Like each year, the event was segmented into three parts – the convention, the Outdoor Advertising Awards (OAA) and the exhibition.

The convention brought the various talking heads together during presentations and panel discussions.

During one of the panel discussion, Anant Rangaswami, editor, Storyboard, CNBC, TV18, discussed how luxury brands can leverage OOH medium for a domineering presence. The session was addressed by Ruchita Sharma, head marketing operations and communications, Swarovski India; Arun Marc D’Silva, managing director, retail interface, and Arif Saleem Padiath, senior business manager, Zoya, Titan Company.

Nabendu Bhattacharya, managing director, Milestone Brandcom, during his presentation observed, “The long-term growth forecast for the Indian economy and the promise of a stable government and consistent policy making at the Centre bodes well for the OOH industry.” Rahul DaCunha, managing director, DaCunha Communication, took the audience through Amul brand’s outdoor journey and how the hoardings had an enormous impact.

The extent of scope that the developing transit segment offers the OOH industry was highlighted at the session on ‘Delhi Metro = 900 million commuters, How we are maximizing this big OOH opportunity’. Sharat Sharma, director operations, Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) said, “ The organisation is cognizant of the revenue potentials of OOH advertising inside and outside Metro stations, and inside Metro trains, and is taking steps to increase its revenues from such avenues from 15 per cent to 20 per cent.

Times OOH’s Sunder Hemrajani, who was recently in thenews for bagging the OOH advertising rights for the Mumbai Metro and Mumbai’s Terminal2, was a part of the panel along with Haresh Nayak, managing director, Posterscope Group India, and Siddharth Subramaniam, principal manager, Media, ITC Foods. The session was moderated by Manu Seth, marketing director, HTC India.

Madhu S Datta, chief – marketing, Pantaloons Fashion and Retail, during her presentation, said, “Brand custodians need to understand that the OOH medium is not limited to hoardings. It is an emotive medium and clients need to be willing to pay for innovations.” Underlining the immense scope for innovations in the OOH space, Datta said the medium has no placement limitations. To make OOH advertising very focused, she said that the brief from the client side should be well directed.

Hemrajani stated, “The tenth edition of OAC proved to be a significant milestone for the OOH industry. The presence of a significant number of brand marketers at the event underlined the growing significance of the convention.”

Also highlighted during the convention was the growing role of digital in the OOH segment.

Charulata Ravi Kumar, director of Coffee Kettle presented ‘7D Innovation’ to put forward motivating case studies of different brands that changed the image of their respective products as they utilised innovative ideas to market their goods.

Gallen Yip, research director, Kinetic Worldwide, Asia Pacific and Rajan Mehta, founder and CEO, Live Media, highlighted the digital’s role in the OOH segment; DOOH. Through their presentations, they discussed the truth of DOOH; its interactivity and engagement and the do’s and don’ts of the DOOH ballgame. Yip said, “Expansion of transit infrastructure, personalised device engagement, use of programmed networks, improved performance standards, rise of e-commerce, technology improvements, internet of things, and imagination are the growth drivers for DOOH.

Chris O’Donnell, global commercial director, Posterscope Worldwide, spoke on ‘Global OOH Trends: The Joy of Six – And what it means for India’. O’Donnell highlighted six key global trends that are likely to have a big impact on the Indian OOH industry, namely: rise of the destination, rise of experiential; planning convergence; technology in buying (including automation); and technology in planning (including new ways of measurement).

“Nukkad Pe Milna”, a session addressed by Santosh Padhi, COO and co-founder, Taproot India, and Emmanuel Upputuru, founder, chief integrated officer, ITSA, highlighted the power of social platforms.

A panel titled ‘Emerging Trend: Media Owner-cum-agency – Pros & Cons’, moderated by Sam Balsara, chairman and MD, Madison World, was addressed by Alok Jalan, managing director, Laqshya Media Group,Bhavana Mittal, head of media, India, CBS Global Media, GSK, Armino Ribeiro, CEO, Madison OOH Media Group, and Raj Mohanty, vice president, Kinetic Worldwide India. 

During the panel Balasara set the ball rolling by asking the members to reflect on the trend in the OOH industry where owners seem to be interested in entering the specialist agency business domain. He added, “Such trends are not seen in other media like print, TV and radio.”

Outdoor Advertising Awards

The 10th Outdoor Advertising Awards (OAA), saw leading OOH agencies compete for the metals. Milestone Brandcom bagged five golds and 15 metals in all. Madison Out-Of-Home bagged nine metals, and Kinetic Worldwide India, GroupM Dialouge Factory and Brandscope India won five each.