The Hindu Business Line : Getting innovative

Outdoor advertising offers several options to experiment with. Jayraj Rau, JWT Chennai's Senior Vice-President and General Manager points to Delhi, a city in which hoardings are completely disallowed — advertisers have resorted to medians, lampposts, kiosks and other measures.

He mentions the work JWT did/is doing for Pondicherry Tourism — petrol bunks along the Chennai-Pondy East Coast Road have been branded, and smart youngsters will hand out maps, brochures and stickers to customers headed there. The agency is also talking to a theatre group to organise actors to masquerade as elves, witches and gnomes to surprise tourists on the promenade in Pondicherry and hand out little gifts, as part of a larger event. Another idea is to get tourists photographed in the same location through cutouts of fictional and fantasy characters such as Superman and Spiderman.

Almost 45 per cent of the outdoor spends come from the metros. But as far as innovative use of the medium goes, Mumbai is a clear leader. Though the medium is increasingly getting creative, it hasn't been exploited to its full potential. While it is possible to put up an innovative promo at a particular site, it is difficult to scale it up at various locations, given the constraints of space and logistics, says Subhash Kamath, CEO, Bates Enterprise. Says strategy specialist Bijoor: "The medium is at best left as an adjunct medium, which takes up the wee bit of expenditure left over from mainline media of television and print."

Advertisers have to think out of the box and exclusively, keeping in mind the possibilities and limitations of OOH advertising. According to Ashish Bhasin, Director - Integrated Marketing Action Group (IMAG), Lintas India, which was behind the Ginger campaign: "Agencies have not been giving outdoor its due. You have to conceive the creatives for outdoor differently. They cannot simply be adaptations of the press ads as the environment is different for the outdoors."

Compared to many other countries, India is still far behind in creating a stir outdoors. Says Bijoor: "Advanced outdoor markets such as Dubai and large parts of Europe and the US have exploited the outdoor medium well. There is street floor advertising, full-building facade advertising and other exciting options such as street furniture. Australia makes good use of outdoor. There you even have human bodies moving about as an outdoor cluster. Walking posters, if you may!"

So, given that outdoors offers a wide canvas, there is a lot that can be done. "Technology is rapidly changing the outdoor business and the entry of foreign players such as Clear Channel and the Star Group is changing the face of this industry. There would be more usage of street furniture apart from the usual hoardings and the medium will go digital in the future," predicts Bhasin of Lintas. In the future, outdoor media will see an expansion into small towns and cities as well, says Welde from HLL. "And with more and more players making a retail foray, outdoor will gain in prominence."

JWT's Rau says the message and its execution is still important, though. Technology can't always give an advertisement the edge. "Technology's such a leveller, it lasts hardly a few days. Once the newness erodes, the visual has to be important. It's also important to use smart colours and not say too much," he adds. In his words, the larger outdoor medium, marrying technology, on-ground events and traditional outdoor media, such as when a shampoo brand put live models on its hoardings in Mumbai, is panning out to be a much more interactive medium than print, radio or TV.

(Reporter Associate: Purvita Chatterjee)