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The Indian OOH industry has to take immediate steps to overcome its comparative underperformance, World Out of Home (WOO) president Tom Goddard said at an event in Bengaluru recently.
The key issues dragging the sector down are a lack of credible industry-wide measurement, uncoordinated AdTech development, inconsistent municipal regulations, slow digital conversion rates, fragmented media ownership (over 3,000 OOH operators) and multiple OOH trade bodies, as well as sustainability being a low priority, Goddard said in his keynote speech at the Indian out of home advertising convention.
Goddard pointed to demographic, economic and infrastructure trends that make India hugely appealing to global brands, the WOO website reported in a post.
India has an average citizen age of 29, compared with 37 in China and 48 in Japan, with 65% of the population aged below 35, while the country’s GDP is forecast to double by 2030 and put India third in the world economic ranking.
Goddard pointed to the immense investment in infrastructure across railways, metro and bus networks and an increase from the current 148 airports to 220 in the next two years.
All these factors provide huge growth opportunities for OOH in India, he said. Still, compared with APAC and Europe, India underperforms the league by significant margins on most key OOH metrics.
At the same time, he pointed to some bottlenecks as mentioned above. “With all these challenges, it’s not surprising that major international investors in OOH are conspicuous by their absence, with only JCDecaux present in the market, operating in the more controlled street furniture, transit and airport divisions, compared to the fragmented and cluttered billboard channel,” the WOO post quoted him as saying.
Goddard proposed several steps the Indian industry must immediately take to overcome the deficiencies that are holding the sector back. He suggested the formation of one trade association that speaks for the whole market and funding of an ongoing audience measurement program. He said brands and agencies must get behind the IOAA and its members and suggested a coordinated AdTech strategy between the buy-side and the sell-side.
Among other things, he stressed the need for more investment in digital transformation; bolstering of relationships with municipalities and calling out of unfair practices; and building a carbon-neutral sustainability roadmap.
“The first thing is for the responsible and ethical players to come together in a spirit of collaboration, to develop a cohesive plan to tackle these key deficiencies. If the industry makes an earnest start on these tasks, the only way is up,” he said.
