And just like that, 2024 is over! As we move into 2025, I realize that we can now look back to a quarter of a century of OOH Media in the Philippines as we know it today.
Back in the year 2000, as people were wary of what would happen with the Millenium Bug scare (millenials can't relate), OOH was non existent. No, I'm not saying that there were no billboards or posters - it's just that OOH was not a thing then. We were still in the age of Outdoor Advertising as we knew it then. The industry association was still named OAAP, or the Outdoor Advertising Association of the Philippines, and...OOH placements were hardly touched by agencies! Ninety percent of the outdoor advertising bookings were direct buys from advertiser to client.In June of 2001, when I got my offer to work with McCann-Erickson to handle OOH, the job title on the offer sheet was OOG Media Strategist. It was an obvious typographical error which came unnoticed due to the unfamiliarity with the term. In hindsight, that typo error was quite prophetic as OG is a common term today and could easily denote that yours truly could be the OG OOH Media Strategist from agency side.
This drives me to once again review our paces in the OOH media industry to revisit the years between 2000 to 2024 and chronicle them in this blog.
Fast forward to today, 2025, this year promises a lot for Out-Of-Home media as we know it. We're at this point where we are no longer pitting OOH versus digital, as some detractors of OOH have done in the early years of digital. OOH is now Digital, and Digital is also OOH!
As a quick run through, here are two things which excite me for 2025 in the OOH realm:
1) Digital OOH vendors are waking up to the fact that they need to change their CMS (Content Management Systems) in order for them to be fully wired and ready for programmatic DOOH. The Chinese CMSs which come with the box of the LED screens can no longer be used for the demands of digital and programmatic buying.
2) Audience Measurement - finally, there is a credible form of audience measurement in OOH. The technology is already available and ready to deploy. The usual question of course is, "Who will pay for it?". And with that, the fingers seem to be pointing to the direction of the OOH vendors as what happens in the first world nations and more developed markets.
Barring any aberrations like geopolitical tension and natural calamity disruption, we're off to a great 2025!
The writer, Lloyd Tronco, is an Out-Of-Home Media Strategist. He is a constant subject matter expert on Out-Of-Home Media and Digital Signage. He is also the industry journalist for OOH in the Philippines.
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