Sanjay Pareek of Percept on OOH

Mihir Joshi (MJ): The Indian Outdoor Advertising Association (IOAA) has pegged the OOH industry for 2011 at Rs 2251-crore. This means a growth of 10%. What are the numbers for 2012?
Sanjay Pareek (SP): I don’t think the industry will grow. It may be flat at best, as the telecom and BSFI will sit on the fence, unless government change policies with are favourable to both industries. Incidentally these were the two industries which fuelled the growth of OOH in last few years. The European sentiments are effecting the India growth story and going by first quarter spends and clients reaction, the marketing budgets will be held back or cut, which will effect the out of home industry growth.

MJ: In spite of certain gains like eye-tracking studies and measurability projects; why has the OOH industry in India underperformed?
SP: Where are these projects, there are talks about these projects, but nothing has seen the light of day except IOS, that too for two markets. Till all the stake holders of the industry don’t focus on these aspects, OOH will always be relegated to the residual advertising budgets by most of the advertisers. Brand and media managers need data to defend their argument on use of OOH media, till we don’t give them this ammunition, it will be difficult for them to justify the investments on OOH media, internally compared to the spend in other medias.

MJ: Any eye catching campaign among traditional billboard that has defined the OOH space for you?
SP: The Reebok ad, creative enhanced by Encylomedia for OOH, is a great example of outdoor creative standing out.

MJ: Your definition of an OOH campaign that is innovative?
SP: Great creative, specifically designed for OOH media and therefore all of us should have seen and remembered the ad. It is a must for clients to insist from their creative agency to think creative from OOH perspective and not adaptations of their press or TV campaign. This will bring in stickiness and amplification, a push to product / media  managers to engage with OOH media.

MJ: What should the OOH roadmap be for 2012?
SP: IOAA initiatives like SOP, OOH asset census data on web and ADEX for outdoor assets. Hopefully IOAA with MRUC will start the IOS 2 to get ROI from the OOH media. I hope clients and agency will treat OOH as a specialised medium and create ads specifically for the OOH media. Finally, all stake holders working together for industry growth.

The Reebok OOH advertisement