‘OOH can never be irrelevant, you just need the right concept’

A brand that watches

Jadeblue is one of Gujarat’s most recognised menswear retailers. With metro expansion on the cards, how the brand spends its media budget is a considered decision, and outdoor is firmly part of that conversation.

Shambhav Chauhan is not the kind of executive who delegates observation. He drives himself, watches signals, and notices where attention goes. Right now, he says, it goes to phones.

“Earlier, when people stopped at signals, they would look around, at hoardings, at gantries. Now, the first thing they do is open their phones. So you are not looking here and there anymore. You are not looking at the billboards.” But he is not writing OOH off.

“OOH can never be irrelevant at any time. I’ve seen what Aditya Birla did when they launched Indriya, they acquired almost all the premium hoardings across key corridors. They could have gone fully digital. But they didn’t. You have to have the right concept, good locations, good spaces.”

Innovation pending

Jadeblue currently runs standard backlit and frontlit hoardings. The more experiential formats, 3D, anamorphic, large LED, are acknowledged but not yet activated.

“3D elements, giant screens where you can showcase, these will definitely catch the eye.  But we are not doing much of that right now.” The brand does have a curved screen, precisely the kind of surface built for anamorphic content. For now, it runs campaign ads.

“We have a curved screen. That is exactly where you can play anamorphic content. But right now, we just run our regular ads, our collections, our Bhoomra campaign.”

The measurement gap

Measurement remains the medium’s open wound, and Shambhav does not soften it.

“On digital, you have every single metric on hand. But getting measurement from a hoarding is very tricky, it’s almost impossible.”

It is a gap that quietly tilts budget decisions toward digital, particularly for a brand preparing to enter new cities where every rupee needs to justify itself.

Ahmedabad’s missed opportunity

The city’s digital OOH story is, in Shambhav’s telling, a story of inaction. Operators cite regulatory hurdles. But the sharper problem is disinterest.

“These advertisement companies that own the properties, they are not doing anything.”

Mumbai, by contrast, has the market depth to support investment in premium formats and audience infrastructure. Ahmedabad does not yet have the client base willing to pay for it, and the vendors are not pushing to change that.

Where the screen is moving

As Jadeblue renovates key stores, its Hyderabad flagship runs to 17,000 square feet, screens are moving indoors, with modular LED and interactive displays becoming part of the store experience. “We are installing screens where the customer can look into the screen, fit products virtually. Our hero products run on a loop to catch eyeballs.”

The brand’s commitment to service remains the anchor. “Human touch and human intervention is very much needed, especially in a business like ours. We are in the service industry.”

Read the full detailed article in the April edition of Outdoor Asia Magazine