OOH ad spend just hit $9bn. Behind the boom is a media channel transforming faster than many realize.
Billboards and digital OOH garner big names
Out-of-home advertising, long associated with roadside billboards and subway posters, is undergoing a quiet evolution. In 2024, the channel surpassed $9bn in spend, outpacing traditional media like radio, newspapers, and television in growth. But the change isn’t just about volume – it’s about strategy, format, and intent.
The latest data from the Out of Home Advertising Association of America (OAAA) reveals that OOH grew by 4.5% overall, while digital out-of-home (DOOH) saw 7.5% growth, accounting for 34% of total spend. Nearly a quarter of that DOOH inventory was purchased programmatically.
Leading the charge are household names: Apple spent $68.3m on OOH in 2024, followed by McDonald’s, Amazon, Coca-Cola, and Verizon. But the more telling trend lies in who’s climbing the rank, and how they’re using the channel.
OOH has traditionally been valued for reach and repetition. Today, brands are increasingly leveraging it for targeting, trust-building, and even performance marketing. Digital-native brands like Stripe, Roku, Instacart and Cash App all saw dramatic increases in OOH investment this year, with Stripe’s growth figure listed at an eye-catching 823,951,800% – a signal of aggressive new entry rather than just budget escalation.
At the same time, OOH is pulling in unlikely categories: legal services was the fastest-growing sector in 2024, up 16%. Chain food stores, hospitals, colleges, and even religious and humanitarian organizations made the Top 25, reflecting how diverse advertisers are using OOH to build credibility in public spaces.
As OAAA president and CEO Anna Bager noted, this is more than a spending spike – it’s a shift in how brands approach the medium. She said the latest findings “paint a clear picture that OOH isn’t just growing, it’s evolving – and the brands leading the charge are doing so with intention, creativity and measurable impact.”
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2024 also marked a record year for political OOH spend, with campaigns across the House, Senate and presidential races leaning into the channel in ways not seen before. In a fragmented media environment, and with digital targeting under pressure, OOH has become a tool not just for exposure, but for urgency and presence.
That shift coincides with the broader adoption of programmatic DOOH, which allows for dynamic targeting based on location, time of day, and contextual signals. For political campaigns, that means delivering hyper-local messages at scale without the data privacy concerns of digital platforms.
The formats themselves are also evolving. While static billboards still play a role, much of the category’s growth is driven by place-based media – think digital displays in gyms, elevators, airports, taxis, and office buildings. These screens offer context-aware messaging and, in many cases, real-time content swapping driven by programmatic buying.
OOH’s flexibility is increasingly attractive to brands seeking alternatives to digital fatigue. Unlike online ads, OOH can’t be skipped, blocked, or scrolled past. And in a post-cookie landscape, it offers reliable reach without the same data concerns.
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As digital media becomes more expensive and less predictable, some marketers are reevaluating the fundamentals. OOH may not have the immediacy of click-through rates, but it offers something else: visibility in the real world, something that’s becoming harder to buy at scale.
With over 60% of top OOH advertisers increasing their investment year-over-year, it’s clear that many brands are rebalancing their media mix. For some, that means treating OOH as a channel that’s not just supplementary, but central.
Whether that’s a temporary pivot or the beginning of a longer-term shift is still playing out. But in the meantime, the message from the market is clear: out-of-home is no longer out of mind.
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