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Home » OOH News » Out-of-the-box thinking, concerted action must for Chennai & ROTN OOH growth: Lokesh Kumar

Out-of-the-box thinking, concerted action must for Chennai & ROTN OOH growth: Lokesh Kumar

By Soneeta Sethi - May 12, 2015

Lokesh Kumar, Director, IKON, addressed a session titled'Are regional markets primed for accelerated growth?' at the Tamil Nadu Talks OOH! Conference organised in Chennai the Tamil Nadu Talks OOH! Conference organised in Chennai on May 8


Chennai and other major cities in Tamil Nadu are key test markets for a gamut of brands. Brands do have reasonable budgets allotted for OOH advertising but are the media owners of Chennai and the rest of the state ready to yield on this opportunity, asked Lokesh Kumar, Director, IKON, while speaking at a session titled'Are regional markets primed for accelerated growth?' at the Tamil Nadu Talks OOH! Conference organised in Chennai on May 8.

Kumar said it was unfortunate that the share of Chennai OOH revenues has dipped by 10-15%. He asserted that while the ban on hoardings has had a detrimental effect on OOH business prospects in the city, the industry needs to look ahead. "Yes, size does matters in OOH but it is a known fact that change is the only constant. Media owners have indeed left no stone unturned to make the brands have the same presence as in any other city even on a 4ft media. But clients or brands want something beyond this, they want value for the money spent,” he said.

Stating that there is always a question on the future of OOH industry, Kumar added that looking at it from a very different prospective, media owners in alliance with government and brands should do something to get a better response from the general public. "Public convenience used for OOH, if done aesthetically, can add a lot of value to the brands but in the last seven years Tamil Nadu has not seen any significant infrastructure that would facilitate aesthetic branding.”

It is also important to experiment with new medium carefully. New medium should set a positive trend and therefore it would prove more beneficial if the media owners have a discussion among themselves on how to take this new and innovative medium on the right track.

Kumar underlined the utter lack of a unified industry voice in the city and state. He said the absence of a functional, strong OOH industry body in the region has hurt the industry's growth prospects. A unified approach would have given the OOH firms a stronger footing when it comes to leveraging new business opportunities in areas like public private partnership projects for infrastructure development.

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