Australia’s media playbook is overdue for a rethink. With more than a third of the population now living outside capital cities and regional economies booming, the long-held assumption that five metros equal national reach is no longer fit for purpose, writes Mark Fairhurst, chief revenue officer, oOh!media.
Habits are hard to break. In media planning, one of the hardest is the assumption that five capital cities equals national reach. It was built for an era when national television was defined by five metropolitan broadcast markets. Australia has changed, 37 per cent of the population now lives in the regions, yet that same mindset continues to shape media investment today.
And to be fair, it wasn’t always the wrong approach. Regional audiences were harder to measure, harder to compare and harder to plan with confidence, while metropolitan markets offered greater consistency, richer data and a clearer basis for investment decisions.
What the industry is not fully taking into account is that more than ten million people, over a third of the population, now live outside the capital city markets and the number is growing. A recent report from the Regional Australia Institute (RAI) shows that movement from capital cities to regional towns is at its highest level on record, suggesting a structural shift rather than a cyclical change.
This comes down to rising housing costs, changes in work patterns, and lifestyle preferences, all of which have reshaped where people live, work and spend. For brands that have traditionally focused on capital city audiences, a significant share of consumers are now building their lives elsewhere, yet much of your media planning isn’t following suit.
That disconnect becomes clearer when you spend time in these places. On a recent visit to regional Victoria with a group of clients, we spent time in Ballarat, a city that is visibly growing and evolving. People are working locally, spending in cafés and retail centres, and there is real momentum.
Many of Australia’s largest regional cities are now comparable in size to capital cities of a generation ago. Geelong, Newcastle, the Sunshine Coast, Wollongong, Ballarat and Townsville aren’t fringe markets; they’re major population and economic centres. Yet they’re still routinely excluded from what many advertisers consider a ‘national’ buy.
That’s a significant oversight. Regional Australia accounts for more than $216 billion in annual consumer spending according to Westpac DataX, approximately 40 per cent of automotive spend, higher per-capita grocery spend than metropolitan areas, and more than a third of national retail, travel and online spending.
One of the historical barriers was measurement. As local television, newspapers and radio declined, many advertisers assumed regional audiences had become harder to access in a consistent, scalable way. Out of Home (OOH) filled that space. From roadside formats to shopping precincts and town centres, it has become the most consistent remaining channel in regional Australia and the most effective way for brands to connect with these communities at scale.
What I hear consistently from clients who do commit to regional OOH is that the impact goes beyond reach. When a brand contextualises its message for a regional community, when it shows up with intention rather than as an afterthought, something shifts. The community feels noticed. And in markets where big brands rarely show up with that kind of energy, the attention and loyalty it generates is disproportionate to the investment.
With MOVE, OOH’s global standard audience measurement, now covering regional markets, planners have far greater clarity on audiences and how people move throughout these areas. For the first time we have a complete picture of the OOH landscape across every format from regional roadside to CBD, with more than 180 demographic profiles that allow planning all the way down to hyper granular audience level insight. The data gap that once made regional a difficult conversation to have internally is gone. The visibility is there. The audiences are there. The scale is there.
And so is the proof. Analytic Partners analysis show brands incorporating regional OOH alongside metro are delivering 21% greater ROI than metro-only campaigns. Regional OOH is not a nice-to-have bolted on after the main buy is locked. It is one of the fastest ways to improve the return on an existing media investment.
The five-cap-city buy was not a flawed idea. It reflected how Australia was structured at the time, but Australia has changed, and the question now is whether media planning will change with it. So, my challenge is simple: stop asking why regional and start asking why not.
