Let us be an indispensable part of the planning: Vikram Sakuja

What will it take for Indian OOH to achieve double digit growth? Speaking at OAC 2016, Vikram Sakhuja, Group CEO, Madison World & OOH took us through the real-time scenario as to where OOH stands vis-à-vis print, radio, cinema and digital along with suggesting some dynamic solutions to take OOH up there. According to Sakhuja, although there has been some 14% growth in OOH in 2015, traditional OOH still remains a challenge. While the Rs 600-crore market of digital media attributes its success to high level of interactivity and other media mix is catching up fast, OOH in India is stalled. "Today, we have a share as megre as 6% in the media mix. We should ideally be following  survival strategies that other media are following. The advertizers must feel that OOH is an indispensable part of their consolidated media campaign,” said Sakhuja. Pointing at the fact that more brands are looking at consumer journey, Sakhuja said that OOH industry has brilliant thinking but there is no noticeable scale currently. With giving weightage to great and catchy creative, he also asks the stakeholeders to increase addresability, contextuality and interactiveness.
 
Sakhuja also suggested deeper collaboration between owners and agencies, stronger regulation in banning illegalities, streamlined trading of sites and building accountability through rigid softwares, audit trails etc. "Let us be an indispensable part of media planning of the brands,” Sakhuja concluded.