Lagos absorbs roughly 73 per cent of all national out-of-home (OOH) advertising spend but delivers the weakest return of any city studied, according to the maiden Nigeria OOH Consumer Penetration and Audience Behaviour Study 2026, the first, most recent and only commissioned report for the outdoor ecosystem.

Findings from the study prove that OOH advertising works, as 71.4% confirm recall of OOH ad in the last 4 weeks. But despite this revealing insight, the report still shows that Lagos recorded the lowest billboard visibility of any city surveyed, at 61.8 per cent. It also had the highest share of people who remember an ad but never act on it. The market advertisers pay the most for therefore works the least.

The findings were unveiled to stakeholders, who commended the organisers of the Location Marketing Conference and Awards (LOMA) for commissioning the first study of its kind in the industry.

The chairman of the survey’s oversight committee and Business Unit Director of +Acuity Ltd, Emmanuel Adediran, said the survey has put to rest the issue of attribution in the frequency and reach of OOH campaigns. Speaking on the insights, he said 73.5 per cent of people took a commercial action after seeing an outdoor ad. Talking about the brand was the most common action, at 38.4 per cent. It was just ahead of searching online, at 32.3 per cent.

The report reads this as evidence that OOH works as a conversion engine and not as wallpaper. The channel is already feeding word-of-mouth and digital search, whether or not campaigns are planned that way. The study says this changes how OOH should be valued and measured against digital.

For advertisers, the sharper finding is where the attention sits. The study identifies cities such as Asaba, Enugu and Onitsha as home to some of the heaviest, highest-value audiences. It describes the single biggest opportunity as moving spend to where attention already exists and returns more on ad spend (ROAS), rather than spending more.

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The study also points to underserved audiences. Market areas are visited weekly by 81 per cent of Nigerians, yet account for only 28.3 per cent of reported OOH exposure. Malls draw 50.1 per cent weekly visitation nationally, rising to 79.1 per cent among the top income segment. They carry just 4.2 per cent of OOH exposure. The report calls retail media the clearest open goal in the market, and the one finding that points to new revenue rather than repaired revenue.

The data also challenges the idea of a single national plan. Major roads are the dominant OOH environment nationally, at 58.0 per cent. In Sokoto, only 15.7 per cent of commuters name roads as their main OOH environment, while 76.4 per cent name market areas. Plans, the study says, must be built city by city and not scaled from a national average.

Format matters too. In Aba, 73.0 per cent of commuters travel by tricycle. Seated inside a Keke, their sightline is boxed in by the low roofline, and billboards at standard highway heights fall outside their field of vision. The study says this is geometry, not inattention. The same risk applies in tricycle-heavy markets such as Kaduna, Kano and Onitsha.

Weak recall does not always signal weak demand. Sokoto (25.0 per cent) and Abuja (32.5 per cent) posted the lowest recall, yet fewer than 6 per cent of people in either city report zero weekly exposure. The study concludes that people see the ads but do not remember them, so the fault lies in site quality and creative. Both can be fixed, and neither justifies cutting rates.

The convener of the LOMA Conference and Awards, Kingsley Onwukaeme, said the report is timely in its emergence. He said advertisers and media owners stand to benefit when there is data that ensures return on investment.

The study was conducted by Research Brooks in partnership with TMKG Consulting. The Outdoor Advertising Association of Nigeria (OAAN) and other sectoral bodies sat on the audit panel.

The insights presented here are a concise look into the full report. Further details are available from the commissioners of the study, the organisers of the Location Marketing Conference and Awards (LOMA)