Will 2026 Be Our Year of Change, or Another Year Talking About the Importance of Change?

Toward the end of December, like most CEOs, I presented a review of the year to my imposing Board of Directors. It went well; we’ve lots to celebrate. More than $2 billion was contracted through the DOmedia platform this year, largely driven by a raft of new agencies that seem to understand the importance of a universal marketplace that is automated, “AI everything,” and delivers data that proves efficiencies and savings—as well as money straight to their bottom line, if used right.

Another area of celebration is our growing integration with omnichannel marketplaces. We contracted a huge amount of new dollars from digital agencies; the type of agencies that have never spent a dime on OOH—and in some ways, still don’t know they have. They activated a multi-media plan against an audience, and as we are now part of the algorithm, funds were directly allocated to OOH. There is so much more to celebrate and I should be on a high; I guess I am, but it’s a fight to stay there sometimes.

However, this is not about DOmedia. 

Lovely things were said toward the end of the board meeting and then I was asked, “How are you feeling about things, Mike? OOH and the future?” Wow, that’s a huge question. My answer in the meeting was as follows: “I feel really good. We’ve done everything the industry has asked of us and more. We’ll likely hit $3 billion in contracted spend in 2026, etc.” Following the meeting, I found myself dwelling on that question over the holidays: How do I feel?

The truth is, pick an emotion right now and I am likely feeling the extreme of it. Excitement, optimism, dare I say joy? However, at the other end of the spectrum, there is frustration, impatience, and even a little anger, if I’m honest—directed at the industry I’ve been committed to for literally decades, and our resilient determination to dig our heels in and resist at all costs the change we consistently scream is essential.

I know, I know—I’ve done this before—but I again feel the need to caveat my respect for the industry and the people in it, many of whom are my dearest friends, that I love. I have an unfettered belief in the medium and what it is, and even more so what it easily could be in a short time if we grasp the opportunity. However, we are letting it slip away from us. We are losing control and we are not exploiting the options that are open to us now to make the medium easy to buy and directly aligned with all other channels.

Of the 1,000+ campaigns contracted through our marketplace in 2025, only 19% were in more than two DMAs. Only three campaigns reached 147 of the 210 DMAs (about 70%); those three campaigns were all the same client. This confirms to me that we are still simply responding to briefs, not aggressively selling the benefits of the medium—which are far above those of any other—and exploiting the ease with which it can be done. The lack of “national buys” is one of the concerns consistently put to me by industry colleagues, yet the friction in doing such a campaign has gone. On our platform and others, Vistar and so on, one can plan a national campaign in 10 minutes, buying whichever metric you wish—CPM, optimized audience metrics, etc. It can be planned, executed, managed, and optimized. It can turn on a dime mid-campaign by analyzing real-time data: POP, post-campaign analysis, attribution studies, and so on.

So why isn’t this happening at the pace we all want and, honestly, believe we deserve? Could it be that we are simply not giving enough people the reasons to do it, or simply not saying anything different when it comes to a much-desired meeting with a brand CMO? Are we giving the brands’ agencies enough reasons to join our fight? Or is our strategy simply hope?

Data is a powerful thing but easily mismanaged. I fear clients are often told, “We can reach twice the audience for half the cost.” That can be cleverly proven with data, and more can be charged for it. Everyone wins except the medium and, in truth, the client in the long run. One cannot take a dollar, spend 50 cents on media, and do anything with the remaining 50 cents to make the first 50 cents worth more than the original dollar.

A buying/investment division that spends $1 million on OOH to generate $100k in revenue would see it as a win if that spend was reduced to $500k but they made $200k in revenue. In that scenario, the OOH owners see $300k instead of $900k in spend—or zero, if to achieve this the money goes online, as it often does. Our competitors are working together, using tools and data no different from the ones we have at our fingertips, to prove this is the right thing to do.

Objections I hear from my industry colleagues are, number one: “If we give live avails and we have too much availability, people will use it to drive rates down.” Possibly—that’s supply and demand—but something is better than nothing, and surely we value our ability to negotiate with anyone if we show them what is there to negotiate for? Of course, we can also set minimum bids, just like any other medium. At present, about 50% of the inventory we host has some kind of live availability, and the owners who provide it see a disproportionate market share flowing their way, often passively without even having to respond to an RFP. Once our medium is bought, it proves its own value, then we upsell!

Number two: “We only use certain platforms and marketplaces because our clients tell us we have to.” That is the biggest buying signal you’ll ever see. It’s an invite to attack and sell me more. One of the most commonly bought products on Amazon right now is bedding—quilts, covers, and the like. That is how people want to buy bedding today; they know the size they want, the color, and the material, so it’s easy. Bedding companies are falling all over themselves to figure out how to have their product bought above anyone else’s on Amazon. In that metaphor, it feels like our response is, “We’re actually happy with our bedding shop on the high street.” Or in truth, “We know we need to address this and sell our product in the same way as everyone else; we just never have, and change is scary.”

I have empathy for that. We are a legacy medium. Our new competitors did not have to go through the seismic change that we are; they were born in this new world. However, our legacy is what sets us apart; we are tried, tested, and proven. We just need to move at the same pace as everyone else. At DOmedia, we have integration projects within our own industry that have been ongoing for 12 months and counting; meanwhile, I have omnichannel integrations that took two months from first intro to live. Yes, they are sending new dollars our way which is great, but they are also taking control of our medium and our growth. It irks me.

I don’t have all the answers by any stretch; I think I have many of the questions. I need help from everyone who has read this far and believes in our potential as an industry—the future we could have in the near term and our ability to hugely complement, if not out-deliver, any other media.

We could spend 2026 competing with each other for the same dollars, keeping rates pretty static and growing by 3% (basically in line with inflation, so flat), and we can market that as a win. I’d argue that whatever your place may be in our ecosystem, if your day-to-day in December 2026 looks a lot like your day-to-day now, we have let another year slip away, we’ve let ourselves down. So many countries around the world are delivering 10%, 20%, and greater share to OOH, and as a pure product, we have so much more than they do to offer. Amazon, the company I referenced earlier, spends north of 20% of their media budget in OOH (in some divisions), yet their salespeople are convincing their clients to spend with them, not on OOH. It’s a similar story with all big tech, social, and e-commerce companies. Their own testimonial of strategy should be empowering us to compete and win.

Last time I went on an insomniac, coffee-fueled rant, I quoted Jeremy Male, now Chairman of Talon USA, and I hope he won’t mind me doing it again:

“It’s not hard guys, we just need to f@%king do it.”

As always, I really want to deliver this as a positive. If anyone is aligned or disagrees, has any questions or advice, please reach out. Let’s get time and figure out solutions together as colleagues in a truly wonderful industry. 

 

Author 

Mike Cooper

CEO

DOmedia