Optimization, cooperation, and learning: a heritage that fully resonates with our world today, and a glimpse into the future of the OOH industry.
As Léo, Sébastien, and I return from the 2026 WOO conference in London, it strikes me how much the core values of Mereo—inherited from our founder, Abraham Toledano—sit at the very heart of the OOH industry’s current journey. For Abraham, optimization was never about a cold, rigid maximization of profits; it was an art of balance, a permanent commitment to learning, and a way to share value fairly across an ecosystem.
A decade ago, the industry’s goal was to push OOH’s market share to 10%. Yet, despite the rise of DOOH, the overall market share has actually declined. To be fair, the massive investments in programmatic AdTech over the last decade have forced our industry to mature and experiment. But the root of our current stagnation lies in a fundamental misunderstanding: we tried to copy-paste a purely digital trading model into a medium whose DNA is different.
These fragmented programmatic workflows are inherently incompatible with the unified, intelligent, and controlled principles needed to manage physical inventory. While we should absolutely inspired by the digital world’s simplicity of buying, we must design that simplicity for the sales forces, not against them. By focusing on the buyer’s platform, this mismatch has resulted in fractured tech layers and siloed sales teams who are left feeling disconnected and lost. We built structural complexity for our sellers instead of driving unified growth for the industry.
And yet, while the medium struggles to reclaim its dominant leadership, it has never felt so powerful or relevant. OOH finances local economies, operates with a lower environmental impact, respects privacy, and builds massive brand reach as the last true mass medium. As Jean-François Decaux powerfully reminded us with a sense of urgency: OOH is “a force for good, not for fraud and addiction.” It empowers the crowd to act.
Enter AI, shuffling the deck once again. It forces leaders, operators, and employees to question their roles, visions, and actions.
AI is often presented as a silver bullet to solve our ecosystem’s complexity. But we must ensure we don’t shoot ourselves in the foot. Harnessing this magic requires us to be both wild and wise—adventurous yet cautious.
- Being “wild” means embracing this new paradigm without fear. It means being ready to take bold risks, reinvent our models, and fearlessly challenge the tech giants and Big Tech monopolies on their own turf.
- Being “wise” means being smart about how we deploy it—using AI to automate heavy operational processes and build streamlined technology, giving humans the clarity they need to focus on creation and long-term strategy.
As I wrote six years ago when Covid hit, we are entering a challenging, complex period where media owners will battle for market share against a backdrop of growing operational pressure. To solve complexity, humanity has always relied on one perfected art throughout the ages: Cooperation.
At Mereo, we are staunch believers in an open partnership ecosystem. We believe in letting every passionate team contribute its unique craft to their piece of the puzzle. Building this requires open minds, dedication, and radical transparency.
This approach strongly echoes what Star Alliance achieved in the airline industry. By applying yield practices to structure the technological ecosystem, they interconnected their sales capabilities into a powerful, shared network. They understood a fundamental business truth: to survive and thrive, anyone within the alliance had to be able to sell anyone else’s seats.
The OOH industry faces the exact same challenge today. We need to interconnect our systems to make purchasing massive, unified reach simple and frictionless for brands and agencies. In a market where demand can be unpredictable, any media owner should be able to smoothly sell a campaign on a “coopetitor’s” inventory when it serves the client’s ultimate goal.
By sharing the effort as a team, we will grow the OOH market share. For sure. 😉
In an OOH market facing demand challenges and mounting operational pressure, optimized sales processes are no longer optional—they are mandatory. Building reach and scale must become democratic. No single player will be able to buy them all, let alone “rule them all.”
The same applies to learning. If we embrace AI as an incredible tool to learn and grow as humans—rather than something designed to replace us—and if we cooperate to build simple, streamlined, AI-compatible technology, then the future is incredibly bright.
Mereo’s values are fully aligned with where the industry needs to go. That is good news for Mereo, and even better news for the industry.
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