The event, organised by the Exchange4Media Group, remained with the boundaries of the theme – media, monitoring and management – while flowing through a series of presentations and panel discussions.

In his opening remarks, Salman Khurshid, Union Minister of External Affairs, said, “OOH has been around for several decades and perhaps century; only quality of content and presentation has improved. Regulations have changed and now, you are making it more effective both cost and quality wise.”

In the first special session of the event, Hanneli Slabber, country head, South African Tourism talked about the power of OOH mediums utilised by the South Africa Tourism. She said, “Travel sells true stories. Tourism contributes more to the economy than several other industries. The need is to strike a good balance between what to keep global and how much to be kept local.” Further, showcasing few OOH campaigns carried out by the South Africa Tourism, she added, “Last year South Africa received a growth of 18% in tourist traffic. Out of India, tourists visiting South Africa grew by 28%.”

The first panel session, chaired by professor Abraham Koshy of IIM Ahmedabad, included panellists such Suresh Balakrishna of Lintas Initiative, Satish Singh of Laqshya Media, Nalin Kapoor of Hyundai Motor India and Nebendu Bhattacharyya of Milestone Brandcom discussing the snail-paced moment of OOH to the centre-stage of advertising.

Dr Koshy said that there has been a paradigm shift in the consumer behaviour. “Now information doesn’t travel to consumer, he searches for the information. Moving OOH to centre-stage would require us to assign strategic roads for each brand objectives.”

Nalin Kapoor of Hyundai Motor India said that brands feel OOH is a significant media which has a strong and complementary role to play in campaigns. “Over the last two three years, there is a huge traction that is building up in this segment. The definition of OOH is changing and is getting redefined. It’s time brand owners realise that OOH needs to be in the A league of media planning. Measurement is the need of the hour but why only whip OOH on the head for it?” he asked.

Blaming the slow acceptance of OOH as a part of main advertising mediums on the unorganised structure of the industry, Dr Koshy added, “OOH is one of the most disorganised segments of the advertising industry. We need to move to action points to make it a more self-regulatory body; rather than people who are not akin with the industry dictates terms to it. The industry need to move from revenue maximisation to standardised price or referenced price model. In other medias, there are at least few notional owners of other media but there are none for OOH.”

 Agreeing with Dr Koshy, Balakrishna of Lintas Initiative compared OOH to the mythological character, Karna of Mahabharata to define the medium. “OOH is like a mythological character like Karna in Mahabharata. It is brilliant, the only medium who can challenge the top players because of its high reach, cost effectiveness, and also is an early adapter of digital. However, it comes with a self-destruct button...when it is required the most, it loses it knowledge. It’s the illegitimate child of the industry with no guardian. It has got the engine it requires, so new ideas are not necessary, it’s just the actions that need a reworking. We need to have an organisation with teeth and better metrics to measure the effectiveness.

Satish Singh of Laqshya Media took it further by adding, “OOH industry needs to be respected. Everyone wants to blame it but no one wants to improve it. There is a trust deficit between the stakeholders. There is need for ample research to reach at a measurement unit that would be acceptable to all. We all need to be part of the co-creation process.”

Wrapping up the panel session, Nabendu Bhattacharya of Milestone Brandcom urged the media planning agencies to be more media neutral. "It is seen that when the media planning and creative are with one company, OOH's share in the advertising spent is more. In the situation where the creative and planning are under two different companies, OOH doesn’t get its fair share of the deal.”

The panel sessions will be followed with the OOH Awards 2013 where nominations in 7 main categories and 27 sub categories will be awarded for outstanding work in the field of OOH advertising.