Covid-19: What comes next?
Global OOH Predictions
June 2020

P. 2
Technology, the great enabler
With the sharp adoption of new
technologies blurring the balance
between an increasingly virtual way
of living, how will the way we
navigate the world change in the
new normal? PSI, outline their
predictions for travel and the out of
home (OOH) industry.
All of our lives have been affected
by the pandemic. From restrictions on
travel, postponement of large events
like the Olympics, the need to home-
school to the way we shop and
maintain relationships, the disruption is
unprecedented.
In an instant, our reliance on digital
technologies became more necessary
than ever. Businesses had to push
technological infrastructure to its limits,
adopting new workflows to prevent as
much disruption as possible as soaring
numbers of employees began working
remotely across the globe. Digital
transformation has accelerated at an
exponential rate and by and large, it’s
working.
Digital communication companies like
Slack, Microsoft Teams and Zoom
have seen stock values grow
as demand for remote working
tools has surged.
Conversely the travel and OOH
industries have suffered during the first
phase of the pandemic. The clearest
evidence of this can be seen in the
stark images of empty airports and the
notably quiet roads. 96% of countries
have now implemented some form of
restriction on mobility in a bid to contain
the outbreak, grounding almost all of us
in one way or another.
A financial crisis is likely to come next,
undoubtedly resulting in further change
to the global travel and media
landscapes. Within this document, PSI
explore what they believe will be the
main implications of these crisis on the
future of mobility and the global OOH
industry.
In any crisis there is opportunity. Seeing the global grounding and surge in
demand for video conferencing, Burger King took advantage of new audience
behaviours by running a promotion in the US offering free Whoppers for those
who use Its Billboards as Zoom backgrounds – bringing OOH in-home. Source:
ADWEEK 2020
Burger King – USA, 2020

P. 3
The FutureAccelerated: Five Post-COVID-19 Predictions
Touchless Retail and Future Mobility
Extreme Travel Segments Prioritizing Audience-Led OOH
‘Staycations’ and 'Bubble Travel’
The Influence of China

P. 4
The immediate bounce back;
‘Staycations’and 'Bubble
Travel’
People are dreaming about travelling
again, looking for that perfect
destination when things are over but
whilst dreams don’t cost, holidays and
travel do.
Sensitivities around cost, coupled with
health concerns and lack of opportunity
for long-distance travel, mean that
staycations and short-haul trips are
likely to be the first green shoots of
recovery for the travel and tourism
industry. A recent survey of American
‘dollar flight club’ members revealed
that over 56% plan on staying in the
US over the summer - the return of the
great American road-trip.
Short haul travel is likely to benefit too.
“Travel bubbles/corridors/airbridges”
are all things that are coming into force,
or being discussed at a legislative
level, to allow people to travel freely
between two or more countries in a
phased re-introduction of international
tourism. Agreements such as the trans-
Tasman bubble between New Zealand
and Australia, and Vietnam and
Thailand’s travel corridor are early
signs of what is to come.
This offers a great opportunity for
destination marketing organizations to
engage with audiences closer to home
however for other brands this shift in
consumer travel habits will result in a
need to reevaluate current global travel
strategies. Brands need be ready to
adjust to the changing situation on a
market by market basis, engaging
audiences with differing strategies
across the domestic, regional and
finally international travel recovery
phases. It is therefore vital that brands
become adept at reading the recovery
signals for each phase of the bounce
back.
To assist with this PSI has developed a
pathway to recovery framework,
building on our ‘no single point of truth’
approach to location and travel data,
which helps brands navigate the
response, recovery and return phases
both within and across markets of the
world.
In 2018, car sharing company Lyft promoted summer ‘staycations’ to New
Yorkers with an out of home campaign across 5 boroughs. Promoting six NYC
destinations: The High Line, Museum Mile, Rockaway Beach, Industry City, Fort
Tryon, and Brooklyn Bridge Park, the brand created high impact artworks
reminiscent of vintage “Greetings From” postcards to show that these seemingly
far-off destinations are actually only a Lyft ride away. Source: Weiden & Kennedy 2018
Lyft – New York, 2018

P. 5
Health is now a key concern for
people when they travel. Transport
authorities and retailers are moving
rapidly to implement new touchless
technologies that allow for safer
engagement with consumers as
restrictions are lifted. The push
towards automation, contactless,
click and collect, facial recognition
and self-service technology brings
with it a new “social distancing-
friendly” end to end experience.
The immediate future is touchless,
with a greater need for brands to
harness the power of data and
technology advancing the blurring
of offline and online experiences.
Many brands are turning to virtual
and augmented technologies as
future solutions. Sephora and
L’Oréal have been leading the way
with augmented reality in retail,
allowing shoppers to “try on” a
shade of lipstick or makeup via
virtual mirrors or their smartphone
screens.
The ability to engage with the
physical via mobile is increasingly
being utilized by the OOH industry.
UK OOH media owner Ocean
Outdoor has announced plans to
introduce touchless advertising
screens, deploying mid-air haptics
technology to DOOH, replacing
touchscreen activity with displays
and interfaces which are triggered
by natural hand movements in the
air. This opens the way for other
engagement opportunities such as
‘contactless shoppable billboards’.
More than ever, consumers are
ready to use these technologies to
enhance their experiences in a
given location. A recent study by
travel market research company
M1ndSet, found that 70% of
shoppers want to see more
prevalent use of VR and AR
technology.
The touchless future of tomorrow
will require brands to adapt their
digital strategy and drive robust
omni-channel presence blurring
offline and online engagement more
effectively.
Touchless retail and
the future of mobility
Tesco’s Homeplus introduced "virtual stores" in South Korea,
showing products on posters at metro stations and bus stops. Commuters
could scan the QR codes of the products on display with their smartphones and
place their orders as they waited for their trains or buses. Source: YouTube 2015
Homeplus – South Korea, 2015

P. 6
Many companies, empowered by the
effectiveness of virtual communication
technologies throughout the pandemic,
will look to capitalize on what they see
as an opportunity to reduce travel costs
and deliver on sustainability targets, so
is this the end of business travel as we
know it?
Whilst effective, the high usage of
conferencing technologies such as
Microsoft Teams and Zoom over these
last few months has demonstrated their
limitations. Human rapport and
relationships simply cannot be built and
strengthened by a complete reliance on
conference and video calls – there is no
substitute for face to face meetings. A
survey by National Car Rental showed
that 81% of their sample believe
business travel helps them build key
relationships they otherwise couldn’t
have without travel.
Whilst business travel is usually less
impacted by health concerns, recent
history has forced many to rethink their
future travel needs.
that a more concentrated level of c-
suites taking necessary travel will shape
the recovery of this segment, bringing
with it an opportunity for b2b brands to
engage with this elusive audience.
A similar trend is likely to be seen in
leisure travel, from ultra-high net-worth
individuals (UHNWIs) to those needing
to visit friends and relatives (VFRs)
overseas, the immediate rise of
concentrated ‘extreme travel segments’
are likely to shape the recovery of
global travel. Prior to widespread global
lockdowns, private jet travel saw a jump
(+40% YoY since March) in demand as
passengers looked to avoid lengthy
waiting times across major global hubs.
Driven by similar motivation, we expect
private jet and cross border trains will
likely be the first to benefit from the
immediate rise driven by these extreme
travel segments.
With PSI’s access to predictive travel
data, we are able to understand, where,
when and how diverse segments travel,
and what OOH media mix to use to
optimize engagement.
The rise of the ‘extreme travel
segment’
Dell Technologies works with PSI to understand the movement patterns of
Global C-Suites and IT decision markers. Together developing a location
strategy to reach them, underpinned by PSI’s data platform & partnerships. We
have worked together for the past 4 years implementing a campaign that spans
12 markets including environments such as major Airport hubs, private jet
terminals and city-based OOH.
XXXX

P. 7
China, having just broken the 50%
recovery mark for domestic air
travel, is poised to lead the
stabilization of international travel
along with other Asian markets.
The power of the Chinese traveler on
the international stage cannot be
underestimated both in terms of
passenger numbers but also
spending power. Currently the
second largest passenger market,
China is expected to overtake
the US by 2031. However, with
recent events, and the speedy
Chinese domestic recovery, it
is expected that this rise to top spot
will come earlier than previously
predicted.
Chinese International tourists spent
$277.3bn in 2018, making them the
most valuable travel audience to
many travel & retail brands, spending
almost four times more than any
other passenger audience. Luxury
brands such as Burberry, LVMH and
Hermes have in recent days all
experienced the power of pent up
Chinese consumer demand, with
reports suggesting Hermes made
$2.7 million in the first day it
reopened its store in Guangzhou.
These brands have all deployed
effective engagement with their
Chinese consumers throughout the
crisis, highlighting the power of
‘purpose over profits’ when it comes
to advertising during these times.
This audience is key to the recovery
of global travel, and a segment within
this - Free Independent Travelers
(FITs) - is recovering faster than any
other sub segment. Whilst group
travel makes up the largest share of
Chinese travel currently, as the FIT
segment continues to grow, we
expect the overall profile of China’s
traveler will become younger, digitally
reliant, and more internationally
minded.
The speed of recovery in Chinese
travel coupled with these new
segments requires smarter
communication strategies in order to
effectively engage with these
influential consumers outside
mainland China. Partnering with
Forwardkeys, PSI utilizes Chinese
travel data coupled with our unique
‘global travel corridor’ (GTCx)
planning framework to deliver market
leading OOH solutions to engage
these audiences across the globe.
The growing importance of
China and the Free
Independent Travelers (FIT)
Visa China worked with PSI, utilizing our unique data sets to understand when
and where to engage with Chinese luxury travellers when in Europe. A mixture
of telecommunications and travel data was used to create a full end-to-end
campaign.
VISA China – London, 2018

P. 8
Volatility is the new normal for the
travel industry: geopolitical events,
terrorism, and more recent global
pandemics continue to significantly
influence international travel and our
mobility patterns.
This volatility has led many in the
OOH industry to challenge the long-
standing minimum guarantee
commercial models that have
been favoured by many landlords and
transport hubs for several
years. 92% of airports reported
utilizing minimum guarantees in their
concession agreements. These
models guarantee income to
landlords on the basis of a stable
historical audience that media owners
can price and offer to advertisers
however, recent events have brought
into sharp focus that, volatility in
people’s mobility pattern means
a more flexible audience-led
approach must become standard
practice.
Advances in data, analytics and the
digitalisation of OOH infrastructure
are empowering global media owners
and PSI to adapt to this
future, allowing for new sophisticated
and flexible audience-led buying in
OOH to become a reality.
This approach is paving the way
towards the possibility of global
programmatic OOH solutions.
Allowing campaigns to be planned,
bought and served to diverse
audience profiles, minimising
wastage and maximizing the
potential for personalized
communication strategies for brands
across the world.
PSI’s proprietary platform ECOS is at
the forefront of this new
programmatic frontier. ECOS
combined with our unique mobility
and audience insights, fuelled by both
historic and future data allows PSI to
centrally plan, buy and dynamically
serve against global audience
segments and unlock global OOH
audiences from one central platform.
From environment to
audience, OOH is going
programmatic
PVHs campaign in Barcelona and Madrid utilized audience listening to profile
audience segments in real-time and display the corresponding creative on
relevant DOOH screens. Delivering a data driven, audience led campaign that
maximized value by minimizing wastage.
Calvin Klein – Spain, 2019

Edward Heaney
Strategic Development Director PSI
Edward.Heaney@psiad.com
© 2020 Copyright owned by PSI
International Division of Posterscope All Rights Reserved
www.psiad.com
‘The way we navigate our world has sustained its fair amount of disruption
throughout the years, but nothing has made us question its future more
than the current crisis. Industry resilience remains strong and, in time,
recovery will be evident. Flexibility, innovation and adaptation are the new
battlegrounds. Agencies, brands and advertisers that adapt most effectively
to these shifts in consumer behaviour and mobility will be the ones who
shape the long-term future of the travel and global OOH industries.’