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Ocean Outdoor chairman Tim Bleakley has called on the world’s OOH businesses to recalibrate by focusing on the unique creativity of the channel to drive growth over the next two years.

In a world that’s been hoodwinked by one to one activation which has sent marketing effectiveness on a downwards slide, Tim said it was high time the industry rallied behind the fame building, one to many, creative storytelling qualities of OOH.

Speaking at the World Out of Home Organization’s annual congress in Mexico on 6th June, Tim said 60 years on from theorist Marshall McLuhan’s thinking, the medium finally has become the message.

As evidence, Tim canvassed the views of marketing leaders from 20 top global brands across a broad spectrum of categories including telcos, FMCG, finance, travel and luxury, to discover what advertisers really want.

• 75% said attention was the biggest challenge in marketing over the coming 24 months – a view which plays to OOH
• 67% said reach was the most important when allocating marketing investment – reach being OOH’s primary strength
• 36% said AI was their biggest marketing challenge
• But the survey identified creativity as the common denominator most respondents said they were struggling with

“Our customers’ challenges are our primary strengths, “ said Tim. “Premium formats get higher attention and better memorability. Now’s the time to talk about what we are good at, and the raw power of OOH to build brand equity and reach at scale.”

Tim said the investment by Meta, Google and OpenAI in a website-free internet future, whereby agents, not people, browse the web and deliver results back, undermines online display, eroding trust in digital performance, but creating a clear pathway for OOH.

“Could OOH become the last true broadcast medium where you can display genuinely great creative? To grow our medium and play to our strengths, we must nurture creativity and not risk undermining effectiveness and, in turn, investment. And that means not sacrificing creativity on the altar of AI,” he said. 

“It’s our collective responsibility to uphold creative principles, and that requires an investment in human intelligence whatever tools people use.”

In a no contest experiment, Tim challenged ChatGPT to create a billboard for The Economist, juxtaposing the lacklustre results with a seminal 1988 brand defining poster produced by Abbott Mead Vickers.

“As of now, AI couldn’t replicate that ad, “ said Tim. ”It can help speed up process and production, but five years from now, who knows? That’s why we need brilliant human conductors to evolve and harness AI’s power.”

Doubling down on his OAAA rallying call to Make Outdoor Creative Again (#MOCA), Tim invited everyone to take a leaf from Mission Impossible star Tom Cruise’s book, using the medium – in Cruise’s case the rooftop of London’s mighty BFI IMAX banner -  as the message, concluding: “It’s on all of us to behave like the channel.”