The Development Trend of Outdoor Advertising in China

Currently, the global outdoor advertising market exceeds $50 billion in size and continues to grow overall. Under the leadership of leading outdoor advertising companies in China and the United States, the global outdoor advertising industry has entered a period of vigorous development, presenting a huge new space for industrial growth.
The "Research on High Quality Development of China's Outdoor Advertising Industry" compiled by the Institute of Industrial Economics and Technological Economics of the Chinese Academy of Macroeconomics presents a panoramic view of the development background, practical achievements, and trend suggestions of China's outdoor advertising industry.
1、 The outdoor advertising industry links supply and demand, with multiple functions such as promoting commercial prosperity, driving industrial upgrading, and spreading positive energy
Outdoor advertising refers to a form of advertising that uses outdoor environments as a carrier to convey brand information to audiences through videos, text, images, and other forms. It is characterized by scene based advertising, and by placing video and print advertisements in consumer life and travel scenarios such as public transportation, commercial areas, and residential communities, it reaches the hearts of the audience and achieves value marketing
Outdoor advertising covers consumers' daily life and travel scenes, and compared to other advertising media, it has stronger reach, influence, and infectivity, higher audience acceptance, and stronger consumption driving force. From the perspective of industry chain composition, outdoor advertising can be divided into upstream spatial resource providers, midstream advertising service providers, and downstream advertising demanders according to the advertising production and publishing process.
Outdoor is an irreplaceable and important marketing reach scenario, and high-quality outdoor brand advertising traffic is an indispensable main battlefield for various brands to achieve reach strategies. According to a research report by iResearch Consulting, it is expected that 28.3% of advertisers will increase their outdoor advertising by 2025, with 65% of advertisers having a budget of over 4 million, representing a 3.3% increase during the same period.
As an important hub linking supply and demand, outdoor advertising serves multiple economic and social functions.
Firstly, promote business prosperity and unleash consumer potential. As a key link in the business ecosystem and an important engine of consumer vitality, outdoor advertising covers high traffic scenarios and combines dynamic and precise content delivery to build a commercial closed loop of "traffic entry consumption conversion brand appreciation", efficiently reaching potential consumers, stimulating consumption willingness, and driving commercial value transformation.
Secondly, promote technological innovation and industrial upgrading. Through the continuous expansion of the application of new generation digital technologies such as big data, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and the Internet of Things, outdoor advertising continues to promote the innovative upgrading trend of "hardware innovation data empowerment model innovation", helping the industry improve quality and efficiency.
Thirdly, it helps to boost employment and social stability. Currently, in China's advertising industry, enterprises and institutions above designated size provide advertising employment opportunities for 268000 people, while enterprises below designated size employ an average of 4 advertising professionals per household. The development of outdoor advertising is driven by direct job creation and industry chain synergy, promoting economic growth, stimulating the job market, and promoting social stability.
Fourth, showcase regional culture and urban image. As an important component of urban space and a vivid carrier of urban culture, outdoor advertising plays an important role in showcasing urban cultural characteristics, shaping urban cultural symbols, and creating new carriers of public art.
Fifth, promote the main theme and spread positive energy. Outdoor advertising plays a social education role by influencing consumers' attitudes and behaviors. Outdoor advertising, as a carrier of public propaganda and public welfare communication, is rooted in the daily living space of the masses and can bring greater public effects, promoting social progress.
2、 The global outdoor advertising market is steadily improving, showing a trend of digital transformation, ecological integration, and green development
The continuous deepening of global urbanization, the improvement of economic development level, and the upgrading of consumption structure have injected strong momentum into the outdoor advertising industry. In recent years, the global outdoor advertising market has steadily increased in size. In 2020, the global outdoor advertising industry was approximately $42.57 billion, and by 2024, it had reached $52.99 billion, with an annual growth rate of around 4.5%.
From the perspective of advertising types, outdoor video advertising has become the main engine of industry growth. Compared with traditional outdoor advertising, outdoor video advertising can provide more refined targeted marketing, improve advertising efficiency, and directly guide consumers to share and interact, achieving dual communication online and offline, and promoting consumers to complete consumption behavior. It is expected that by 2029, the global outdoor video advertising market will reach approximately $37.04 billion, accounting for about 55.9%, leading the overall outdoor marketing market.
From the perspective of development potential of various countries, China and the United States account for half of the global outdoor advertising market. In 2023, the global outdoor advertising market size is approximately 51.15 billion US dollars, of which the US market is 17.87 billion US dollars, accounting for about 34.9%, and the Chinese market is 11.33 billion US dollars, accounting for about 22.2%. Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Australia, Canada, Russia, and South Korea rank 3-10 respectively.
Facing the future, outdoor advertising presents a multidimensional development trend.
Firstly, digital full chain reconstruction and intelligent technology drive the upgrading of industrial value. The outdoor advertising industry is undergoing a comprehensive digital transformation, which is mainly reflected in two dimensions: advertising presentation methods and marketing decision-making systems. In terms of advertising presentation, digital technology and display technology are accelerating the development of sticker packaging, promoting outdoor advertising to be more technological and expressive. In terms of marketing decision-making systems, outdoor advertising companies are accelerating the establishment of digital systems to drive outdoor advertising from "experience driven" to "intelligent decision-making".
Secondly, the integration of industrial ecology, leading enterprises continue to promote mergers and acquisitions. In recent years, the global outdoor advertising industry has been accelerating into a period of resource integration. Leading companies are continuously restructuring their market structure through capital operations and strategic mergers and acquisitions, promoting sustained improvement in industry efficiency.
The motivation for mergers and acquisitions of leading enterprises is usually to promote the integration of industry resources and the construction of global networks. On the one hand, leading enterprises significantly accelerate the transformation process, improve industry operational efficiency, and avoid excessive competition squeezing industry profits by acquiring technology-based small and medium-sized enterprises to integrate data, technology, and other resources. On the other hand, by acquiring regional enterprises, we can quickly obtain core scene advertising resources and localized operational capabilities, thereby rapidly opening up overseas markets, expanding overseas business scale, enhancing control over regional markets, and building a global development network. It is expected that in the coming period, large outdoor advertising enterprises will continue to implement acquisition strategies and promote the integration of upstream and downstream resources in the industry.
Thirdly, the full chain penetration of green and low-carbon transformation emphasizes green development in the industrial paradigm. With the increasing awareness of sustainable development and the application of green technology, outdoor advertisers continue to shape a good corporate image and fulfill their social responsibilities by adopting green development methods.
3、 China's outdoor advertising industry is experiencing a simultaneous increase in both quantity and quality, accelerating the formation of new competitive advantages
At present, China's outdoor advertising industry has entered a new stage of high-quality development. While the market size is expanding, the structure is constantly optimizing, the pace of innovation is accelerating, and market entities are active, gradually building differentiated competitive advantages.
Firstly, the scale of the industry is steadily expanding. In 2024, the size of China's advertising market is about 1.5 trillion yuan, and the size of the outdoor advertising market is about 85.22 billion yuan, accounting for about 5.68%. This reflects the overall growth trend of the outdoor advertising market, but at the same time, its overall proportion in the advertising market is still very low, and outdoor advertising still needs to compete with other types of advertising, facing structural challenges in the digital wave. From the perspective of the industry landscape, the outdoor advertising market presents a highly decentralized feature, with a large number of participants competing in both scene types and media forms.
Secondly, the organizational structure continues to evolve. Outdoor advertising, with its unique advantages of scenarization and immersion, provides advertisers with diverse advertising options. From the perspective of media forms, it can be mainly divided into two categories: outdoor video advertising and outdoor print advertising, which meet the communication needs of different brands. In 2024, the market size of outdoor video and platform advertising in China will be approximately 48.32 billion yuan and 36.9 billion yuan, accounting for 56.7% and 43.3% of the overall industry, respectively. These two types of media forms jointly meet the differentiated communication needs of different brands.
The outdoor advertising market in China presents a pattern of national enterprise groups, regional leaders, and technologically advanced systems developing and competing on the same stage. Various types of enterprises actively innovate and accurately position their target markets, forming a fully competitive situation with multiple levels and wide coverage. Focus Media occupies a leading position in high-frequency scenes in core cities, while New Tide Media focuses on complementary community markets. White Horse Outdoor dominates public transportation advertising, while Yongda Media deeply cultivates high-speed rail station resources and continues to enrich the market ecology; Tencent, ByteDance and other platform enterprises use the data advantage to optimize the delivery strategy for outdoor advertising. Vogel Media and other companies combine the application of preface technologies such as MetaUniverse, and introduce innovative forms such as AR advertising into the market layout of JD, Meituan and other brands to constantly promote industry upgrading.
From the perspective of business coverage, the main operators all have national operational service capabilities. Zhaoxun Media has established a high-speed rail media network covering 31 provincial-level administrative regions across the country, with an annual reach of over 2 billion passengers; The urban life circle media network created by Focus Media covers more than 300 cities, deeply penetrating the work, life, and entertainment scenes of mainstream consumer groups through products such as building media and cinema media; DeGao China has a leading advantage in transportation media such as subways and buses; New Tide Media focuses on community scenes and deeply cultivates regional markets through a differentiated strategy of "one city, one policy". These diverse outdoor advertising scenarios provide advertisers with flexible advertising channels, allowing them to independently choose one or more scenarios for advertising placement.
At the same time, there are also a large number of small and medium-sized operators active in various regions who conduct business through the agent model. With the advantage of localized operation, they form complementary advantages with national operators. This multi-level market structure not only ensures the scale effect of the industry, but also meets the differentiated needs of different regions and scenarios, providing advertisers with more flexible and diverse advertising choices.
Thirdly, maintain stable quality and efficiency. Driven by both digital transformation and dynamic innovation, the outdoor advertising industry has gradually formed a quality advantage that differs from the traditional static communication paradigm of print advertising.
The characteristic of outdoor advertising is to effectively improve reach and completion rates by constructing a multidimensional audience perception framework; Enhancing consumer engagement through interactivity and effectively increasing playback frequency; By utilizing narrative content design and contextualized atmosphere rendering, the value transition of brand information towards embodied emotional resonance has been achieved, increasing consumer attention.
The increase in reach rate, completion rate, playback frequency, and attention marks a paradigm revolution in advertising communication from one-way information transmission to two-way emotional reach.
Fourthly, technological innovation is accelerating. Outdoor advertising is breaking through the limitations of traditional media and integrating into urban spaces and consumer life in a more intelligent way. Technological innovation is driving the transformation of outdoor advertising from one-way communication to two-way interaction, upgrading from extensive advertising to precise outreach, extending from simple exposure to effect transformation, and building a fully integrated online and offline marketing ecosystem for brand owners.
Fifth, social functions are gradually enriched. Outdoor advertising not only penetrates into consumers' living environment, but also creates public welfare value for society through its unique influence.
CCTV's public welfare channel widely disseminates public service advertisements such as "Promoting Civilization and Cultivating New Trends" and socialist core values through outdoor advertising platforms; In 2023, WWF (World Wildlife Fund) collaborated with Focus Media to launch a dynamic advertisement for "Earth Hour". These advertisements not only enhance the public's awareness of civilization, but also promote the spread of positive social energy through vivid creativity and extensive coverage.
Sixth, the policy environment is increasingly improving. The policy environment of China's outdoor advertising industry presents a framework feature of "central local collaborative supervision and public welfare commercial balance", with the Advertising Law as the institutional cornerstone, supplemented by local regulatory innovation and mandatory requirements for public welfare advertising, which not only guarantees enterprise profits but also creates a good atmosphere to maintain fair and just market competition.
In terms of public interest, the "Interim Measures for the Promotion and Management of Public Service Advertisements" jointly issued by the State Administration for Market Regulation and six departments form a rigid constraint, requiring outdoor media to publish and broadcast no less than 3% of public service advertisements annually, and core areas such as Wangfujing in Beijing and Lujiazui in Shanghai to increase the proportion to 8% -10% through political consultation.
Looking at the development of the outdoor advertising industry in China and the United States, China's outdoor advertising is still in a low concentration competitive market. The top four outdoor media companies in terms of revenue account for about 23.1% of the market share, with only two companies entering the global top ten in terms of revenue. In terms of innovation level, international competitiveness of enterprises, and government and social support, China's outdoor advertising industry still needs further development.
Looking to the future, China's outdoor advertising industry needs to continuously optimize its organizational structure, cultivate first-class outdoor advertising enterprises, focus on building a diversified, high-quality and efficient industrial development pattern, support leading enterprises to vertically integrate resources, and build a full chain capability of "media operation+technology research and development+data services" through mergers and acquisitions, alliances, etc., and encourage innovative cross-border integration methods.
At the same time, promoting the digital transformation of outdoor advertising through technological, business, and model innovation; Accelerate the global layout of enterprises and enhance the international influence of outdoor advertising; Intensify policy support and create a sound industrial development ecosystem; We also look forward to more measures and successful experiences in improving the supervision and management system, enhancing the level of industrial standardization, and other aspects.