What it means to
Brands down South?
Static Advertising will change to Real-time Interactive Advertising
End of the Traditional Hoardings/bill boards
Two decades back we were
amazed by the huge painted hoardings on a highway or bill boards on top of a
high rise building. The people who painted such exquisite works were called artists,
even the great M.F Husain was one of them. All of a sudden entered flex
printing technology and all those artists went jobless and nobody even knows
how they survived later on in their lives. Not everyone is a M.F Husain in any
way. Every brand moved on to hoarding advertisements using flex printing and
the past decade saw huge developments in such hoarding advertisements. Now we
don’t know what will happen to business men, both small & big players, in
this field. In every field it is inevitable that new technology will replace
older ones and that is what happened to the painted hoardings of yester year. Smart
brand owners would have easily adapted to the change as they will be always
updated about such technological changes. But in our country, especially down
South, we never really get ready for changes that come up in future due to
changes in the laws of the country. Now the time has come to say good bye to
the hoardings/bill boards as we see a huge change in the way the law perceives
such huge hoarding constructions. After all though a horse rickshaw might seem
economical, environment friendly and a low cost maintenance option, if the law
does not permit it on the road we have no other way but to change our mode of
transport isn’t it?
Hoardings as an advertising medium
Hoardings are one of
the biggest components of the media mix in South India now. The rise in cost of
advertisements in print & electronic media and ineffectiveness of the
digital marketing activities due to the absurd handling of the digital media
space by spurious digital marketing agencies also have contributed to brand
owners spending a huge amount from their media budget for hoardings as part of
their OOH advertising campaigns.
Governments, Courts & Environmentalists have time and again warned
about the dangers of the flex material used for hoardings and the danger of the
huge hoarding constructions itself. While most of the major cities in North
India have moved on to other methods of erecting hoardings, here in South India
especially Kerala we still go on erecting even unauthorized hoardings and use
every trick in the book to sell them to brand owners. Brand owners too seems to
be unaware about the changing perception about such flex printed huge hoardings
and are going on spending huge budgets on such advertisements. Chennai for
instance had banned flex hoardings years back and they have kept such boards
out of the city limits for past several years. Now the latest instance of an
unfortunate death of a girl in a mishap involving a huge flex board is sending
repercussions around the brand owners and the first ones to see the need to
change are the biggest spenders on hoardings – film fraternity. Both Tamil and
Malayalam industry leaders have come out with statements clearly against use of
such hoardings in their future campaigns. Brand owners will have to follow suit
not out of the need but out of the necessity to abide the law enforcement
agencies.
Now what next?
We South Indians have
a general attitude towards change and are well known for being late to adapt to
changes most of the times. So what next for OOH advertising should be phrased
as ‘what is the present’ in hoarding advertising just because world over and
even in major cities in India digital bill boards have already replaced
traditional hoardings? Digital bill boards are using digital images or videos
to show advertisements. These are environment friendly and at the same time
cost effective to both the hoarding companies and the brand owners. Cost
effective for the companies erecting digital boards as they can sell same space
to multiple companies. Cost effective for the brand owners because they can use
a same space to advertise different messages per day or even per hour.
Change in advertising approach
Digital bill boards
are already in and it is going to stay for quite some time though the medium
may change drastically along with the progress in new age technologies. For
instance we may not have to wait for many years to see digital moving walls and
even digital advertisements on moving vehicles as already commercial production
of flexible screens have started in more developed countries. A product coming
out of a screen and talking to us personally or a brand ambassador coming out
of a screen on a street and talking to us about a product are not imaginary
concepts any more with the advent of new age technology applications of virtual
reality and artificial intelligence. So it is high time brand owners looked at
these prospects and be ready to use such new mediums. What this means for your
advertising strategy? A change in advertising content is inevitable as we are
moving towards a digital, more interactive medium from a still image based
content used in flex printed hoardings.
In shorter terms be ready to change your
existing static communication content to real-time interactive communication
content. This needs a lot more new set of tools & ideas to make your
advertising content relevant to such new mediums. If still thinking this is not
going to happen in the near future just check how many advertisements in a print
medium like a newspaper or magazine you can see at least a QR code which is the
basic tool to make a static print advertisement more interactive. This means
even the print media which is the most static advertising message tool is
adapting itself towards being interactive. Again down South most of the brands
use a QR code just to divert the customer to the website or face book only to
see the same advertisement displayed there where as smart brand custodians use
such tools to make the customer interact with the brand or product and even
initiate a purchase directly through that tool. Brand owners will have to be
more focused on their idea or the story about their brand and the communication
will have to be more interesting to the viewer in future rather than just
announcing what the product or the brand wants to communicate. Every disruption
brings in the need of new expertise and it is time to think how to adapt to
this future challenge.
