The Hindu Business Line : ‘Creative opportunity lies in hoardings ban’

Chennai, April 21 For Mr S. Sudhir, Managing Director of Dimensions Fitness Studio, the State Government’s move to do away with most of the hoardings in the city ruined plans to advertise a Tamil New Year offer which promised a free iPod. “We were about to put up 7-8 hoardings on the night of April 8, but we had barely put up one when they all went down, ours didn’t even see the light of day,” he rues, saying the studio had to drop the offer as the medium disappeared.

Swift action following the Supreme Court directive to do away with unauthorised or hazardously positioned hoardings has, inevitably, dismayed many advertisers with the attendant sudden loss of visibility; however, advertisers and ad persons see it as an opportunity to explore other media.

Says Mr Prakash Dharmarajan, President of ad agency Ogilvy & Mather, Chennai: “Of course, it’s a problem, but we don’t know how many of them were really effective. There has been incredible clutter, what with the haphazard placement of the billboards. If we hadn’t read the news, there’s a good chance we might not have missed it at all. Now as there are fewer outdoor advertising spots, users may get more value out of them and the costs will go up.”

New focus

Those likely to benefit from the absence of the hoardings, in the short term, are local publications and radio, say observers.

Says Mr P.B. Ramaswamy, Cluster Head of FM radio channel Big 92.7 FM, “In the present scenario, radio stations in Chennai will gain. Radio is a great local medium and clients who have been spending regularly on hoardings will now divert that budget to radio.”

Says Mr Ramanujam Sridhar of the Bangalore-based ad and PR agency brandcomm: “There’s a definite impact, especially when you consider that many hoardings give directions to the stores they advertise. Now media like radio may gain to some extent. Sometimes, well-lit and well-done hoardings are good to look at. This development is a challenge for ad agencies to be creative in the out-of-home medium.”

This is a belief that most Business Line spoke to for this report hold. Says Mr Sravan Raghunathan, Senior Manager (Marketing), of Chennai-based apparel chain SKC: “While it’s no longer going to be a buyers’ market, advertising will now be more meaningful. Hoardings weren’t a bad medium but didn’t allow us to go beyond them; now we have to be innovative. We could follow the Delhi model — brand public utilities such as bus shelters, private roads, and so on.”

Other spaces

Ms Mythili Chandrasekhar, Senior Vice-President and Executive Planning Director, JWT, Chennai, predicts that other outdoor spaces such as medians, single poles and bus shelters will increase.

“As an ad person, I’m sure the industry will come up with interesting and innovative alternatives,” she says. However, Mr Venu Gopal Nair, co-founder of Chennai-based ad agency Brand Portrait, has reservations.

“Yes, other media will now come into focus but I wonder if the void can be filled up in a hurry,” he says.

Says a commuter who strikes a note different from others who welcome the re-emergence of green in the city: “It was fun reading some of those hoardings when stuck in traffic. Now I guess we will have to see some ugly buildings and some small trees. What’s the fun in seeing trees as you sweat in this heat? But these advertisers should be okay, there are lots of new newspapers popping up, so they could make use of that.”

Mr Dharmarajan of O&M says the next big thing may be digital media.

“Maybe we’ll have to come up with a way where multiple brands can advertise from the same point. In-store media may gain in prominence. But the real challenge will be heightened creativity — any medium tends to become ineffective when there is too much clutter,” he says.

More Stories on : Newspapers & Publishing | Advertising | Radio/TV

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page