Head of OOH (Outdoor Media) – Publicis Media Africa

Role Overview

The Head of OOH will lead Publicis Media Africa’s end-to-end Out-of-Home practice — combining strategic leadership, market expertise, and commercial acumen to modernize and scale the agency’s outdoor offering. The role demands a leader who can balance legacy OOH scale with digital innovation, bringing deep local knowledge of the South African OOH landscape — from townships to airports, CBDs, malls, and key arterial routes — and extending this expertise across Africa. They will bridge creative communication planning, consumer journey mapping, and commercial negotiation to deliver measurable business outcomes for clients. This is both a relationship and results-driven role, requiring a strategic thinker, trusted negotiator, and strong operator who can lead a centralized delivery team and represent Publicis Media credibly with CMOs, procurement heads, and OOH holding companies.

Key Responsibilities* Market Strategy & Vision

• Define and implement Publicis Africa’s OOH growth strategy, ensuring it combines traditional scale with digital transformation (DOOH, data, measurement).
• Overseethe planning and execution of out-of-home strategies, ensuring alignment with brand goals and market trends
• Map the consumer journey and align OOH touchpoints with broader brand and media strategies — from awareness to conversion.
• Identify new growth zones — including township economies, commuter corridors, and retail precincts — and integrate them into client communication plans.
• Translate complex OOH possibilities into simple, strategic narratives that resonate with CMOs and client boards.
• Local Market Expertise & Influence
• Leverage deep understanding of South Africa’s OOH ecosystem — key landlords, site clusters, and ownership structures.
• Analyse market data to optimize placements, and drive innovation in our OOH solutions.
• Maintain trusted relationships with major OOH media holding groups, landlords, and concessionaires across:
• • Airports
    • Roadside
    • Malls & business districts
    • Township
• Negotiate strategic site access, long-term value commitments, and preferential rates.
• Proactively identify location gaps or redundancies across client campaigns and fix them through tactical site swaps or deal leverage.
• Commercial & Negotiation Leadership
• Lead all OOH commercial negotiations at a senior level — ensuring transparency, value creation, and profitability.
• Develop strategic supply-side partnerships to secure premium inventory and ensure first-mover advantage for clients.
• Build volume-based or multi-client deals with OOH media owners that unlock better pricing and stronger data access.
• Design framework agreements and trading principles aligned to Groupe compliance and procurement governance.
• Work with finance and procurement to ensure OOH maintains strong margins and operational sustainability.
• Integrated Consumer Planning
• Collaborate with planning, strategy, and data teams to ensure OOH aligns with audience intent, path-to-purchase, and brand funnel goals.
• Translate brand strategy into actionable outdoor blueprints that map where, when, and how OOH drives consumer action.
• Support planners with OOH data, audience insights, and contextual recommendations during campaign ideation.
• Champion OOH as a storytelling medium that drives both emotional impact and measurable business outcomes.
• Team Leadership & Execution Excellence
• Lead a centralized OOH operations and delivery hub based in South Africa servicing all agencies and clients (in South Africa but also including Pan-Africa)
• Ensure flawless campaign execution — accurate site bookings, creative placement, posting verification, and post-campaign reporting.
• Drive operational efficiency through standardized templates, vendor SLAs, and automation tools.
• Mentor and develop a team of OOH planners, buyers, and coordinators to elevate delivery quality and market credibility.
• Innovation & Future Readiness
• Integrate data-enabled OOH and P/DOOH solutions (e.g., location intelligence, programmatic trading, mobile retargeting).
• Pilot measurement frameworks linking OOH exposure to store visits, sales lift, and online conversions.
• Build case studies to demonstrate the commercial impact of integrated outdoor campaigns.
• Collaborate with Epsilon and Data teams to connect OOH exposure with identity-based audiences and retargeting opportunities.

Qualifications & Experience* Bachelor’s degree in Marketing or Media Management.

• 10+ years’ experience in Out-of-Home media, including planning, buying, and strategic account leadership.
• Proven network and influence within South Africa’s OOH ecosystem, from large to small vendors
• Strong understanding of OOH site economics, municipality regulations, concession models, and rate structures.
• Experience in negotiating national and regional deals and managing multi-stakeholder relationships.
• Familiarity with OOH data, mapping, and verification tools (OMC IDS Software, Outdoor Auditors, SEEDOH, ROAD etc.).
• Excellent understanding of brand communication planning and the role of OOH in the consumer journey.
• Skilled communicator capable of engaging CMOs and client boards at strategic level.
• Demonstrated experience leading cross-functional or centralized teams.
• Added experience within the Pan-African OOH ecosystem would be ideal