Amid platform churn and audience migration, OOH delivers lasting visibility
In the past decade, audiences have hopped from Facebook to Instagram to TikTok. Streaming services launch, merge, and fade. Targeting rules change with a software update. The media landscape keeps shifting under marketers’ feet.
Out-of-Home is different. Whether it is a towering digital spectacular, a transit shelter, a street-level kiosk, or a video wall in an airport, OOH does not vanish or pivot with every trend. The medium’s footprint is steady, and the audience still shows up on the same roads, in the same stations, through the same public spaces day after day.
And according to the New Engen Active Lifestyle Benchmark Report 2025 , real-world attention is only growing. Outdoor participation in the U.S. hit an all-time high in 2024, with 181.1M Americans getting outside. Growth was driven by casual participants and increasingly diverse demographics.
1. The Medium That Does Not Migrate
While digital platforms grapple with shifting audiences and ever-changing formats, OOH remains remarkably stable. Individual placements may change or rotate, but the medium as a whole, including billboards, transit, street furniture, and place-based, maintains a consistent and reliable presence in the real world. The infrastructure does not disappear, and the audiences keep showing up.
2. Stable While Others Shift
OOH keeps delivering while other channels demand constant adjustment. Social audiences migrate, forcing brands to relearn formats and rebuild reach. Streaming platforms launch, merge, and change their ad models, creating a moving target for marketers.
In contrast, OOH provides a consistent foundation. The inventory will be there next quarter and next year. The formats stay familiar. And the audience encounters them in the same daily routines. While other media shifts underfoot, OOH remains a steady anchor.
3. Momentum That Will Not Quit
The U.S. OOH industry posted its highest-ever Q1 in 2025: $1.98B, up 2% YoY, extending the growth streak to 16 consecutive quarters. Digital OOH now represents more than 34% of spend and grew 9% YoY. Street Furniture led format gains, followed by Transit and Place-Based.
Real-world mobility underpins this stability. U.S. drivers logged a record 3.28 trillion miles in 2024, up 1% YoY. Meanwhile, U.S. transit delivered 7.7B trips in 2024, 491M more than 2023, with ridership continuing to rebound.
4. Innovation Without Instability
OOH evolves without losing its footing. Digital upgrades, smart city kiosks, large-format video walls, and programmatic buying bring new flexibility to a medium rooted in permanence.
By 2030, the U.S. OOH market is projected to top $11.25 billion, with DOOH growing at 6.2% CAGR, outpacing the market as a whole.
Takeaway for Performance Marketers
The digital feed is crowded. Many active-lifestyle brands are over-concentrated on Meta. In a sample New Engen analyzed, half of the brands allocated 80% or more of their digital display and social budget to Meta. That is a lot of eggs in one algorithmic basket.
With outdoor participation at record highs and mobility strong, OOH puts brands in front of people in their daily routines, on roads, in transit hubs, and at street level, where attention is undivided. The smart move is not to abandon digital. It is to rebalance toward channels that:
- Add incremental reach beyond the same social audiences.
- Build brand equity that lowers CAC over time.
- Deliver real-world visibility that is immune to platform pivots.
Try this: Carve out a modest share of spend for OOH next quarter, align creative to a simple, high-contrast message, and measure lift in branded search, direct traffic, and geo-lift around exposed zones.
The channels where people live, move, and play are not only stable. They are growing, and they are ready for your message.