OOH to grow 7-8% in 2015 on back of e-commerce, real estate spends

The outdoor advertising sector saw an increase in ad spends in the quarter ending September and is on track to register 7-8 per cent growth in 2015, said OOH owners and media agencies we spoke with.

According to OOH agency heads, the increase in ad spends could be attributed to a number of reasons. For example, Nabendu Bhattacharyya, MD of Milestone Brandcom says Q3 has been better because of spending by categories like mobile handsets, m-commerce and e-commerce and media and entertainment. “Previously, we have not seen the m-commerce category spend this strongly. I would say that ad spends have gone up by 20-25 per cent in July-September’15 as compared to the same period last year,” he said.

On similar lines, Sanjeev Gupta, MD at Global Advertisers, welcomed the positivity seen in the market in this quarter, claiming that the market had picked up momentum after a recessionary trend in Q2. He said that ad revenues for OOH would have increased in the range of 70-80 per cent in Q3 as compared to Q2. When asked about which categories have spent the most money, he singled out electronics, real estate, entertainment channels and event companies. “Even among e-commerce companies Amazon has clearly been the biggest spender. Apart from Amazon, there were just 2-3 others that have spent big, but Amazon has spent a lot of money on all mediums,” he said.

Noomi Mehta, Chairman and MD of Selvel also agreed that, overall, ad spends on OOH had increased across India with Mumbai and Delhi seeing a lot of spending and with Bangalore remaining steady. However, he pointed out that the ongoing tussle in Kolkata with the municipal corporation has caused clients to drop investments in outdoor. “We cannot understand what is going on in Kolkata. They (The municipal corporation) say that out of the 400 sites given to us, 250 are illegal. So even clients have lost interest and don’t want to advertise,” he explained.

On the other hand, Rajiv Saxena, MD of Blue Ocean Media, feels that the OOH sector will not grow till the inventory crunch being faced is addressed. “There has hardly been any new media or new inventory introduced for a long time. So long as the industry remains local it will not grow,” he said. Saxena, however, agreed that Q3’15 had been much better than Q3’14 due to government campaigns as well as spending by e-commerce sector even though some sectors like the film industry have not been doing any promotions on OOH for the past 6 months. 

Global acquires over 100 premium billboards sites across Mumbai

 

 

Global Advertisers, India's leading innovator in outdoor media solutions, has acquired over 100 new properties in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), and plans to acquire 150 more in the city over the next six months. The move is in line with the company's focus on MMR, when it comes to creating outdoor properties, while handling campaigns pan-India.

The billboards are located either at sites in areas where Global had low presence or at sites that where Global has zero presence. New locations include Juhu-Vikhroli Link Road (JVLR), Mankhurd, Sion-Chembur Link Road (SCLR), Opera House and Mulund. Old sites with increased Global Advertiser presence include multiple locations in the Western Suburbs and some on the Central Line like Vikhroli.

"Creation, acquisition, and maintenance of outdoor properties are central to our ability to serve clients. The location and the costs involved in creating or acquiring a property affects the rate we offer to our clients. We are happy to let you know that the acquisitions will allow us to offer greater exposure in the city to our clients, offer lower rates that clients are used to paying for these locations and also give more discounts on bulk bookings," explained Sanjeev Gupta, MD, Global Advertisers.

Global owns the most number of premium location hoardings in Mumbai, including Asia's biggest hoarding in Bandra. We also own multiple big-format hoardings that offer the most number of corridor branding opportunities in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region.

Global has executed approximately 1.5 lakh successful campaigns, 1 lakh product launches, 80,000 in-film branding contracts and over 2 lakh event sponsorships in the last 18 years. Global's creativity, innovation and ability to deliver out-of-the-box OOH media solutions have won them 350 awards, and over 500 letters of appreciation.

A recent British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) report surveying the world hoarding industry makes a special mention of Global Advertisers’ billboard site in Bandra.