“I’m Very Upbeat”: Cathy O’Connor Talks oOh! Media Bouncing Back From COVID’s Year From Hell

Yesterday, oOh! Media released its financial results for the 2021 calendar year, which showed impressive outcomes following the COVID-afflicted past 12 months.

The outdoor advertising company recorded an 18 per cent increase ($504 million) jump in annual revenue compared with 2020 figures, as well as a 24 per cent earnings uptick.

Furthermore, not only did oOh! see record high monthly income for roads in both November and December, but the company also saw an increased gross margin of 44.1 per cent, as well as a debt reduction of 43 per cent, compared to December 2020.

Following these results, B&T spoke with oOh! Media CEO, Cathy O’Connor about how the company was able to overcome the seemingly never-ending challenges of the pandemic, the sectors which didn’t fare so well last year, and how oOh! plans to continue its post-pandemic momentum.

B&T: What were your thoughts on the results? Most people were expecting a slight dip as a result of Delta and Omicron surges.

O’Connor: I’m very upbeat. We posted an earnings boost of 24 per cent in a COVID-impacted year. That speaks to the underlying strengths oOh! Media as a business, and the out of home sector, which has had two years of audience impact as a result of the pandemic.

What strategies did oOh! implement to overcome the lockdown challenges of 2021?

oOh! was in a unique position because of the breadth of different out of home environments in which we operate. The basic reality of 2020 and 2021 is we have the same population, they’re just moving in different ways.

The story oOh! is able to tell is: where there may be less frequency of audiences in rails [and] airports, and people may be going to the office less, they’re still moving about their suburbs, and we’ve got street furniture in a significant amount of metropolitan Australia.

For the most part, that’s what’s driven the recovery; the fact that people still use their cars. It’s difficult in environments like airports where there’s no travel. Therefore, aspects of road have done really well, in comparison to some of the more audience-impacted environments, like flight and office.

We just told a story about the audience and being the most diverse operator we could tell it better than others.

How do you feel at oOh! about international borders recently opening? Will that help boost revenue in the flight sector once again?

Yeah. 75 per cent of movement through Australian airports is domestic, therefore that’s where most of the advertising’s targeting. We’re feeling confident – as the borders have now freed up – that Australians who love to travel, will continue to do so in increasing amounts. And that’s both in the business environments and the leisure environments.

Having airport contracts in Melbourne and Brisbane, and many other smaller territories, as well as the Qantas lounges – where we just re-signed our long-term partnership with Qantas – all bids well for us.

And we think now as the mask mandates are lifting in most places we’ll see a gradual turn of audiences into offices, and that will play well into oOh! Media’s strength.

Did some states and territories do better than others?

I think the audience fluctuations were driven by the lockdowns. As the lockdowns happened across the six, states, so too did the audiences ebb and flow.

The prolonged lockdowns in NSW and Victoria were the biggest impact to audiences across the year. Therefore we did see in Q3 a pause in out of home revenues. But equally they displayed the strongest recovery into Q4, and that recovery’s continued into January.

Although the impacts were strong, the recovery was stronger. We’re very upbeat about that. Particularly to see aspects of our business – like roads – now pushing the 2019 levels. That’s a very encouraging sign.

Did you notice brands embracing outdoor over the past year? Perhaps brands you hadn’t seen embracing this platform before?

Government has been a massive spender across out of home in 2021, and we think that will continue into 2022. The sectors that showed the most growth were what you’d expect given the way consumers were moving; retail, food and grocery, alcohol. All the things Australians use did very well for the sector.

The challenges for banks and automotive were well known. Both sectors spent less throughout 2021, but we’re starting to see an increase in activity as we enter the new year.

Going forward, do you see outdoor advertising remaining increasingly more profitable, even though more people are embracing a more stagnant lifestyle?

Out of home is a sector that doesn’t only operate in CBDs, it operates right across suburban Australia and into regional Australia. oOh! has the diverse assets across all formats and across all states, both metro and regional.

We’re incredibly well-placed to take that audience story to advertisers. In doing so, we have no less of the mass reach we’ve always had, but we’ll probably increasingly be talking about customer journey based on audience.

You’re still going to see a substantial amount of what we do gravitate to the formats as it always has, and I would include offices and airports as part of that.

Do you expect future investments to focus even more on the customer journey?

We’re already set up to take those stories to advertisers. We invest in good data sets around mobility and biographics, and we have all those fused to 35000 different panels that we sell advertising on.

We’re already incredibly informed about who moves around our signs. It’s about patching those journeys depending on the advertiser and the brief and the objective they’re trying to achieve.