Media Mayhem: John O’Neill – ‘The Australian OOH industry used to always look overseas for inspiration. Not anymore’
These are interesting times, and the challenges faced by Australian marketing and media are frequently diabolical. There is always opportunity in a crisis, but rarely a single solution that is easy to see. Many are worried, searching for answers, and seeking guidance from our best thinkers. At Mumbrella, we want to interview industry leaders to understand their insights and learn how they handle the challenges and structure for the future. We hope this can help inspire our industry to trade through the storms and deliver the best work on the global stage.
In this week’s Media Mayhem, we sit down with the CEO of QMS, John O'Neill.
How is the operating environment impacting your team, clients and partners?
The Australian media landscape is continuing to evolve at a rapid pace. From my vantage point, the key factor driving this change is the shifting demands and priorities of our clients. More than ever, we’re seeing clients place a greater emphasis on strategic thinking and accountability when it comes to their advertising investments, which is good news for out of home (OOH).
Our industry paces ahead in its ability to provide the flexibility, accountability and results marketers and agencies demand in a tough market. Today’s savvy marketers are looking for partners who can provide tailored, data-driven solutions that deliver measurable results and our teams at QMS are in the box seat to deliver that as we head into 2025.
What changes are you seeing in consumer behaviour and preferences?
The cost-of-living crisis, still-high interest rates and political uncertainty both here and overseas continue to drag down consumer confidence and, as a result, consumer spending. While there are some bright spots, some categories are doing it tough. In general, consumers are still spending, they are just being more considered about where they spend. Overall, we are optimistic about the opportunities coming in 2025.
How are you using technology to your advantage?
Digital technology has made, and continues to make, a massive difference to the OOH sector and how clients can use it to engage with big audiences. OOH is a much more dynamic and flexible medium than it was a few years ago, and the way clients are using it has changed accordingly. OOH continues to be a broadcast medium, but now due to technology, clients can better utilise the medium for campaigns right through the sales funnel.
Programmatic trading and ease of transaction is where technology is also paying dividends for OOH. At QMS, our investment in connected systems and tools that take away the manual handling of OOH campaigns for both customers and our sales and operations teams has been a key focus, and our roadmap will continue to evolve as further capabilities are realised and adopted.
How are you using generative artificial intelligence?
Hand in hand with our tech roadmap, the adoption of all AI is being embraced across various aspects of our business. As we continue to test and learn its capabilities that are relevant to our business, our teams are investing more time into education around all aspects of AI to unlock better efficiencies that deliver faster and more meaningful outputs for our clients.
When you lift your eyes from the screen to the media and marketing horizon, how are you planning?
The Australian OOH industry used to always look overseas for trends, direction and inspiration. Not anymore. These days, overseas OOH companies are studying what we are doing and wanting to know more about our innovations such as – in the case of QMS – our advances in digital technology, our world-leading City of Sydney digital street furniture network and the world-first attention study we did with Amplified Intelligence.
Our Paris Olympics and Paralympics digital screen network this year was a fantastic example of planning for the future and delivering an end result that positively changed our commercial results, and the role of OOH can play in major global sporting and cultural events. The network marked a new age in the capabilities of digital out of home (DOOH) to deliver dynamic content with immediacy, accuracy and scale, dynamically serving an extraordinary 81,478 pieces of content creative – a feat never seen before in the local OOH industry.
We are also working far more collaboratively as an industry, as evidenced by the launch of MOVE 2.0 next year and the cross-industry initiatives to educate clients agencies about DOOH. As the OOH medium becomes more sophisticated and multi-dimensional in its offering, it also runs the risk of making planning and buying more complex. Our team are working closely with clients to explain the key dimensions required for effective DOOH campaigns. Education is the single greatest asset available to our industry for growth.
What opportunities do you see, and how are you positioning your organisation to exploit them?
As one of the leading players in the Australian OOH industry, QMS has been at the forefront of its transformation. Over the past year, we’ve made significant investments in bolstering our strategic capabilities, ensuring that we can deliver the solutions our clients demand.
A key milestone for us in 2024 was the successful bid for the Transport for NSW contract, which we will be selling from 1 January 2025. This has not only expanded our digital footprint in Sydney – where we already had key assets such as the City of Sydney network – but has also given us the opportunity to engage in deeper, more strategic conversations with clients about how to leverage these premium high-impact environments. Conducting the world’s first ever attention study for OOH underpins our commitment to DOOH leadership and marks the beginning of this journey as we continue to unpack the power and efficacy of our network for our clients.
Programmatic trading will, of course, continue to rapidly expand as more advertisers layer programmatic strategy to complement more traditional ways of buying, while further data partnerships with companies including Samba TV and Fonto will help us better understand the impact of our customers’ campaigns.
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