According to the Out of Home Advertising Association of America’s (OAAA) latest figures, out of home (OOH) advertising revenue jumped 40.5 percent in Q1 2022 compared to the previous year, accounting for $1.8 billion. That marks the largest quarterly increase in the medium’s history.

These first-quarter figures show that OOH is already outpacing the same period in 2019 and that it’s on track to reach or exceed pre-pandemic spending in 2022, according to Anna Bager, president and chief executive of OAAA.

The digital OOH format led total OOH growth with a 57 percent increase over Q1 2021. The billboard category increased double digits while the transit, street furniture and place-based categories all grew triple digits, signaling a strong COVID recovery.  

Led by financial and media and advertising, eight of the top ten product industry categories increased double digits. The public transportation, hotels and resorts industry category surged 58 percent, reflecting a consumer return to pre-pandemic behavior.

As noted below, emerging product categories also helped OOH succeed when compared to Q1 2021:

  • Cannabis spend increased 31 percent 
  • Political spend increased 113 percent (and 90 percent over the last midterm election cycle in Q1 2018)
  • Sports betting spend increased 131 percent
  • FinTech spend increased 22x

OAAA found that the top 10 advertisers in Q1 ranked in order of OOH spending were: Apple, Capital One, McDonald’s, Netflix, HBO, American Express, Amazon, AT&T, Verizon and Universal Pictures. 

Eighty-seven of the top 100 OOH advertisers increased their OOH spend from Q1 2021, and 47 of them more than doubled their spend. Advertisers on this list who didn’t spend in Q1 2021 included: Cirque Du Soleil, Credit Karma, Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, Molson, Monday.com, The New York Times, Not Milk, Peacock, Turner, UiPath, United Artists Pictures, VRBO and William Hill.

And thirty-one of the top 100 OOH spenders were technology or direct-to-consumer brands including these top ten brands according to spend: Apple, Netflix, Amazon, AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, ClickUp, Expensify, William Hill and BetMGM.