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Kantar 2025: why people accept outdoor ads, and 5 lessons for your campaign
Kantar ranks out-of-home and digital out-of-home right behind cinema among the best-received advertising channels. What the study says, and how to use it for your next neighbourhood campaign.
People don’t hate advertising. They hate advertising that interrupts them. That, in one sentence, is what Kantar’s Media Reactions 2025 study says, picked up this week by Little Black Book in an interview with Hannah Walley, Kantar’s head of media in the UK. Here are the numbers, then five lessons to apply to your own campaign.
What the study says
What is advertising equity?
Kantar asks two questions of people exposed to advertising on a channel. One: how would you describe your attitude towards the ads you see there, from very positive to very negative. Two: among all these channels, which ones do you think carry ads that are worth your while.
Advertising equity is the average of the two net positive scores. A high score means people accept advertising on that channel and keep a good image of it. A low score means they put up with it.
Advertising equity by channel, 2025
Above averageAverageBelow average
Source: Kantar, Media Reactions 2025, via LBB Online (7 September 2026). Base: people exposed to advertising on the channel.
Out-of-home, digital or classic, is the best-received advertising medium after cinema. News feeds and online video sit at the bottom. The same content, seen in a feed, is endured. Seen on the street, it is accepted.
Three more findings from the interview are worth noting:
- Across more than 600 European campaigns analysed by Kantar, out-of-home ranks second for reach, behind television only.
- Campaigns combining five channels or more deliver up to three times the impact of campaigns using one or two.
- And above all, creative makes the difference:
Distinctive and engaging creative delivers brand awareness gains of up to 14 times those of weaker creative, on the same screen.Kantar and Global, nearly 500 out-of-home campaigns analysed.
And a generational detail: classic out-of-home is the top advertising medium for women and Gen Z, digital out-of-home for Gen X and boomers. Everyone is there, in their own way.
"We are social animals. The street is where we cross paths. Kantar puts numbers on it: second reach after TV, and the medium people welcome most.
But reach is not enough. What counts is impact: a useful message, in the right place, at the right moment, that leaves a trace. This summer, Partenamut didn't buy screens, it bought the moment the UV index goes above 5. Information passers-by were glad to see. We don't sell inventory, we create moments people remember.
The rest is our job: making it as simple as a post."
Five lessons for your campaign
1. You don’t have to apologise for being there
In a news feed, your ad cuts something short. On the street, it is part of the scenery. That is where out-of-home’s receptivity comes from: nobody was interrupted. Use it to be present, not pushy. A clear message, repeated morning and evening over the same period, beats an aggressive message seen once.
2. Message first, screen second
The 14x factor says it all: a premium screen cannot save weak creative. Hannah Walley sums up the rule: “it needs a visual hook that works in an instant, and simple doesn’t mean boring”. You already have that message: it is the content that performed best on your social channels over the last three months. Your audience has tested it. Give it a second life on the street, without reinventing it.
3. Location follows the objective, not the ego
Kantar cites a fast-food chain: its screens brought customers in because they sat on the way to the restaurant, not on the most photogenic site. If your objective is to get people through a door, your campaign plays out within a few hundred metres of that door. The bus shelter around the corner beats the city’s main square.
4. Adapt the message to the context
The interview stresses dwell time: three seconds by a road, several minutes in front of a station screen. And timing: the example given is an ice-cream brand that shows up when the temperature rises. That is no longer reserved for big brands. This summer, Partenamut only ran its sun-protection message when the local UV index went above 5. The weather, the hour, a match score or stock to move can decide the moment.
5. Don’t isolate out-of-home
The 3x factor for multichannel campaigns is not an argument to spend more. It is an argument to connect. The same visual, the same message, online and on your customers’ street: the passer-by recognises what they saw on their phone, and the other way round. Out-of-home becomes the part of your digital plan nobody can ignore.
"The number I keep is 14. Content makes the difference, not the size of the screen. And our clients already have that content: it is in the posts that worked. Our role is to carry it to 500 metres from their door, where people live, work and buy, and to repeat it long enough to be remembered. The more granular, the more it reaches."
Where to start
Take your best-performing post of the last three months. Pick the neighbourhood where your customers are. Simulate the campaign: you see the screens, the period and the price before you decide. To go further on measurement, our piece on DOOH audience measurement explains how we count who really saw your message.
Study source: How to Maximise Return on Investment with OOH, LBB Online, 7 September 2026, based on Kantar Media Reactions 2025.
