‘Moderate the cost of tendered ad contracts for viability of OOH media ops in Delhi’

The Delhi OOH market remains one of the strong pillars of Indian OOH, but its sustained growth will hinge on collective industry action to influence the MCD to usher in industry-friendly ad norms. Speaking about the Delhi OOH market’s current trajectory, Amit Kapoor, CEO, US Advertising told Media4Growth that that Delhi OOH business would be smaller in comparison with Mumbai OOH market as a large number of corporates are headquartered in Mumbai which is also the country’s financial hub. National agencies are therefore more inclined to channel more OOH spends in the Mumbai market.

Brand participation

When asked about regional and local brand participation on the Delhi OOH canvas, Amit said that “Delhi NCR, being the capital and a major metropolitan area, attracts a substantial influx of national and international tourists, political delegations, and business investors. Consequently, it's a pivotal market for all types of brands. Having said that, local and regional brands play important roles to add to Delhi’s business. Delhi has various important regional categories from real estate to retail and news channels which put in handsome revenue through tactical, mid-term, and long-term OOH campaigns to enhance visibility.”

“As such, local and regional budgets don’t provide for outdoors in Delhi as the media is expensive and they can’t get ROI from their small budgets. At the same time, Delhi as the country’s capital and the seat of the Central government sees a good volume of Central and state government campaigns running on OOH. Government campaigns have indeed kept the occupancy levels good,” he said. 

Short-lived contracts

Amit pointed out that high-priced contracts and reduced business were influencing media owners to surrender the tenders that they had picked at high costs.

He added that “MCD should also look into the issue of media owners and expect reasonable prices on long term contract and revenue share.”