2026 ad trends from AdQuick

2025 reshaped the advertising landscape, setting the stage for what will be continued transformation in 2026. For advertisers and brands alike, it’s imperative to update processes and technologies, and ensure teams actually understand the latest culture shifts to best take advantage of a changing world.

At AdQuick, we remain steadfast in our mission to empower brands through the world's best out-of-home (OOH) platform, providing the easiest way to take advantage of this growing market, in its entirety. Here's a look at the trends we see shaping the industry and why 2026 is poised to be another interesting year for OOH and the advertising industry at large.

Social ad fatigue accelerates

What started as fatigue is now outright avoidance. In 2026, consumers won’t be just “tuning out” social ads, many will choose platforms specifically because they’re less ad-dense, as ad overload and repetition push them away. One analysis found roughly 91% of users ignore social ads and most feel there are “too many ads” in their feeds. Social ad fatigue has been shown to cut click-through rates by around a third and increase costs per click by roughly 20% in some campaigns.

Ad inventories keep expanding, CPMs keep rising, and attention keeps dropping as marketers compete in increasingly crowded auctions, according to Sprinklr’s social media marketing statistics. Brands will finally internalize what’s been true for years: digital saturation requires counter-balances, with unblockable, high-trust channels like OOH, email, and streaming-based integrations becoming non-negotiable pillars of the media mix.

Privacy, ad blocking, and fraud anxieties aren’t going away

Regulation continues its global march, but consumer sentiment is the real story: people are increasingly skeptical of how their data is used and how often they are tracked, which helps explain why many users install ad blockers and say intrusive ads are harming their perception of brands (research shows). This skepticism is amplified as third-party cookies deprecate and privacy rules tighten, making opaque tracking practices even less acceptable to consumers and regulators.

At the same time, ad fraud has become a multi-billion-dollar drag on digital budgets, with the market for ad fraud detection tools alone estimated in the hundreds of millions to several billions of dollars and projected to grow at high-teens compound annual rates (source). OOH’s value as a privacy-safe, fraud-resistant channel becomes even more pronounced, pushing more brands to rebalance budgets toward formats that reach real humans in real places with measurable real-world outcomes.

The OOH renaissance becomes well known

OOH isn’t just “back” – it’s growing steadily and hitting new records. In the US, OOH ad revenue rose from $8.7 billion in 2023 to $9.13 billion in 2024, with digital OOH making up about a third of that spend and growing faster than traditional formats. Growth has continued through 2025, with each quarter setting new highs and digital OOH consistently posting strong year-over-year gains while classic formats like street furniture and transit also keep rising. These trends make it clear: OOH’s growth streak is structural.

AI becomes the invisible operating system of marketing

2025 made AI normal; 2026 makes it necessary. Surveys of marketing leaders show AI and automation among the top priorities for CMOs, as they look to compress planning cycles and scale content without proportional headcount growth.

For OOH, AI-powered:

• Creative inspiration and mockups (we just launched a new tool to help)

• Predictive performance

• Planning assistance

• Campaign optimization

…will all be used, enabling hundreds or thousands of creative variants and smarter placement based on mobility patterns and contextual triggers. Brands with AI-augmented teams will feel like they’re operating with superpowers, turning OOH into a test-and-learn engine that plugs directly into broader analytics and measurement stacks.

Integrated campaigns win—and the integration deepens

Unified messaging across channels continues to separate winners from everyone else, but in 2026 the real differentiator is how confidently brands can measure what’s working. Full-funnel architectures evolve beyond simple coordination, with channels actively informing one another through scalable measurement frameworks, MMM, and optimization systems that translate data into decisions rather than dashboards. (White paper)

OOH plays a major role by serving as both a cultural anchor and a trusted signal layer—amplifying digital, search, in-store, and social while grounding integrated plans in observable, real-world behavior. Research continues to show that adding OOH to TV and online improves overall ROI and brand metrics versus TV alone, but the bigger shift is structural: linear customer journeys are gone, orchestrated ecosystems are in, and OOH increasingly provides the measurable foundation that allows integrated campaigns to scale with confidence.

Linear TV’s decline becomes irreversible

Streaming continues its dominance, but 2026 marks the year TV fragmentation becomes too extreme to sustain traditional linear buys at scale. Recent reports indicate global linear TV ad spend has fallen by more than a quarter in nominal terms over the past decade and by over half after adjusting for inflation..

From here, brands will shift dollars into:

• High-reach digital and connected TV, which are projected to continue posting double-digit ad revenue growth and to surpass linear TV ad revenue globally (study).

• Retail media and other performance channels, which continue to attract incremental budgets.

• Email, podcasts, OOH and other high quality channels where ads are assuredly delivered

And, OOH often is the only reliable, large-scale reach channel that does not require navigating a fractured distribution landscape, making it a natural home for reallocated TV reach budgets.

Agency reinvention: rebrands, restructures, and a new pragmatism

Following years of structural upheaval, margin pressure, and talent reshuffling, 2026 becomes the year major agencies formally reboot their identities. Expect sweeping rebrands, both cosmetic and strategic, as holding companies reposition around a blend of pragmatism and tech-forward execution.

This shift is driven by several forces:

• AI integration becomes the table stakes pitch, pushing agencies to showcase real workflows, not theoretical decks, and emphasizing automation that cuts hours, reduces production overhead, and delivers faster campaigns.

• Clients demand measurable efficiency, preferring partners that can prove operational discipline, integrate with their own stacks, and drive down time-to-market.

• The collapse of old silos (creative, media, strategy, and production) forces agencies to embrace a more unified model centered on outcomes rather than legacy org charts.

• Reputation resets are needed after years of fragmentation; several networks will launch new brand identities, new leadership narratives, and new value propositions grounded in clarity, transparency, and performance.

The result is agencies start looking less like sprawling, opaque conglomerates and more like streamlined, tech-enabled consultancies. Their new positioning blends maker energy with operational rigor: creativity amplified by automation, strategy grounded in measurement, and media activated across fewer but more effective channels.

For OOH specifically, this evolution means:

• More value placed on channels with clear measurement and verifiable outcomes, including foot traffic, lift studies, and MMM compatibility.

• Increased adoption of platforms that help agencies move faster—brief → build → buy → measure—in a single modern workflow.

• Greater appetite for integrated cross-channel storytelling, where OOH serves as a physical anchor for high-impact moments amplified by digital.

2026 becomes a reset moment: agencies shed legacy complexity and reemerge as sharper, more efficient partners aligned with the realities of modern marketing.

A new creative renaissance, fueled by constraints

Amid AI-generated everything, the brands that stand out are those that also embrace craft, originality, and storytelling. Marketing leaders increasingly describe AI as an amplifier rather than a replacement for human creative direction, and are seeking formats where bold, simple ideas can cut through clutter and travel across channels (CMO survey).

OOH especially sees a surge in:

• Highly designed static work that leverages large-format canvases.

• Bold simplicity and iconic visuals that are easily photographed and shared.

• Playful interactivity and artist collaborations, as brands engineer “IRL moments” that earn organic amplification.

The pendulum swings back to taste, and OOH’s constraints – limited copy, one powerful visual — force sharper, more memorable creative that stands out in an algorithm-dominated world.

Pressure on CMOs intensifies, again

The CMO role gets simultaneously more technical and more accountable as CFOs demand clarity on ROI, duplication, and team efficiency. Recent survey work indicates that nearly 60% of CEOs have replaced a CMO or equivalent in the past few years over performance, and that a majority of CMOs report significantly heightened pressure to demonstrate measurable impact (CMO survey and CMO insights).

Modern CMOs will:

• Bring more capabilities in-house and build smaller, more data-fluent teams.

• Deploy AI tools to streamline workflows, from creative development to reporting.Reduce agency dependency and base planning on measurable channels, including OOH, which MMM work shows can deliver strong incremental sales and brand lift at relatively modest budget shares (white paper).

The gap between forward-leaning CMOs and slower organizations widens dramatically as the former adopt measurement, modeling, and automation as defaults rather than add-ons.

Publisher modernization accelerates

This is the year publishers start acting like modern tech platforms. Mid- to large-size publishers across channels increasingly:

• Build and expose APIs so buyers and platforms can access inventory and audience data directly.

• Offer true self-service buying and real-time booking, including programmatic access to DOOH inventory.Integrate inventory into agency omnichannel planning tools and clean rooms that combine mobility, CRM, and campaign exposure data.

For OOH, this means faster workflows, better transparency, and dramatically reduced planning friction as more media owners digitize assets and connect to marketplaces and DSPs.

Celebrity moments return as cultural rocket fuel

In an era of AI-fabricated influencers and synthetic faces, real humans matter more. Academic research on celebrity endorsements finds they can drive significant abnormal stock returns and contribute to mispricing effects around high-profile campaigns. We just saw a tangible example with American Eagle, whose stock doubled post Sydney Sweeney campaign that was one of the most visible of the year.

Brands rediscover what Hollywood has known forever: authenticity + reach = impact. Celebrities and cultural icons will:

• Move product, particularly in categories like beauty and fashion where endorsement-driven sales lifts and higher willingness to pay have been documented.

• Move attention and headlines in a feed dominated by templated, AI-assisted content.

• Move stock prices, as endorsement news and cultural moments influence both consumer demand and investor sentiment.

2026 becomes the year marketers re-embrace “big human moments” to cut through the noise, with OOH often serving as the physical stage where these cultural spikes are launched and amplified.

Follower counts become irrelevant

Social follower count as a proxy for influence is dead. Algorithmic feeds, pay-to-play promotion, and recommended content mean organic reach is increasingly disconnected from how many followers an account has, while users report seeing repetitive sponsored content regardless of who they follow.

This will drive brands to:

• Build email lists and owned communities where they can maintain direct relationships with audiences.

• Invest in channels where they can better predict or control reach, such as OOH, CTV, and programmatic buys rather than algorithm-only organic distribution.

• Redirect budgets from follower-count-based influencer deals toward channels and creators with provable impact, with OOH serving as a measurable, high-attention anchor.

Offline behavior data becomes the secret weapon

Location and mobility signals finally reach a level of granularity where they inform OOH and everything else: targeting, creative sequencing, and measurement across channels. Providers now combine device-level movement, dwell times, and visit frequency into privacy-conscious audience segments that help advertisers refine placements and creative relevance.

In 2026, offline data starts to rival first-party digital data in strategic importance, as case studies show that campaigns using mobility and location intelligence can significantly increase in-store visits and engagement relative to non-location-optimized campaigns. This makes OOH not just a reach channel but a signal generator for the entire media stack, feeding insights into search, social, CTV, and retail media planning.

2026: year of OOH and beyond

Advertising in 2026 will demand agility, creativity, and a strong grasp of new technologies. For OOH specifically, the landscape has never been more ripe with potential. By embracing innovation, doubling down on integration, and creating campaigns that capture the imagination, brands can seize this golden opportunity.

AdQuick remains committed to being your partner in navigating this exciting frontier. Together, let’s shape the future of advertising one billboard, one city, one story at a time.