Louis Mayne is the Chief Investment Officer at Hearts & Science Australia, and is based in Sydney.
What are you most excited about working on in the next 12 months?
Hearts & Science has long-standing relationships with our clients and our client satisfaction scores have never been higher. We feel more confident than ever in pushing them to embrace more innovation and creative thinking in their work.
Creativity is the most powerful driver of advertising effectiveness within our control, I can’t wait to see the exciting things we have planned come to life over the next 12 months and beyond.
What’s a fun fact about you people don’t know?
Back in the UK, I was cast in a Citroën video campaign playing a car salesman named Fred.
What do you wish the OOH industry focused on more in the next twelve months?
Static OOH!
Increasingly prime OOH locations are being converted into digital panels which I think is a real shame; it also is happening here far quicker than in the UK or US.
This isn’t just coming from the OOH companies who make more revenue from a digital panel than a static one, the demand is there from clients. We are often working to shorter and shorter lead times which means printing deadlines are now a bigger issue, so static is harder for us to plan on certain campaigns.
A mix of static and digital panels will deliver a more effective OOH campaign, and we need to help guide our clients on how we can do this with less static inventory and shorter lead times.
What’s your favourite OOH campaign?
Should’ve gone to Specsavers.
The campaign has been going for 20 years and it still delivers the same impact today as it did when it first launched. It isn’t just about a one-off special build; the concept can live across any OOH panel which is why I think it has been so effective.
Predictions for OOH in the next 12 months?
Whilst there is still an element of uncertainty for the ad industry in 2025, I am anticipating OOH to have another strong year with 6-8% growth. There are a few reasons for this:
TV budgets will continue to reduce as audiences decline and we have seen some of this money move into other brand channels like OOH in 2023 and 2024.
Many of our clients increased their OOH spend last year with a positive impact on both their brand health metrics and econometric studies and we have seen this continue in 2024.
There will be a bigger pool of inventory as OOH companies focus on DOOH more than static, so across key demand periods they are less likely to be full.
pDOOH will continue its rise and this way of buying OOH comes with a higher CPM (thus more revenue) and it is pulling in clients who hadn’t previously used OOH.
Spend within Retail OOH will increase as more players come into the market (Coles 360, David Jones Amplify, Drakes. Metcash etc.). Whilst most of this money will come from client’s trade budgets, there is a belief from these companies that they can convince non-endemic clients that their data sets are unique. I don’t think this is the case though.
Biggest challenge in your career so far?
Moving to Australia with minimal contacts in the industry.
The investment teams within the UK focus on channel specialisation, so working in Australia meant I had to increase my knowledge across all channels, with a lot I had never worked on before.
I thought with my experience working in London and speaking the same language it would be an easier transition, but it was much harder than I expected.
What do you think is the biggest opportunity in OOH for marketers, and for the industry?
Spending a bit more time on really understanding what drives ROI for the channel, as there are some easy wins that can make OOH perform even better.
What channels does OOH work well with?
How should it be flighted with these channels to maximise ROI?
Longer campaigns are more effective than shorter campaigns.
A blend of static and digital delivers higher ROI.
Using multiple formats is more effective that just using one.
Tailored or triggered creative can deliver much higher effectiveness.
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