GoHoardings: Driving transition from Offline to Online

Online, on-demand OOH advertising platform GoHoardings.com Solutions has been playing a catalytic role in transforming the conventional way of media buying and selling into a contemporary, hassle-free process. The online destination has a comprehensive database for alternative, traditional and digital OOH media covering 300+ cities in India. Founded by Vikas Sharma, an ex-digital media marketer and Deepti Awasthi Sharma, a former E&Y employee, the online platform has been designed with an aim to ease the process of buying and selling outdoor media. “It has always been a challenge in the OOH industry to identify the owner of the site and other details. So, we decided to establish a venture to overcome this issue and design a seamless process for buying & selling,” shares Vikas Sharma, Founder & CEO, GoHoardings.com Solutions LLP.

In the OOH industry i.e. physical in nature, 99% of media planning and buying takes place offline. However, the company is seeing a shift happening in the industry whereby tech-savvy media managers are making a good use of this consolidated infrastructure. “We have made the entire buying process very convenient for the brands where they can get the specifications of the sites on their desktops and make a plan with just a few clicks. The brand marketer doesn’t have to go physically to conduct the site recce which saves cost for them,” adds Deepti Awasthi Sharma, VP -- Revenue & Growth, GoHoardings.com Solutions LLP.  

Along with images, the company provides various other relevant specifications of sites such as sizes, geo-tagging location, availability, highlights and rates. The online platform also gives an option to brands to design single city and multi-city media plans by including a variety of media.

GoHoardings also offers supports media owners by providing them an online management inventory system and an opportunity to sell their sites on the online platform as well as make online plans for client pitches as well. “Our main concentration is on Tier I & II cities where the occupancy rate still lingers at 60%-65%. So, our endeavor is to increase their business opportunities by bringing them additional business. We are adding almost 15% of occupancy rate on their sites,” says Vikas. The company helps media owners by monetising the gap between two campaigns which ranges between 5-7 days by giving ads at nominal rates.

To ensure that no fraudulent media is listed on their website, the company has kept a mandate to upload the first page of the tender document certified by the local authority. And in order to keep their platform updated, the company keeps a check at the end and start date of the tender and automatically remove a from their database once the tender duration is over. “These media vendors are also active when it comes to updating their new media as they find our website a good source of media,” says Deepti.

Going further, the company is working on improving the analytics part to get the crystal-clear data for the advertisers. Also, in order to bring effectiveness to the medium, they are adding the feature of providing digital marketing advertising to brands where they can collaborate both OOH & Digital media campaigns for a better outcome.