Outdoor advertising… incorporates your targeted branding message into the everyday landscape of commuters and becomes part of the very fabric of the living and working environment where it is placed” (Source: The Guardian, 2015). Perhaps it’s no wonder revenues were doubling, while sectors like television and the internet were suffering from the ravages of the digital giants.
Against outdoors
Despite the sector’s confidence in its capacity to ‘drive action’ and attract eyeballs, there still remains a lot of pent up frustration about the ubiquity and presence of advertising across our cities. Many cities and citizens are pushing back against the monopoly position held by outdoor media companies in our public spaces.
In Sydney, public hostility towards the encroaching dominance of brands over much loved city streetscapes and buildings boiled over in 2018, when prominent Sydney broadcaster Alan Jones attacked the CEO of the Sydney Opera House, Louise Herron, after she refused Racing NSW’s request to promote the Everest logo on the Opera House. Big protests ensued. Alan Jones apologised. But a genie was out of the bottle, it seemed, at least for a moment.
To Kurt Iveson, Associate Professor at the University of Sydney, writing at the time: “It’s imperative that we figure out how to recapture our public realm for the public good before it’s too late.”
Councillor Jess Scully outside the Sydney Opera House in 2018. Source: Sydney Morning Herald.
Cities fight back
As a Guardian 2015 feature claimed: “Left unchecked, the proliferation of outdoor advertising can consume a city.” Beyond protest, cities have been proactive in fighting the outdoor media sector from turning their streetscapes into brandscapes. Sao Paulo banned outdoor billboards, replacing many with street art. In Paris, street artists replaced outdoor billboards with classic French paintings.
São Paulo removed 15,000 billboards, many of which were replaced by street art. Photograph: Adam Hester/Corbis. Source: The Guardian.
Street artist Etienne Lavie covered advertising billboards with classic French paintings in Paris. Photograph: Etienne Laviece. Source: The Guardian, 2015. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/aug/11/can-cities-kick-ads-ban-urban-billboards
And yet, being the world we live in, it seems pretty clear that outdoor media will continue to evolve and expand, targeting our eyeballs in more sophisticated ways. Google’s Intersection is coming, harvesting massive data trails to customise advertising based on location and customer segmentation.
As digital innovation transforms the sector, it’s worth pausing to consider what alternative models could exist for a more city-centric (not brand centric) version of outdoor media. Like Alexander Calder reflected, sometimes you have to imagine the world, before you can see it.
Imagining a different future?
I’ve spent most of my career working at the intersection of media innovation and urban strategy. A media futurist, of sorts -— with one eye on emerging landscapes on smart cities, digital disruption and the internet of things, and the other keeping an eye on our past, and what lessons we need to remember from previous cycles of innovation, when we cultivate possible futures.
Reflecting on the explosive growth of outdoor media in recent years reminded me of the history of Australia’s broadcasting policy settings, and how a look back in time might in fact help us think through possible policy responses to future outdoor media.
Ultimately, the question is: How can city governments respond proactively, in ways that both recognise the inherent commerciality of cities as market places, but also make space for a diversity of voices?
This is not an unfamiliar challenge for governments, whether addressing housing affordability or education, or public broadcasting.
It is, in fact, a challenge tackled by the designers of Australia’s broadcast legislation in the 1950s. The model Australia adopted for the television landscape was one that balanced commercial and public sector providers, but also included a set of ‘public interest obligations’ attached to a television licence. This required a portion of the money made by commercial television stations be invested in local content, via minimum local content standards or quotas. It’s this system that proved instrumental to the health of the television production sector in Australia (I say this as a former media policy researcher for the Australian Media and Communications Authority, who commissioned detailed research on this topic).
The balanced approach to television broadcasting policy in Australia didn’t come without quite a battle on the part of media legislators. Indeed, when television was first demonstrated in Australia, by Royal Dutch Shell, the company wanted to brand it ‘Shellevision’.
Looking back on this little bit of media history, I can’t help but think Australian cities are dealing with their own kind of ‘Shellevision’, in the form of the outdoor media industry.
From outdoor media to public space media
With these considerations in mind, I’ve been working through a set of provocations for outdoor media:
Instead of ‘outdoor media’, can we think in terms of ‘public space media’? Just as Australia’s media landscape has evolved in response to a mix of public and private interests, the digital evolution of outdoor media requires surely requires attention to a mix of both commercial and public interest goals. Could ‘public space media’ be designed in ways that cultivate community creativity and resilience?
Outdoor media asset owners continue to see consolidation, with a lack of industry diversity (oOH! and JC Decaux dominating the marketplace). These players target profits above other forms of purpose and value. How can the public space impacts of outdoor messaging be elevated, in ways that open up the potential for a diversity of different media formats and even funding streams?
Here comes STORYBOX
After a series of conversations, pitches, meetings, many coffees and many long hours of slog, the STORYBOX project was borne.
Part advocacy project, and part publishing platform, STORYBOX is creating a different kind of outdoor media — a media platform shaped by public interest goals.
Ultimately, this is a project driven by the idea that media in public spaces should contribute to making places great, for everyone.
Defining public space media
Here’s my working definition of public space media:
Public space media is, quite simply, media designed to be experienced in shared, public spaces. Digital innovation has seen outdoor billboards morph into digital screens, offering the potential for more context-aware content. Instead of just advertising, we think outdoor screens could showcase more relevant and engaging content that supports the quality and experience of a place and its creative communities. That's what we call public space media.
Public space media is likely to be experienced by audiences in a transitory way. It is designed to enhance the overall amenity and shared experience of a place. It is not television. It exists exists somewhere between architecture and media. It should enhance, not diminish, what is unique about shared spaces and diverse communities.
Public space media supports the value of public spaces as shared spaces for local culture and creativity.
The project has been supported along the way by a number of supremely talented and supportive colleagues. An ESEM Projects collaboration, STORYBOX is also supported by our advisers Piers Grove (of the Betoota Advocate), Bill Dunbar (SGS Economics and Planning) and Michelle Tabet (Left Bank Co), as well as a bunch of creative minds along the way.
Throughout 2020 we’ve also developed partnerships with a number of organisations, including the City of Parramatta, the ABC, Story Factory, Curious Works and Western Sydney University. Being a ‘partner’ can mean supporting us to access distribution opportunities in shared spaces. Or, it can simply mean supporting the work we’re doing to advocate a role for public space media.
STORYBOX and the ABC Content Ideas Lab
While Managing Director of the ABC, Mark Scott delivered a key speech in which he spoke about the ABC’s role as the ‘town square’ of the digital age. I spent a number of years developing digital innovation projects for the ABC, from creating the first ‘location-based’ mobile platform, Sydney Sidetracks, to co-ordinating and drafting the first ‘organisation wide digital strategy’ under Mark Scott.
With this background in mind, it seemed clear to me that there’s still work to do in defining a role for the ABC in a hyper connected media landscape. Yes, the ABC should be on YouTube and Facebook, and should adopt the conventions of streaming platforms, in ways that respond to audience habits. But is there a role for the ABC in shaping this emergent public space media? I think so.
Over 2020 the STORYBOX initiative has developed in partnership with the ABC Content Ideas Lab, who share with us excitement about the potential to connect with audiences through hyper local storytelling and engagement opportunities.
Like any other organisation we work with, the ABC partnership supports bespoke media specifically for public spaces. In other words, we don’t intend to run ABC TV ads. Instead, we are working with the ABC to explore how to produce and deliver content in ways that integrate digital and physical spaces in innovative ways — allowing for new ways to connect with audiences in hyper local settings.
Launching STORYBOX PARRAMATTA
An artist impression of the STORYBOX in Parramatta Square, featuring curated ABC Archives content.
So far, our launch of STORYBOX has taken place in a year of pandemic uncertainty — in other words, online. While we wait to launch outdoors, we’ve been connecting with communities via our online platform over at STORYBOX.CO.
Our ABC partnership has enabled us to launch hyperlocal archive collections that tell the historical story of the ABC’s role in connecting with Australian communities. One favourite item is this video below, of recently arrived Lebanese migrants dancing in the ‘Cedars of Lebanon Hall’ in what is now Harris Park.
Release of the video sent a ripple through the contemporary Kfarsgharb community, who quickly found key personalities from the video still alive today.
The coming weeks will see our launch project installed in Parramatta Square for three months. A two-metre squared digital cube (yep, a STORYBOX), will feature content curated and produced by ESEM Projects, the ABC, Western Sydney University, Curious Works, Story Factory, local artists and writers — and lots of community voices too.
But it will also be an opportunity to continue a bigger conversation about the potentials of outdoor media, to think beyond just serving the interests of advertisers, but to also think about how the sector might support the needs of communities during a very difficult year for may.
With these goals in mind, we can’t wait to get outdoors.
