Major deals these past seven days have placed the DooH market in headlines of big business portals. M&A reports from Ströer, Clear Channel, and Vistar Media are indicating growing investor interest and could fuel strategic ventures in the year ahead.
The first three weeks of January have already made quite a mark in the DooH history books. In a somewhat sluggish and uncertain advertising market, digital out of home seems to have established itself as a safe bet. Not only within the OoH industry but also amongst financial investors, business strategists, and corporations at the intersection of digital advertising.
Here are the big M&A news from this week:
- Ströer is considerng the sale of its OoH business for a valued EUR 4 billion
- Clear Channel divested its Northern European assets to Bauer Media Group
- Vistar Media sold its platforms to T-Mobile US
T-Mobile US, to start, has indirectly turned itself into a screen millionaire almost overnight by acquiring Vistar Media, one of the largest DooH platforms out there: Through Vistar’s ad technology, around 1.1 million DooH screens are sold, managed, and bought. Considering the 700,000 screens that already run through the fingers of T-Mobile’s advertising platforms, the US telco branch is now a very large intermediary between ad buyers and media owners. It’s clear the company aims to become an indispensable building block in the digital advertising ecosystem.
It remains to be seen how well T-Mobile will be able to integrate its First Party Data into Vistar’s platforms. And how much more precise this integration will make the delivery of DooH ads.
But even though data is an important currency in DooH, the ultimate currency is still reach. And that hinges on the number of screens out there. What we’re seeing more and more now is a rising interest of financial and strategic investors, most recently with Germany’s OoH market leader Ströer confirming they’re in discussions with private equity investors to sell their outdoor advertising business.
But big media houses are also turning to DooH to diversify their revenue streams and digitalize their offering: Clear Channel Outdoor’s Northern European assets have just been acquired by Bauer Media Group as part of its “exit Europe strategy,” while Axel Springer already invested in the DooH company Framen five years ago. Both are major European media houses with billions of earnings per year.
Private equity firms and media houses alike will be keen on both expanding and digitalizing their acquired OoH networks. And their interest in the DooH market may also attract other players this year, for example from the digital ad world, to bet their dollars on DooH.