‘OOH enhances the visual appeal of the city landscape’

Can you tell us a bit about the policy initiatives you have taken to regulate outdoor advertising business in Nashik and also about the contribution of outdoor advertising to your municipal corporation’s revenues?

Currently, there are 875 authorised outdoor sites in the city of Nashik. We make sure that every hoarding site is duly authorised by NMC. During the authorisation process we focus on the hoarding condition and its capability to hold the flex. If the structural condition is not satisfactory, we don’t issue the licence to the particular media owner or we bar that site. Last year, our outdoor division brought down 167 hoardings that were unauthorised, out of which some were not in good condition.

Outdoor advertising certainly contributes to the corporation’s revenues. NMC itself has 69 10/10 billboard sites within the city. We give these sites to the media owners and agencies. We also have 28 large sized hoardings, out of which 11 are used by NMC for government campaigns, while the rest are used by agencies and media owners. We have 9 divisional officers who oversee the outdoor advertising activities and report to us on a daily basis.

Do you see scope for innovative media formats in the city?

Nashik city has traditional outdoor formats. We are completely in favour of promoting new OOH formats. For now our target is to bring outdoor media to the public utility areas, BQS and traffic police booths. DOOH is also something we are looking at.

In many cities OOH industry has participated in civic infra development on PPP (Public Private Partnership) basis. Have you envisioned any plans to engage local OOH firms in such initiatives?

There is no plan to engage OOH firms in such initiatives in the next two years, but definitely this is a good move taken by other cities for the development of civic infrastructure.

Do you see a role for OOH industry in the beautification of Nasik city?

Yes, OOH industry adds to the beautification of the city with big lit hoardings, and lit billboards give city a modern look.

What are your views on promoting digital outdoor advertising formats that also provide citizen centric information on the lines of smart cities?

As I said earlier, DOOH will add to the beautification of the city. But I am not in favour of it being near traffic signals or on highways, as it might result in road accidents. We will fix DOOH in places like malls, supermarkets, public utility areas and BQS in the near future.