In an era where traditional media often struggles to make an impression, Out of Home (OOH) advertising stands tall as a beacon of innovation and effectiveness, particularly within luxury brands. From breathtakingly large canvases to advanced data-driven targeting, OOH marketing melds creativity with scientifically backed strategies to engage communities and reshape public spaces into interactive brand experiences.
Here, Jodi Senese, chief marketing officer at OUTFRONT Media, delves into the current dynamics and trends of OOH explaining how elements such permanent placements, influencer partnerships and digital integrations empower luxury, retail and beauty brands and retailers.
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Fairchild Studio: How would you describe the current state of out of home (OOH) marketing? What’s driving business?
Jodi Senese: The two biggest drivers of the OOH business today are what we call the “Art & Science of Modern OOH” — creativity and data. On the creative side, the ability to both go big on oversize canvases and use technology — whether digital locations or AR/VR, 3D and other innovations — creates a more immersive experience between brand and customer. Enhanced data and toolsets enable audience targeting and campaign efficacy measurement, allowing brands to be more precise in connecting with prospects and measuring brand awareness and lower funnel outcomes. The intersection of OOH and social channels, a space we call #sOOH, has become supercharged, especially among fashion brands and sectors where talent/models/influencers “snap and share” what they see in the real world on their social channels.
In addition, OOH is considered the most trusted and liked medium, especially among the desirable Millennial and Gen Z generations. Because of new advancements, creative opportunities and tangible trustworthiness, OOH continues to be the only traditional media growing in terms of ad spend. According to Magna Global, OOH is expected to grow over 5 percent in 2025, while traditional media is expected to decline 1.5 percent (excluding cyclical events).
Fairchild Studio: What encompasses OOH marketing? What types are there?
J.S.: OOH media is any advertising that exists outside of your home. Often along the path to purchase, this media is considered additive to consumers’ lives since it does not interrupt set experiences. There are several different media types under the OOH umbrella, but the most popular include billboards, Times Square digital spectaculars and ads affixed to large scale walls, and then on the transit side, advertisements affixed to subway stations/trains, buses, bike shares and bus shelters.
Fairchild Studio: What makes OOH a compelling medium for luxury apparel, retail and beauty brands?
J.S.: The luxury, retail and beauty categories have always relied on full-bleed, large-scale, highly visual media as a focal point of their advertising and brand initiatives. Just as these brands used to flood the pages of magazines to make their products both tangible and aspirational while showcasing their new lines and models, they turn to OOH for very much the same purpose. Our larger-than-life canvases, strategically placed in key neighborhoods and iconic locations, cement a brand’s presence and power while also serving as their own destinations for fans to visit and admire.
Fairchild Studio: What trends do you see luxury brands in particular gravitating towards that will have the most impact on advertising OOH?
J.S.: A few key trends have emerged within these categories:
“Prime” placements: Many brands, particularly luxury brands, have leaned into OUTFRONT PRIME opportunities in key neighborhoods in NYC such as SoHo, throughout Miami and across the west side of Los Angeles. These brands understand the importance of having an “always-on” presence in domestic fashion capitals and simply change out their creative to highlight new campaigns, events and brand ambassadors. The Calvin Klein wall in SoHo highlights the power of these perms, with multiple brands longing to replace Calvin Klein should they ever give up the space and traffic jams on the street whenever new Jeremy Allen White creative goes up.
Social Out of Home (#SOOH) and influencers: As brands across fashion and beauty make significant investments in influencers and famous brand ambassadors, they strategically use OOH as content for these creators. Creators, ambassadors, as well as everyday loyal consumers, share the OOH on their social channels, taking these campaigns well beyond the real-life canvas, and often capture video of them visiting the OOH and then shopping in store to drive interest. [See Revolution Beauty, example here.]
Extending the store experience: In the beauty and fashion space, we are increasingly seeing brands host pop-ups and new store openings, kickstarting the brand experience from the moment potential customers get off the nearest subway station. Glossier, Amika, Filson and more have activated station dominations to build excitement and drive store traffic.
As with all the above, these brands understand that creative is critical to capturing audiences’ attention and have taken advantage of some of our advanced digital capabilities, such as 3D spatial, to stand out.
Fairchild Studio: Tell us about OUTFRONT and how you work with retailers and brands.
J.S.: OUTFRONT connects brands with 70 percent of Americans weekly through one of the largest and most diverse sets of billboard, transit and mobile assets in the United States. Through its technology platform, OUTFRONT provides creative opportunities for advertisers to engage audiences on the go.
OUTFRONT is a full-service media provider, helping retailers and brands from pre- to post-campaign. To start, a brand works with our team to discuss their “voice,” audience and campaign objectives; we then identify the media that best matches their target audience, utilizing syndicated research and near real-time mobile data. Every advertiser also has access to our award-winning in-house creative agencies (Cannes and numerous industry creative awards), who are equipped to develop comprehensive campaigns, including any dynamic digital add-ons. OUTFRONT has its own in-house production team, which helps us efficiently get large-scale campaigns up on the streets. After a campaign posts, brands tap into our communications team to amplify their real-world presence online through press and social support. Lastly, we have a suite of attribution solutions that brands can use to measure the OOH’s impact on their specific KPIs, like brand affinity, foot traffic, website traffic and app downloads.
Fairchild Studio: How do you choose locations? For example, does it make sense for one brand to be in one place and not in another?
J.S.: The media selection for these campaigns varies based on KPIs and overall objectives. Overwhelmingly, luxury fashion is interested in OUTFRONT PRIME because they are targeting neighborhoods, iconic locations or certain audiences. Other times, we utilize our audience-targeting tools to identify the right locations and mix of assets to help them achieve their goals.
Fairchild Studio: What is the value proposition of OUTFRONT? How does it differ from other OOH agencies?
J.S.: OUTFRONT is different from other OOH agencies in our enhanced consultative process. We have made significant investments in our tools and teams to ensure that we are creating campaign solutions that achieve a brand’s marketing goals. Our 60-plus person OUTFRONT by Design team, for example, includes an in-house ad agency team and digital technology designers. Whether we are developing a campaign or working with a creative team at a brand (or agency), our focus on creative excellence is relentless. We consider the brands other media channels, especially digital and social, to ensure the campaign components work in harmony. With over 500,000 assets across the top 50 DMAs, our footprint is largely in urban centers across the country, as well as along key roadways leading into and out of cities. Our footprint is especially aligned with the top markets and target audiences for brands in the luxury, retail and beauty sectors.
Fairchild Studio: How can luxury brands use OOH to tap into cultural moments?
J.S.: Luxury clients use our media to align with cultural moments both from a timing and proximity standpoint. When brands embed contextual relevance into their creative strategy, we see their impact amplify through social and press virality. For example, a half dozen luxury brands will be showcased on prime walls and billboards in Miami during Art Basel.
Fairchild Studio: How important is contextual relevance in OOH for luxury brands?
J.S.: Adjacencies to major fashion or shopping areas across the country are the most obvious placements for contextual relevancy. Activating around cultural events, specifically ones that attract luxury audiences such as F1 and Art Basel in Miami and New York Fashion Week, brands leverage permanent annual placements to stay top of mind in these locations. Premium or “prime” locations drive organic social content and amplification for the brand. Contextual relevance also applies to the time of year. For instance, around holidays and graduations, luxury watch brands use the medium more heavily. SoHo in New York, Los Angeles’ Sunset Strip and Miami’s major throughways into top areas such as Brickell are dominated by luxury advertisers with a constant waitlist, with the hope some of these locations will open up.
Fairchild Studio: What creative opportunities exist within OOH to make luxury brand messages more engaging?
J.S.: In addition to OUTFRONT PRIME locations, luxury clients can tap into OUTFRONT’s suite of advanced capabilities to take their messaging to the next level. Luxury clients can tap into OUTFRONT’s suite of advanced capabilities to take their messaging to the next level. Most relevant to this category is our 3D spatial content capability, which helps creative content achieve perceived depth, dimension and volume, legitimately taking your messaging off the screen. Our “quick reaction ads” – the QR code on steroids – grab consumers’ attention with a content control capability that allows audiences to choose their own ad journey by triggering creative changes directly on DOOH assets using QR codes. This option gives audiences the opportunity to choose the model type that best aligns with their identity, allowing fashion and beauty companies to offer broadened inclusivity for their product set and brand. Lastly, we seamlessly integrate live data feeds and triggers to deliver the ultimate contextual and value-based OOH ad executions.