Let’s Just F%^king Do It.
It took me a while to decide whether to put these thoughts to paper—or screen, I suppose. I asked friends, colleagues, clients, and suppliers across the industry for their advice, and the resounding response was: “Do it.” We’ll see if they still agree should a backlash kick in.
While this may have started from a flicker of frustration, I’m offering it with optimism and genuine excitement. I truly believe our industry is full of talent, hard work, vision, and dedication. My concern—my observation—is that we rarely bring that vision to life. I don’t know if it’s because we don’t fully believe in it, or if we’ve gotten too comfortable assuming things will simply tick along. Or maybe—just maybe—we’re afraid of what real change might demand from us.
I’ve been in the media industry, mostly out-of-home (OOH), for nearly 30 years. I’ve had the honor of spending the last 13 of those in America. In my second year here, I had the added privilege of co-chairing the OAAA conference alongside Jeremy Male of Outfront—a figure who’s been part of my professional orbit for most of those three decades. (We were, of course, nine and eleven when we started.)
I watched Jeremy deliver a rousing keynote to nearly 2,000 people, passionately championing the potential of OOH, the need to align with other channels, and the urgency of boldly selling our unique advantages. He ended with a mic-drop moment: “Guys, it’s not that difficult—we just need to f%^king do it.” (With a British accent, you can get away with a lot, trust me.)
He got a standing ovation. Other speakers echoed the sentiment. I left the conference on a high, convinced we were on the brink of something big.
But if I’m honest? Not much happened.
Now, if you’ve read this far, you’re probably building a mental list of all the incredible innovations your company has introduced. And truly—I applaud them. I don’t question their worth. But here’s the real question: What impact have they had on your bottom line—or, more importantly, on the industry as a whole?
Since Jeremy and I stood on that stage, US online ad spend has ballooned from $26 billion to $230 billion. That sector has completely reinvented how it’s bought, sold, and measured—often through collaboration and bold strategy.
Now ask yourself honestly: how much has the planning, buying, or selling of OOH changed in the same timeframe?
The uncomfortable truth: our rates have barely moved. Many have even gone down. Agencies win business by promising cheaper buying, and then call it a victory when they simply renew contracts at flat rates. (Brands share responsibility for buying into this short-term logic.) “No added value? Then no added cost.” That’s the logic. Media owners often accept it, fearing someone else will undercut them if they don’t. And they’re probably right.
As I said earlier, some companies, old and new, have taken steps to stand out—but standing out in a stagnant industry just means fighting over a bigger piece of a shrinking pie. And even then, what are we really selling? If we’re still hawking locations on a map, prioritizing pretty pictures over indisputable audience data, aren’t we just selling… photography?
Let’s take it a step further: how much selling are we even doing? If the CEO of your agency or your publishing house walked up to you right now and asked, “Show me the last 25 proactive, completely unsolicited presentations, ideas, deals, strategies, or bold suggestions you sent to a client,” How many of us could confidently flip open our laptops and impress the hell out of them?
Here’s the hard truth: we’ve become an industry that is bought, not sold. And worse—those buys are often rewarded after the fact. Often, we’re a humble “thank you” industry.
We need to acknowledge that while we may be competitors by definition, we are colleagues by necessity. We share a professional—and dare I say, societal—obligation to grow together.
I’m the biggest supporter of Geopath, but it’s struggling. And it’s not hard to see why: everyone’s pulling it in different directions to serve their own agenda, rather than working toward what’s best for the industry at large. We also balk at how much we spend on it, in fear that ‘the cost goes back to the client’, well yeah: we’ve become afraid to ask for fair value. Meanwhile, clients are forking over 20% (and usually much more) for online, programmatic, CTV—you name it.
Yes, margins in other areas are bloated, and clients would be wise to challenge them. But the key difference? Those dollars fund product development. Innovation. The very platforms that are now stealing our market share, we can now compete while avoiding those trappings, the data tools and systems exist, and we can use them effectively now while retaining transparency and ensuring the vast percentage of a client dollar still reaches the street.
We love to dream: “If we could just get 1% of digital spend for example…” But here’s the thing—that’s just math. We aren’t giving anyone a reason to give us that 1%. We shouldn’t be trying to steal share—we should be building a case to earn our seat in the broader media ecosystem.
Make no mistake: the competition is real. At a conference in Denver last year, local publishers told me they were losing clients to Meta for the first time. The pitch? “Instead of $10K a month on a billboard, we’ll serve targeted impressions to people searching for things like ‘How much is a new Ford?’” That’s a tough pitch to beat if all we’re offering is visibility.
And as much as I love OOH—perhaps more than is reasonable—I understand the grind. It’s a hustle. For reasons that continue to baffle me, many brands and agencies still don’t understand the profound value of this medium. Or worse: their agencies talk them out of it.
I once saw a proprietary media planning tool from a major network. Page one: the algorithm identifies the 10 best formats for the brief—four of them OOH. Page two: “expert review” tweaks the results—and voilà! All OOH formats are removed, and up go social and CTV, regardless of their actual merit.
The people in OOH are some of the smartest, most relentless professionals I’ve ever met. They have to be. But we must now become bolder. Louder. We must fight for our space with the conviction this medium deserves.
I’ve said it before: the top 20 brands in the world invest hugely in OOH. We now need to educate and inspire the next 500—or we risk being forgotten.
The future of OOH can be everything we want it to be. This medium doesn’t just play well with others—it elevates them. That’s not marketing spin. That’s a proven fact. So let’s show how it’s measurable, accountable, aligned, intuitive, frictionless, beautiful—pick your favorite verb.
Then get out there… and sell the hell out of it.
Or, to quote the great Mr. Male one more time: “Guys, it’s not that difficult—we just need to f%^king do it.”