'Standard formats must be supported by innovations'

Approach to and role of OOH

In our ATL media spends, we focus a lot on outdoor. Whenever we plan to promote one of our products like cheese and reach say 25 cities, OOH works better, because in the case of television, there is a lot of wastage that spills over. But in the case of outdoor we can focus on the TG exclusively.

Preferred formats in Outdoor

The new trends in OOH are all about innovation. Formats like hoardings, lamp posts, kiosks etc are the standard mediums of communication. But, how innovatively we can use that medium is much more important. For example, when we launched our milk product in Nagpur, we had taken 25 hoardings but among those 25 hoardings, three of them were very innovatively done. We used neon lights to showcase a glass of milk getting poured out from the milk pouch. There are other formats that we use like buses panels, TV in buses, bus seat backs etc. We have observed based on research that typically a person sits in a bus for about 18 to 22 minutes, so one can actually communicate about the brand and get a captive audience.

Measuring impact

Scientifically there is no measurement tool for outdoor, like there is TAM data for TV. In outdoor it's just based on gut.

Approach to campaigns

For each quarter of the year we decide on a communication plan and concept and go with that for the campaigns. Right from the TV campaign, the thought gets translated onto all our communications for all media—hoardings, digital and finally the point of purchase trade marketing. We do at least one campaign each quarter with a common theme running across all communications. This is how we are connected with the consumer. It has to be an integrated campaign, right from top to bottom. 

Availability of creative expertise among specialized agencies

It all depends on what kind of creative agency we are working with. Agencies do a lot of research on the creative part and there is always some TG research done for any campaign.  For example, if my TG includes teens or kids, then we might not go for hoarding. In that case we will do some activation at schools or residential localities where I can address them directly.

Strong OOH markets

It always depends on the business plan, but our largest spend is on the Western region, followed by North and then the South, though in the North availability of sites is an issue. But we are working around it.