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Vinyl surfaces and digital printing have changed the face of outdoor advertising but the industry continues to grapple with several problems, old and new.

In the run-up to the festival season, this chirpy actress asked, "What's your colour this season," sitting pretty in a larger-than-life setting. And just in case she didn't catch your eye at one traffic junction, she reappeared at many more.

And there's Aamir Khan, complete with curly locks, enticing you with Toyota's snazzy Innova, and Abhishek Bachchan going fida on Ford Fiesta, even as you struggle to yank your eyes away from tempting discount announcements elsewhere.

Witty one-liners have you smiling benignly in the midst of maddening traffic and incessant honking, and Hrithik Roshan lights up the skyline elsewhere, togged up in a popular apparel brand.

Screaming aloud brand names — big and small — in vivid colours and often with creative subtexts, hoardings are stealing the skyscape from the high-rises in urban India.

The country's ad spend is pegged at Rs 11,500 crore. Outdoor advertising constitutes 7 per cent of this and hoardings account for 60 per cent of outdoor advertising revenues.

The hoardings segment, including billboards, neon signs, bus shelter signs and lamppost kiosks, is worth about Rs 800 crore. The heart and soul of the industry is in Mumbai, followed by New Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata and Chennai.

As an advertising medium, billboards effectively promote brand recall. "A typical consumer while making chapattis is listening to the radio for content and gets advertising purveyed to her. This is boosted further in the evening through a TV ad. The next morning's newspaper adds to this process. If she spots a hoarding when she steps out, it is a great reminder medium. The brand-recall value that a hoarding ensconces is valuable to the marketer," says marketing consultant Harish Bijoor.

Digital printing (vinyl hoardings) has added greater colour and clarity to billboard advertising, vis-à-vis traditional painting, now virtually extinct. "Vinyl hoardings have various advantages. For example, if you have a celebrity to be painted on hoardings at different locations, he/she might look different in each. But with prints, you get an absolute copy on the hoardings. So we can match the client's requirements without distortion," says Firdauze H. Jila, Chief Operating Officer of Vantage, an outdoor advertising firm.

"The industry's market share has increased thanks to vinyl prints. Digital printing is very cost effective too. For painters you pay Rs 6 per sq ft. For print, it varies between Rs 11 and Rs 13. While a painter would take about three-four days to paint one or two hoardings, with print we can put up even 40 hoardings a day," he says.

In Chennai, a 40ft x 20ft hoarding in a prime location at eye level could cost Rs 1-2.5 lakh per month.

A booming economy has further spurred the growth of outdoor advertising. "Six months ago, the industry was bad. Now with new businesses and products, business is good," says A.G. Nayakam, Secretary, Tamil Nadu Outdoor Advertising Association. According to the magazine Outdoor Advertising, telecom and entertainment companies are the biggest spenders on outdoor advertising, followed by publications and the banking and automobile sectors.

"Right now, outdoor advertising is a very attractive media. Especially if you are launching a product in a particular region, it makes sense to go for a hoarding. For a national launch, TV would be the first choice, followed by print and then outdoor. Finally, it's the client's call," says Jila. For instance, if a client has Rs 100 crore to spend, about 50-60 per cent would go into TV ads, 20-30 per cent for print... "Now we have 10-20 per cent for outdoor. It's not that we are getting a sizeable share of the pie... but depending on the client's needs, there is enough for everyone," he adds.

Says R. Sridharan, Vice-President - Marketing, Diamond Publicities, "The total ad spend on outdoor alone last year was Rs 800 crore, of which Mumbai and Pune contributed 60 per cent."

But all is not hunky-dory as the industry grapples with burgeoning illegal hoardings, lack of governmental control, and heavy taxes.

Says Bijoor, "This medium grows at 15 per cent per annum. It is growing at a slower pace than the rest of advertising. Last year, Indian ad spends grew 22.7 per cent, but outdoor grew only 15 per cent. The faith in the medium is not strong enough. There is a key issue of measurability. There isn't enough method in the madness of outdoor and therefore most media buyers buy this medium with little quantitative data and a lot of gut feel."

But outdoor does not mean hoardings alone. "Street furniture and the rest of outdoor need attention. Newer and innovative formats need exploitation and discovery," he adds.

Legal and safety concerns

In Chennai, legal hassles add to the industry's woes. Until 1998, land was given on lease for erection of hoardings. One had to apply to the Collector who, after examining the site, granted lease for two to three months. But currently, all licence applications are pending, with the Supreme Court introducing a status quo on the hoarding sites. Although the government has not granted any new leases, several hoardings have sprung up on unauthorised sites. While there are 598 authorised hoardings in the city, there are nearly 500 unauthorised ones.

Nayakam says that in cities such as Bangalore, Mumbai or Hyderabad, no one puts up a hoarding without licence or lease. "For instance, in Bangalore, unauthorised hoardings are destroyed the moment they come up; why can't we do the same in Chennai," he asks, adding he has written about 1,250 letters to the Collector. "But I have not got any acknowledgement, no action has been taken, and no hoarding has been removed. As a body, we have only requesting power."

Hoardings are a good revenue source for the government, but this has not been adequately capitalised, say industry representatives. "In Hyderabad, there are hoardings even on police station buildings and PWD buildings," says Nayakam.

He points out that advertisers have to pay numerous taxes and rents such as lease rent, display tax, service tax, professional tax, and now even sales tax. However, no tax assessment has been done for the last 12 years, he adds. "If regularised, the government can earn minimum Rs 10 crore annually from hoardings."

Another charge levelled against the industry is the violation of safety standards while putting up hoardings. In fact, a lot of print space has been devoted to this issue, causing the industry serious worry.

Nayakam explains that hoardings today are erected on huge girders with supporting angles, keeping all safety aspects under control. Government authorities however do not inspect the sites during or after erection, which is the norm.

Jila outlines some of the safety standards that his company adheres to. "When we put up a hoarding, we make sure that our structure as well as the building is sturdy enough. We have provided our personnel with protective gear, belts with safety locks, etc. which they are required to use as a must." Diamond Publicities has group insurance policies for its painters; it also ensures that workers don't work during rains, Sridharan says.

In its current form, the country's outdoor advertising industry is fragmented and unorganised, and plagued by vested interests and lack of consumer sensitivity. "It needs a close-knit body that functions at the apex level. The industry needs to tackle social issues of visual pollution carefully and become consumer sensitive," sums up Bijoor.

Picture by Bijoy Ghosh