By Michael Provenzano, CEO, Vistar Media
Each year, the WOO Congress brings together a truly global mix of perspectives - media owners, buyers, and partners from across the world, each navigating their own market dynamics, but connected by a shared interest in where out-of-home is heading. These conversations are important, because they plant the seeds of what needs to evolve and what needs to be built together.
Earlier this year, Vistar Media was acquired by T-Mobile, the leading wireless carrier in the U.S. with a $275B market cap, 70,000 employees, and a retail footprint of thousands of stores across the country. This is a foundational investment by T-Mobile in OOH as a channel. Not just digital. Not just programmatic. The entire physical media landscape.
This wasn’t a milestone only for Vistar—it is a signal to the entire advertising ecosystem that out-of-home is no longer on the sidelines.
A Decade of Building, A Leap Forward with Telco
At Vistar, we’ve spent the last decade building the programmatic operating system for out-of-home. A demand-side platform, supply-side platform, and software stack powering more than 1.2 million screens worldwide. Virtually every format, transaction type, and market.
Now, we get to pair that foundation with the resources and data of an industry-leading telecom. We’re unlocking what’s long been out of reach for OOH: real-time behavior signals, privacy-centric data, and a direct line to closed-loop attribution. That’s the bridge to becoming a performance channel, and T-Mobile is showcasing how telecom and OOH can combine for something entirely new.
Four Priorities for OOH to Win the Next Decade
This is a moment beyond one company, and about what we do next as an industry altogether. To rise to this opportunity, we must focus on four shared imperatives:
- Discoverability
OOH will never scale if buyers can’t find, understand, or activate the channel easily. It’s time to treat every asset—digital and static, sold programmatically and direct—as discoverable inventory. That means unified marketplaces. Rich creative previews. Contextual data overlays.
When buyers explore travel or retail online, the best platforms make the experience visual, intuitive, and smart. OOH needs that same simplicity.
- Outcomes
Impressions aren’t enough. Brands want to know: did my campaign drive visits? Lift brand metrics? Capture attention? Shift behavior? The good news: we finally have the tools to prove it.
With sharper signals and smarter strategy, we’re delivering precision like never before. Smarter audience targeting. Real attribution. OOH can now stand shoulder-to-shoulder with digital performance channels but with the added power of physical presence.
- Retail Media
Retail media is everywhere in 2025. Most of the focus is still online; yet more than 80% of purchases still happen in physical stores, making the in-person environment one of the most underutilized opportunities in advertising. There’s massive potential to bring the power of retail media into those physical spaces and reach shoppers at the point of decision.
T-Mobile has already launched in-store networks powered by Vistar’s software, giving us a live sandbox to bring the retail media vision to life in the physical world and opening up possibilities in areas like targeting, optimization, and attribution.
But this isn’t limited to just one retailer. The same infrastructure powering T-Mobile’s in-store networks can be rolled out across other retail environments. Transit signage, billboards near point-of-sale locations, and other contextually relevant inventory are all part of the physical signage ecosystem that extends retail media beyond the storefront. And if approached thoughtfully, OOH can play a central role in delivering a full-funnel impact.
- Global Scale
Global brands want unified campaigns. Agencies need consistency. Buyers demand platforms that reduce friction.
OOH can deliver, but only if we evolve. That means standardizing inventory access, supporting multi-currency and multilingual buying, and providing tools that let global teams plan locally and execute globally.
We’re already seeing major brands invest serious dollars to activate campaigns across multiple countries. The appetite is here but the infrastructure still needs to catch up. Imagine unlocking demand from around the world for your screens, without needing to establish local sales teams in every market. That future is absolutely possible but only if we as an industry lean in.
We’re already seeing this shift, and we need to push harder. Because OOH can not only be the best local channel, it can also be the most powerful global canvas in media.
What Comes Next
This is the moment we’ve been waiting for and the opportunity we’ve been building toward. But it will take alignment, investment, and bold moves.
If you’re a media owner, this is your time to get your inventory into systems, reimagine creative merchandising, and prepare for new revenue streams tied to retail and performance.
If you’re a buyer, it’s time to put OOH in your full-funnel strategy, test smarter targeting and creative, and challenge your partners to streamline execution.
Vistar is here to help lead the way. And with T-Mobile, we’re building these possibilities together. The future of OOH is here.
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