Digital out-of-home grows 27.6% in Poland as overall ad market slows to 5.6%

Poland’s net advertising market grew 5.6% year on year in the first half of 2026 to roughly 7.1 billion zloty, according to the semi-annual report from Publicis Groupe Polska published on August 27. The extra 376 million zloty came almost entirely from digital channels, and the standout line was outdoor: digital out-of-home revenue rose 27.6%, lifting the total OOH category by 6.7%, ahead of the market.

Classic poster and billboard formats were flat at +0.2%, so the growth is a story of screens. Digital now accounts for 28.3% of Polish OOH revenue, up from 23.7% a year earlier, as operators such as AMS, Ströer and Clear Channel keep converting street furniture and shopping-center inventory to digital and selling it programmatically. Out-of-home holds a 7.1% share of the market, level with radio.

Cinema was the only channel to grow faster, up 21% to 110.8 million zloty from a small base. Online video rose 17%, retail search climbed 24.8% and radio added 9.2%. Linear television fell 2.4% and now generates 66.1% of video ad revenue, down from 70.1% a year ago, though video as a whole still takes 50.6% of every advertising zloty.

Why it matters

The report confirms that Polish budgets are following audiences onto addressable screens, whether on the street, in a shopping mall or on a phone. Retail remains the largest advertising sector with a quarter of all spend, led by Media Expert, Lidl and Kaufland, and its appetite for proximity formats near the point of sale is one reason DOOH keeps outpacing the rest of outdoor. Food advertisers cut spend by 8.3% and drinks and alcohol by 18.1%, according to Wirtualne Media.

The pace is slowing, however. Growth of 7.1% in the first quarter dropped to 4.4% in the second, which Publicis attributes to the timing of Easter and to Poland’s absence from the World Cup, which took the shine off what is normally a strong sports-advertising quarter.

What’s next

Iwona Jaśkiewicz-Kundera, chief investment officer at Publicis Groupe Polska, is sticking with a full-year forecast of 5.8% growth, implying a stronger second half driven by the autumn retail season. For OOH operators the question is capacity: with digital already carrying the category, the next stage of growth depends on adding screens and audience measurement that lets programmatic buyers treat Polish DOOH like any other screen in the plan.