Pawan Bansal unanimously elected as Chairman of Indian Outdoor Advertising Association

Pawan Bansal, Chief Operating Officer, Jagran Engage, has been unanimously elected as the new Chairman of the Board of Indian Outdoor Advertising Association (IOAA), the apex body of Indian OOH industry. Speaking with Media4Growth soon after being elected to this key industry role, Pawan said his principal goal would be to place Indian OOH on a high pedestal in the media ecosystem, and make it the most preferred media channel for advertisers.

Pawan would be focusing upon making the industry body much more representative, and thereby making it more inclusive. He also brought forth the imperative of accelerated adoption of new technologies in the Indian OOH business, as well as the best business practices.

“As Chairman of IOAA it would be my endeavour to keep all channels of communications very open and leverage the combined strengths and views to lead a significant lot of groundwork to realise the envisaged goal of a major makeover of Indian OOH,” he said.

Sharing his observations on the change of guard at the helm of IOAA, Noomi Mehta, outdoing Chairman of IOAA, told Media4Growth that it is a “welcome change”.

Noomi said that the apex body required new leadership, new initiatives, and a fresh direction. He also pointed to the need for greater inclusivity in IOAA’s make-up and said that it would be in the fitness of things for IOAA to set up regional chapters across the country.

Noomi said that while IOAA has been successful in supporting the media owning businesses on various fronts like minimum campaign duration, issue of POs, etc., as well as in developing a framework for OOH audience metrics, there is a strong felt need to enhance the body’s budgetary resources and step up the liaisoning with government bodies. A young leadership to take these initiatives forward is timely, he said.