A strong OOH industry body will strengthen the Gujarat OOH media owners’ collective efforts to prevail upon the civic bodies to usher in standard outdoor advertising norms, address the overall media demand-supply mismatch and thereby shore up the local ad rates, promote quality outdoor media that would be of the essence to advertising brands, as also gear up to adopt digital technologies and social media as part of OOH business. These imperatives were highlighted in a power-packed panel discussion at the 1st Gujarat Talks OOH Conference that was held in Ahmedabad on December 16.

The discussion began with the opening remarks made by Noomi Mehta, President, Indian Outdoor Advertising Association (IOAA), wherein he laid particular emphasis on the need for the Gujarat OOH media owners to come together as a strong regional association and work closely with the IOAA which he described as a platform for industry players to address common issues. He added that a unified approach will also insulate the local industry from stiffer competition in the future when global players attempt to foray into the Indian OOH space.

Mehta said the IOAA has approached the Urban Development Ministry at the Centre to release a model code for outdoor advertising and added that a strong association can ensure that the civic bodies’ advertising policies are not at odds with such a model code.

Stating that Gujarat OOH media owners should avoid “over competing” among themselves, he said that due efforts should be made to improve the yields per media unit to about 50% of the prevalent rates in a market like Mumbai.

The panellists Asit Shah, Partner, Het Graphics, Atul Mehta, Proprietor, Chitra Publicity Co OOH Gujarat, Paresh Rajnikant Shah, MD, Sujal Advertisers, Percy Mistry, Director, Selvel Media, Yashvant Shah, Director, Shah Publicity, and Prashant Gadhav of The Sandesh Ltd, urged the IOAA to provide leadership and key support in areas like credit control, best practices with regard to quality of large formats, suitable guidelines with regard to adoption of digital technologies and social media in tandem with OOH advertising, guidelines to enhance the creativity of OOH media and advertising, and advocacy with the Government on tax matters – in particular Service Tax levy on OOH business.

Mehta said the local players could organise a Gujarat chapter of IOAA and that IOAA would provide due support for the same.