Outdoor Advertising Industry Gets a Festival Boost

The advertising billboards are going up once again in a full swing, and the prospects of the outdoor advertising industry are looking up after being grounded by the covid19 pandemic. The economic fallout of the crisis has been a lot harder on this segment with billings drying up by a sizable amount. The recovery since then has been substantial, at least on a consistent basis. Revenues on August 22 and September 22 have now recovered to as much as 150% of last year because of festive spending and the growth in business seen in the market, advertising industry executives said.

As the curbs were lifted, businesses within the cities, as well as inter-state travel, increased. “This boosted the festival season business and customers coming back to the markets. It is just the right time to reach the consumers, potential buyers through Outdoor Advertising (OOH) media,” said Shubham Jain, Marketing Head, Shubindia Ad Works, an integrated outdoor media agency.

“We started seeing an satisfying growth in outdoor ads from August. The festive season OOH ad spending has managed to revive and bounce back to 150% of what brands spent last year,” he said. Companies across automobiles, smartphones, jewelry, banking, financial services, insurance, telecom, e-commerce, video-streaming platforms, and real estate are driving the recovery. Spending has been particularly strong in markets such as Pune, Mumbai, Alibag, and the Rest of Maharashtra.

“Whether it was SBI, JSW, Adani, Tanishq, JioMart,  Amazon, Flipkart or local players across cities, multiple outdoor campaigns are running throughout the festive season. We have also witnessed higher media occupancy in smaller cities than metros,” said Mr. Jain. Shubindia Ad Works and State Bank Of India (SBI) mounted the brand’s festive Yono Cash, PBBU festival, and Home Loan campaign in Pune. Launched on 21st September, the OOH campaign was part of SBI’s 360-degree campaign for the new festive offers and is on for 3 months. It used various OOH media across Pune to maximize impact and reach the target audience, the company said.