Optimism is the name of the game in the great outdoors

ANYONE who has recently been in and around Dublin’s Amiens Street, Pearse Street, North Strand or Drumcondra will have noticed that several giant LED screens have been erected on the landmark bridges that dissect these main thoroughfares.

The 18m X 2m LED advertising screens form part of Irish Rail’s expansion of its digital out-ofhome (DOOH) advertising footprint.

The new screens (or “digital bridges” as they are to be termed) will be managed and marketed by outdoor advertising company Exterion Media, which manages all of CIE’s advertising inventory across Irish Rail, Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann.

In addition, Exterion owns and operates hundreds of other digital screens in shopping centres around the country including those in Dundrum Town Centre, Swords Pavilions and Mahon Point in Cork.

While the new digital bridges will be a first in Ireland, what is interesting about the installations and the substantial investment underpinning them, is that they come only months after the Irish outdoor advertising industry recorded its worst year since 2010.

But optimism prevails throughout the industry.

Ireland’s out-of-home (OOH) industry has enjoyed solid single-digit growth over recent years, largely on the back of increased availability of DOOH — which now accounts for an estimated 33pc of the overall market.

But the global pandemic that began in 2020 has temporarily put the brakes on growth. With the exception of cinema advertising — which was down by an estimated by 70pc last year — OOH was the field most disproportionately impacted by the decline in advertising investment during 2020.

Estimates by Denstu — which owns the OOH businesses PML and Posterscope — put the collapse at a hefty 45pc. This meant advertising spend on outdoor advertising went from around €86m in 2019 to just €47m in 2020.

There are several reasons for this dramatic collapse, the central one being the withdrawal of some of the biggest category advertisers in sectors like tourism, hospitality, alcoholic drinks and non-essential retail. And for obvious reasons.

In addition, with less cars on the road, people working from home, many shopping centres closed and fewer numbers taking public transport, it was in many ways the perfect storm for the OOH industry in this country.

Ireland is by no means unique. In 2019, for example, global expenditure on OOH advertising amounted to a record $39.42bn. However, in 2020 this went over a cliff — and ended up at $29.69bn for the year.

Though the forecasts for 2021 are a bit more positive (estimates put the likely spend this year at around $34.2bn), a full global recovery to 2019 levels is unlikely until 2023 at the earliest.

But like Exterion and Irish Rail, all the other players in the Irish OOH market have not been resting on their laurels. In fact there’s nothing like a good downturn to concentrate minds, trigger new product development, and spur innovation .

Already this year, two of the main players in the OOH market — Wide Eye Outdoor and Adtower — have agreed to merge their operations to create the largest DOOH player in the market, with close to 1,000 digital screens in a wide range of outlets around the country, including many SuperValu, Centra, Mace and Londis stores, as well as a number of gyms and pubs.

The enlarged group, which will continue to trade under the Wide Eye Outdoor name, also has a strong presence in forecourts owned by Maxol.

And earlier last week it announced a further expansion by rolling out an additional 162 digital screens at all fuel pumps owned by Certa Fuels, the DCC-owned unmanned forecourt operator.

Elsewhere, Clear Channel, another major OOH player, is rolling out a new offering called AdshelLive Roadside — a nationwide network of roadside digital screens. Phase one is already under way and will see the roll-out of more than 50 digital screens in Dublin, Galway, Wicklow, Portlaoise, Longford and Tipperary.

While acknowledging that 2020 was a lousy year for the industry and that the first half of 2021 will see some pick- up, the industry is now looking forward to better times.

Indeed there’s no shortage of anecdotal evidence of a pent-up demand for OOH advertising — once the lockdown restrictions are lifted, the big category advertisers return, and some degree of normality prevails in the market.

With Dentsu forecasting a 25.5pc growth in the market this year to €59m, it is still some way off on the figures for 2019. After that, however, all bets are off — and it’s a question of watch this space: most likely coming to a digital screen near you.