Dive Brief: 

• T-Mobile has entered an agreement to acquire digital-out-of-home media company Vistar Media for approximately $600 million through its T-Mobile Advertising Solutions business, per a company announcement. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2025.
• The acquisition will include all of Vistar’s capabilities including its intelligent marketplace and technology for buying, selling and managing campaigns across a network of more than 1.1 million digital screens.
• The move comes at an opportune time: One-third of the $10 billion in expected out-of-home ad spending in the U.S. over the next three years will be dedicated to digital OOH platforms, according to eMarketer.

Dive Insight:

T-Mobile’s latest move is a demonstration of the company’s commitment to building its Advertising Solutions unit as a viable and sustainable revenue source. Last year, the carrier unveiled its in-store retail media network (that included its T Life app) and partnered with Plex as a connected TV provider. The telecom also partnered with Uber to provide the ride-hailing company’s JourneyTV on T-Mobile phone screens when a ride is in process.

The Vistar acquisition gives T-Mobile another platform to extend its Advertising Solutions unit’s reach significantly. Vistar’s technology powers screens provided by nearly 370 OOH media owners that serve more than 3,000 advertisers. According to T-Mobile, the combination of Vistar’s scale and T-Mobile’s customer insights and data will “transform the DOOH industry” by helping advertisers create addressable and measurable campaigns with greater efficiency, ROI and more meaningful and engaging content.

“T-Mobile is always envisioning new ways to deliver for consumers and we see a tremendous opportunity to provide more relevant and personalized advertising,” said JP Colaco, senior vice president and chief T-Ads officer at T-Mobile, in a release. “Combining T-Mobile’s customer-centric approach and its expertise as one of the nations most scaled marketers, with Vistar’s leading out-of-home technology means advertisers can easily place their ads where they know their audience will be, improving every step of the customer journey.”

The acquisition comes months after Vistar appointed Sean Cheyney as its head of retail media, a new role for the company. In that role, Cheney was tasked with leading the company’s retail media strategy and integrating Vistar’s OOH solutions into the retail media ecosystem. It’s unclear how the acquisition could affect that role.