Rethinking Local OOH: Not Just Seen — Acted On

How digital out of home is turning visibility into measurable action and why marketers are paying closer attention.

Out of home (OOH) advertising has long been known for visibility. Increasingly, however, it is proving to drive real consumer action.

In this episode of the Leading Local Insights Podcast, Dave Rivera, VP of Channel Partnerships at Vistar Media, joins BIA’s Celine Matthiessen to discuss the rapid evolution of digital out of home (DOOH) and why more advertisers are prioritizing it in their media mix.

BIA’s latest U.S. Local Advertising Forecast shows OOH spending growing more than 3% annually, with 5% growth expected between 2025 and 2026, and DOOH representing about 42% of total OOH spending.

Rivera explains that OOH often acts as a conversation starter for brands, prompting consumers to search and engage after encountering a message in the real world. In many campaigns, DOOH exposure drives measurable results, including search lifts of up to 80%, while strengthening engagement across social, display, and CTV. Because it reaches people naturally as they go about their day—rather than interrupting them online—OOH today is not just seen, it’s acted on.

Transcript

Celine Matthiessen 0:34

Hello and welcome to BIA Advisory Services Leading Local Insights Podcast. My name is Celine Matthiessen and I'm the VP of Insights and Analysis here at BIA. Today we're diving into the world of digital out-of-home advertising. Out-of-home advertising, or D O O H is digital out-of-home advertising as part of it, is a space that's been evolving fast and growing in advertiser spending. We're thrilled to have Dave Rivera, VP of Channel Partnerships at Vistar Media, here with us. If you're advertising, you already know Vistar's name. They've built a powerhouse tech backbone for how companies buy, sell, and manage campaigns on digital screens pretty much everywhere, as Auto Home and Digital Auto Home is everywhere, right? Welcome, Dave.

Dave Rivera 1:18

Hello there, Celine. Thanks for having me on the pod.

T-Mobile Acquires Vistar Media

Celine Matthiessen 1:21

Well, thanks for coming. You know, but you know, besides you being here and being a rock star in Digital Auto Home, what's the real headline? T Mobile is acquiring Vistar Media. So let's start with that big news. What does this mean for the future of AutoHome and Vistar Media?

Dave Rivera 1:39

Yeah, absolutely. This is huge news. T-Mobile, it's the best network in America. They have great data, insights, they have a great customer experience. They also, which a lot of people don't know, they operate a physical network of screens in their store. So they know out of home. So it's a really good marriage there. Um the other thing is what they're one of the biggest marketers out there, right? T-Mobile does a ton of brand marketing, so they're leveraging that expertise, that scale, um, making best in class products for themselves, and then bringing those to other marketers. And I think that's really powerful. We're looking a lot, we're looking to add a lot of value to the advertising industry with that.

Celine Matthiessen 2:25

Well, yeah, what they have a name for their in-store network, right? Um that they that T-Mobile has. Um is it like pink or red or something? Wasn't it?

Dave Rivera 2:35

The magenta network?

Celine Matthiessen 2:36

Magenta network, yeah.

Dave Rivera 2:39

Yeah, every everything, as I'm learning, everything is magenta around here.

Celine Matthiessen 2:44

Magenta. Yeah, well, that's kind of it's a good color, right? Anyways, um, so how will this integration capability play into your new partnership with T-Mobile? And what should partners expect going forward? What exciting news do you have for them?

Dave Rivera 2:57

Yeah, I, you know, I think a lot of our partners and our customers, they expect things to work, right? And that's what they should continue to expect. Excellent customer service and products that are built to last. And that's not gonna stop. That this is just more power and more engineering resources towards that vision and that goal that we've had for a while.

Celine Matthiessen 3:23

Great. You know, let's talk a little bit about 2026. We just released our new update of our BI forecast and out of home advertising, it's growing at more than 3% a year. And even the growth is expected to jump 5% between 25 and 26. And for digital out-of-home, which now makes up 42%, I couldn't believe this, of all out-of-home spending, it grew another 3% last year alone. Um, so why are brands putting more money into out-of-home and digital out-of-home? And what can marketers do about it? What can they do to benefit from it?

More Screens And Programmatic DOOH

Dave Rivera 3:57

Yes, Aline, these numbers are great, but in my view, out-of-home and digital out-of-home still aren't getting their fair share. So in 2026, I guess it's I think it's estimated now that $400 billion is going to be spent on advertising. Digital out-of-home is about $4 billion. It's about 1%, right? This is the oldest format of media. This is where there's a huge opportunity, is a, you know, and I saw the stat where they estimated up to 30% of the programmatic marketplace is fraudulent, right? So you have a hundred billion dollars going to programmatic advertising on the internet, and they estimate up to $30 billion of that is going to bad actors. So, in my view, going to marketers is maybe there's a reallocation, right? Maybe there's a reset that we need to do, and maybe that $30 billion that's going to maybe nefarious websites or robots clicking, maybe that should be reallocated to some tried and true marketing mediums like out of home. And that's what we're really saying to the market. And that's where we think the opportunity is is migrating some of these dollars that maybe aren't working, maybe are going into fraud or you know, some type of other uh capability that's not impacting your brand. How can we use out of home, the oldest form of media, to really get that message out there for brands?

Celine Matthiessen 5:29

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Interesting. Yeah. And for out of home, there's all sorts of new product types that are out there because I seem to see for digital out of home, I seem to see a lot more um screens and different unique screens to catch attentions, right? And so there's a lot of opportunity with that.

Beyond Awareness To Real Action

Dave Rivera 5:46

Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, we get a call every day of somebody that is deploying a screen network. Digital in out of home is fairly new, right? These screens have been around forever, but the the cost of putting up a digital screen and maintaining that, that's gone down over time. So we're starting to see these out-of-home placements that have traditionally been, you know, vinyl or some type of static paper, um, those are being converted to digital. And that's why you're seeing that growth in digital programmatics also helping because we're able to take budgets from potentially other media channels where they weren't getting the most bang for their buck and allocating that to digital out of home.

Celine Matthiessen 6:33

Great. So let's bust some myths. People often say that digital out of home is just for brand awareness, right? Not for getting people to act. So is that fact or fiction?

Dave Rivera 6:43

In in my view, this is fiction. Um, I think about out of home as a conversation starter, right? When people go to the search bar, they already know what they want, right? They're typing in, I need this, right? Like I need a plumber, or you know, my my AC is not working. So they know what they want when they come to that that search bar. Out of home is a great way of telling people where they should be going, where they should go and what they should be looking at. Um, so and and not only that, when people are exposed to digital out of home after they take action. On average, when we're running campaigns, we see an increase of 80% across search. So when people see it, they'll go and search it. We also see higher engagement and conversions from their performance marketing because when people see these ads, they're more willing to engage with them when they see it on social, on display, on CTV, and it really drives them to commit an action. So I would overall say that digital out of home is not just for brand awareness, it's driving that conversation home and impacting those other channels, which you're seeing a lot of that performance come from.

Reaching People Off Their Phones

Celine Matthiessen 7:53

Wow. Yeah, 80% uh take action. That's incredible. So now let's zoom out a little. People are glued to their screens all day at work. We're seeing um this that you know, people want to unplug, and there's like a big trend in the news, too, about unplugging when they're out and about. How does uh auto home and digital auto home cut through the noise?

Dave Rivera 8:12

Yeah, totally. And I I'm one of those people. I just I just listened to this podcast where they were talking about people taking social media fast, and it changes the whole way that they look at everything. And you know, as humans, we want to experience life. We want to get out there, we want to hike. Like I want to ride my bike, I want to go snowboarding. And out of home is right there along that journey. It's at the airport, it's at the gas pump, it's on your drive, and it's not this intrusive, interruptive ad experience that you get on some other mediums. People are in a great mindset for a conversation when they're at, you know, when they're going on these trips, right? They're typically ready to make purchase decisions. It's a really good time to reach people when they're in this positive mindset and they're thinking about these decisions that they might want to make. So I think it plays really well with getting people off their screens, getting them out and about. We know these screens are not helping us. You know, I say to my kids all the time, right? If these devices made us smarter, we would be geniuses by now. And I haven't seen that, right? You know, there's not that that it that evolution hasn't happened. It's just really taking time away from the human experience. And out of home really plays along with that human human experience. It's woven into that fabric.

Celine Matthiessen 9:36

Well, let's get real world for a second. I actually have a story, uh, case study, um, but I also want to hear yours. So my my daughter works for a museum, and one of the things they did this year for marketing was they took out a digital auto home ad on the main highway that comes into where the museum is, which is a vacation area. And they have had such great uplift because they've been, you know, asking about where did you see us? And people say, well, we were coming and we didn't know what we wanted to do. And we saw your we saw your museum sign and we checked you out. Um, and so she was telling me the other day that they're probably gonna do another one a little closer into town uh now, too, that we have um because they've had such great um experience with it and bringing in new people, people that didn't even know they existed, um, which is incredible. So can you give me some other that's that's a local nonprofit, you know, um case study, but can you give me any case studies that stand out for you with your clients?

Local Sales Opportunity And Margins

Dave Rivera 10:35

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I'm I'm gonna give you one personal story and then I'll I'll give you a case study about how we've really made some impact in the local space. So, you know, I remember when I was growing up, um, my dad and I would take road trips down to visit my grandparents in North Carolina, and there's this place in South Carolina called South of the Border. And I remember our drive, it these mile markers for this place, they for me were like a distance. How far away are we from the destination we're going to? Right. And I vividly remember this marketing campaign. I can envision the boards. It had like a big gorilla with a sombrero, and every mile it was like 88 miles to south of the border, 87 miles to south of the border. And you know, I even begged my dad to bring me there one time because I was like, I have to go see this place. So it did drive us to go there, but I've remembered this campaign my entire life, right? That's the type of impact that this has had on me and that out of home has on people, right? When you're driving home, these become parts of your daily life. Um, so we have tons of case studies showing how out of home helps brands, but I think there's a huge opportunity with our channel partners in the local space. Most advertisers, especially in the local space, today they're not buying out of home. They're not even thinking about it as a mainstay in their media bags. And that's a huge problem, and it's a gap largely due to education. In the local advertising space, there's over a hundred thousand sales reps. They're selling radio, they're selling newspaper, they're selling TV, but in out of home in the local space, maybe a few thousand. And I'm probably being generous there. So for broadcasters, whether it's radio or TV, newspaper, their legacy product is shifting, and it's not their fault, right? It's due to consumer behavior. Our habits are changing. When I grew up, my mom used to read the newspaper, she'd have it out all day on the kitchen table. She'd be like haggling with the paper boy. That doesn't happen anymore, right? Um and right now there's an opportunity for these organizations to replace some of that revenue that's shifting by adding digital out of home. And what we found is it's a fairly high product, uh, a high margin product for them compared to some of the other products that they sell. I've seen, you know, single digits on search or display, whereas, you know, a lot of the customers we're working with on the channel side, they're marking up the media, they're taking 30 to 50 percent margins, and that's impactful for their business, right? They could hire more journalists, they could get people in the newsroom. And one example that stands out for me is a longtime partner we have uh out of Pittsburgh, Steel City Media. At their core, they're a radio group, but they do offer a full funnel marketing experience for their clients. We started working with them in the pandemic, I think it was like 2020, and within six months, their team generated 400 RFPs for digital out of home and closed 25 deals. And they're probably running around a million dollars out of a couple cities today. So that's the opportunity I see there where you could really grow this and create a whole new marketing channel for a lot of these local organizations that can become potential channel partners with Vistar.

Celine Matthiessen 14:09

That's great. So, yeah, so that's opportunity for marketers. Um, anything, anything, any final thoughts? Um, you know, uh what else, what else is in the future? You know, what should they be looking for uh you know forward to, or what's the easiest um transition for them? I I know digital out-of-home and out-of-home measurement is a lot like digital, so it's easy for them to show the success, correct?

The Marketer’s Case For DOOH

Dave Rivera 14:34

Yes, yeah, yeah, we could definitely uh show success in really interesting ways. Um, but I would say it's not easy, right? And and I found like you don't always make a huge impact doing something really easy. There is a little bit of a lift when it comes to education, but once you have that education up front, when you train the sellers at these organizations, when they're going out to their clients, it becomes a no-brainer for most of these advertising clients. It's just today they're not having a conversation, right? If you went into a local marketer and told them they could get on these huge billboards and screens in their community and really reach people that are in their, you know, in their local space, I think a lot of them after that 15 minute conversation, they say, Oh yeah, totally. I wanna, I wanna do that. Today the conversations just aren't happening at scale. And that's what we really need to change is how can we educate the market so they know that digital out-of-home should be a mainstay and it should be a part of their media mix.

Celine Matthiessen 15:44

So, all right, so sum it up. If you're a marketer, what's your case for digital out-of-home?

Dave Rivera 15:50

Yeah, absolutely. Number one, it's the oldest format of media, it's battle tested, right? We've been, I you know, I go to advertising conferences all the time, and the backgrounds of the slides are like Times Square. It's what we use to describe the advertising industry as out of home. It's got massive scale, it's a non-intrusive buying experience, the price points are great, it's fraud-free, it increases engagement across all performance media. And the real question I would have for a marketer is do you want more effective media? And my guess is the answer in most of those cases would be, yeah, we totally do, right? So that's that's really what we say to folks that that ask this question.

Celine Matthiessen 16:34

Well, thank you so much for being here today and sharing your data, thoughts, and insights and case studies. We always appreciate and value your time with us. And for everyone out there listening, thank you for joining us as well. I invite you to learn more about Vistar Media at Vistarmedia.com. We hope you are enjoying our podcast this year. And if you have any topics you'd like to suggest or want to come on as a guest, reach out to us at podcast@bia.com. We look forward to bringing you more insightful conversations on local media throughout the year ahead.