The increase has been announced by OOH trade body, Outsmart, which analysed revenue in the industry between April and June 2021. The revenues are estimated to have reached around £198m, making it the largest quarterly growth ever recorded in the sector.

The increase comes as businesses have opened up after the pandemic and indicates the knock on effect lockdowns and restrictions had on the OOH and advertising industry over the past year-and-a-half.

The Advertising Association/WARC forecasts that UK advertising will grow 18.2% this year with OOH expected to grow 29.3%, making for a positive outlook for the rest of 2021.

Chair of Outsmart, Justin Cochrane, says: “Out-of-home’s strongest growth quarter ever, albeit based on a very challenging Q2 2020, is great to see. We’ve felt the momentum building and are looking forward to this continuing through the rest of the year.”

The surge is an encouraging sign of the industry getting back on track, especially after OOH saw year-on-year increases in revenue, with 2019 boasting around £1.3m in revenue.

Outsmart has cited brands like McDonald’s, Warner Bros Distributors, and Coca-Cola as some of the biggest OOH advertisers of the past five years, all of which have been affected by the pandemic, as products and services have been unavailable or pulled from outlets.

The new statistics have been collated by PwC, along with data regarding the traditional and digital OOH sector which also saw increases of 339% and 247%.

Mark Maitland, head of entertainment and media at PwC, says “As restrictions in the UK continued to ease in Q2 and more people were out and about, it’s good to see that advertising spend has started to come back to the OOH advertising sector. With each passing month, the industry is getting closer to parity with pre-pandemic performance”.

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