Is digital OOH winning over more political advertisers? Kind of

By Michael Bürgi  •  September 19, 2024  •

But what about other media? Digital is sure to secure big gains, but surprisingly not on the same platforms as they generally used to spend. It seems Apple’s move to limit ad tracking, which happened after the 2020 elections, has impacted spending on Meta platforms, while ad spend on X (formerly Twitter) has skyrocketed now that the platform accepts political advertising under Elon Musk’s ownership. 

“[X] did not accept political spending in 2020 but does now, and so that’s really one of the bigger changes that we are seeing this year,” said Michael Leszega, vp of market intelligence at Magna. “You’re seeing dollars spent towards conservative causes and conservative candidates. But I have seen some around Democratic candidates as well.”

As for Meta’s Facebook, it’s a two-pronged effect, added Leszega. “One is the willingness to not take as many political dollars, and two would be the lack of targetability in 2024 compared to 2020,” he said.

Some out of home media companies and agencies say digital OOH has become a more attractive destination for political dollars, given its ability to turn around ads much more rapidly than static OOH, but also its locality helps with downticket races that seek out more localized potential voters. 

An important change in marketplace conditions is DOOH’s “ability to be hyper-targeted in both geo-location and time periods to align with campaign trails, the RNC/DNC conventions and major battleground states that are heating up more now than ever,” said Lucy Markowitz, svp and gm of Vistar Media, who said she’s definitely seen an uptick in political ad dollars across her agency — but declined to specify because she said comparisons to 2020 are hard to make due to the effect of the pandemic on OOH. “Unlike traditional media, DOOH offers shorter flight lengths, quick production turnaround, and real-time campaign adjustments, allowing political advertisers to reach their audience without large upfront commitments.”

David Krupp, CEO of Billups, an OOH specialist media agency, said it’s the first time he’s seeing political ad dollars coming his way. “It’s not going to be a huge piece of our business this year, but it’s certainly nice and incremental,” said Krupp.

Why is OOH, particularly digital, seeing an uptick, according to Krupp? One is that omnichannel SSPs can factor DOOH into their offerings, which is a relatively new development, at least relative to the last election. But it’s also the result of other media — looking at you, local TV — being so booked up already especially in vital swing states. 

“There is so much money pouring into the swing states, because effectively, very few voters are going to really decide this election, it seems,” said Krupp. “There are only so many outlets. I think there’s an exhaustion that voters start to feel when every single one of the broadcast ads available is for a party ad or a candidate.”

But not everyone sees tremendous growth in OOH, notably Magna’s evp of market intelligence. 

“It may be growing, yes, but I suspect it’s still pretty low,” said Létang “From our perspective, it’s small enough that when it comes to out of home, we don’t publish estimates or forecasts with or without political. Whereas we do that for television and digital media.”

Létang noted that some of the biggest OOH firms which have either airport or city contracts, don’t permit political ads on their networks. 

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