“Media in Gujarat is becoming very expensive”

Gujarat’s OOH market is becoming increasingly expensive to participate in, with rising tender costs and aggressive bidding putting pressure on media owners, particularly smaller vendors. 

“Media is becoming very expensive. The government wants more revenue, and there is also a lot of competition in tenders,” says Vishal. 

He says the pressure is particularly visible across Ahmedabad, Surat and Vadodara, where some media owners have chosen not to participate in tenders because the economics no longer work. “If you buy it at that price, you will not earn anything. You will just turn it over,” he says. 

The changing economics are also affecting the local advertiser ecosystem. Vishal estimates that around 70% of business now comes through media agencies and corporate clients, with local business accounting for roughly 30%. 

“Small vendors have left. A small person is not able to do marketing,” he says, pointing to the growing difficulty for smaller players to compete for expensive inventory and for local advertisers to absorb higher media costs. 

Despite the growing focus on DOOH, Vishal says digital remains a very small part of Gujarat’s outdoor market. “In Surat, it is difficult to find even eight to ten digital screens. Digital is not even 1% in some areas,” he says. 

With outdoor demand also concentrated around the festive season, the combination of high acquisition costs and seasonal demand is adding another layer of pressure for media owners. 

For Vishal, the issue is therefore not simply whether Gujarat’s OOH market is growing, but who will be able to participate in that growth as the cost of outdoor inventory continues to rise. 

Read the full interview with Vishal Shah in Outdoor Asia, where he discusses the changing economics of Gujarat’s OOH market, the impact on smaller media owners and local advertisers, and what the market’s next phase could look like.