Outdoor is on par with print and electronic media for DAVP

Speaking on the topic'How effective is Outdoor Medium for social messaging for DAVP?' at UP Talks OOH 2015 in Lucknow, Padam Upadhyay, Production Manager (OP), Govt of India, DAVP talked about the organization's inclination towards outdoor media in spreading awareness on the government's schemes and policies to the masses. Currently DAVP spends INR 100 crore per year for outdoor publicity, which is substantial revenue spent out of the whole allocated budget. Today, outdoor is on par with print and electronic mediums for DAVP.

"While publicizing Government policies like child labour, women empowerment, pension schemes etc, we look at more of sub-towns and villages than metro cities. Given that requirement, we currently have money to spend on outdoor but limited infrastructures to tap villages and sub-towns,” said Upadhyay. Siting the changing scenario as counter-productive for DAVP, Upadhyay exclaimed, "You must have seen a huge facelift in OOH industry in recent past. However, there has been limited infrastructural development in places where we want to advertize. For example, when flex came in the scene of OOH, no printer was available where as we had to be dependent on printers in rural places. Hence, it poses as a paradoxical situation for us.” Talking about the solution, Upadhyay said, "Media owners should extend their reach for commercial growth. With a mission of awareness, a subject like child labour should reach people in villages than in cities and towns. But we have very limited mediums to spread that awareness through outdoor in Indian villages. Such infrastructural growth can yield a win-win situation for both DAVP and several media owners across the country.”

Upadhyay also mentioned that outdoor is the only medium that is yielding good returns to several department of Government in terms of license fees and other payments. "Think about the reach of the Railways or DMRC. If we advertize in spaces like that, media owners are actually paying fees to the respective authorizes and Government is earning back some chunk of spent money through this practice.”