OOH advertising to lead market growth

CHINA’S out-of-home advertising market is expected to become the fastest-growing segment in traditional media this year with a strong spending and digitalization.

A joint report by IPG Mediabrands’s out-of-home media buying and planning agency Rapport and its investment and media intelligence arm Magna said increasing levels of urbanization and rising consumer discretionary income are driving OOH ad spending in the world’s second largest economy.

OOH media accounts for about 6.1 percent of China’s overall ad spending. China media owners’ net advertising revenue is estimated to increase 9.7 percent this year to 513 billion yuan (US$76 billion), following last year’s 12.2 percent rise.

Excluding movie cinema ads, the net income of OOH media stood at around 27.4 billion yuan last year.

Globally, other traditional media sectors are struggling to reach consumers, while OOH advertising is leveraging technology to innovate and attract new expenditure — its proportion out of total traditional media sales grew from 7 percent in 2010 to 10 percent in 2018.

Digital OOH dollars represent over 25 percent of total OOH sales, higher than the global average level of 18 percent thanks to the prevalence of digital billboards and location-based inventory in China.

The Chinese digital OOH landscape is expected to see strong growth of 11 percent annually over the next five years.