“OOH provides a canvas to bring out an idea”

What role does OOH play in your marketing initiatives?

OOH advertising plays a critical role, especially, for a geographical location like the Delhi-NCR, where it is quite an impactful medium. For a sector like the real estate which is quite conventional when it comes to the advertising media, both Print and Outdoor stand out as the driving ones. As far as M3M India is concerned, we have been very strategic in our OOH campaigns and selection of sites. Whenever we launch any campaign, be it a brand campaign or any product launch, we prefer executing an extensive outdoor campaign with heavy spends to make it the talk of the town. OOH advertising is a medium that is visible to a wide group of people as they drive in and out during the day and it works very effectively.

As more people spend more time out of home, do see a greater reason to drive OOH advertising for deepening your brand’s consumer connect?

If we have to bring out an idea, then outdoor advertising gives us a huge canvas for the same. It provides an opportunity to build recall over a period of 2-3 weeks, which goes very well with our campaigns. Moreover, considering the Delhi NCR market consumer trends, wherein besides the daily professional commute, people want to go out in the evening for dinners or party, especially in the city of Gurgaon; it gives us a tremendous opportunity to use this medium.

Secondly, there is a huge transit population which moves between Delhi and Gurgaon. So typically, if you look at their routes, they would either take the Ring Road or NH8 and we can pick up OOH media sites by witnessing their transit pattern. Also, Delhi is one such region that has lots of different pockets catering to different interests of target audience, hence instead of reaching out to each locality separately, it is a lot easier to target desired groups when they are on the move.

Real estate is one heavily cluttered category, so how do you leverage OOH to stand out of the clutter?

There are several factors we keep in mind while working on the OOH campaign. Primarily, our campaigns have ideas that are big on scale and execution, as we look at appealing to the masses. We also tend to simplify our communication to make our proposition transparently clear. And to amplify our communication, we run it in sync with other mediums like digital, print, electronic, etc. This helps to explain about the proposition in a grander manner along with the OOH medium.  In our OOH campaigns, we also look at including premium units to have the right kind of impact. Besides, we opt for strategic locations, mapping the routes that people prefer for their commute.

M3M India does direct dealings with media owners, so how does it benefit you?

Primarily, cost is a major aspect in direct dealings with media owners as it tends to make spending much more effective and cost-friendly. The other reason is that for a region like the Delhi-NCR, which requires short burst & high-impact campaigns, it is viable and convenient to reach out to the media owners directly. This helps to understand about the available formats, ones which are fast, highly impactful and cost effective. There is a need for knowledge and insights during the media planning and we get that support from our concessionaires. Also, since our base is Gurgaon and our core geography is Delhi-NCR, we are pretty much familiar with the process.

Will expansion of DOOH give brands like yours greater reason to up the OOH spends?

We are always open for innovations as we strongly believe that any communication may not be impactful unless it is creatively impactful. Therefore, we are always on the lookout for out-of-box ideas; be it in digital format or otherwise.

What would be the highlights of your brand’s recent OOH campaign and the takeaways?

We did an interesting campaign with a catchy slogan ‘Trump has arrived, Have you?’. It was a tactical campaign about an event for which we wanted to reach out to a certain target group. It was a short campaign which was aimed at driving focus on the event. The idea was to mount the campaign at strategic locations to make people curious about the event.

What changes do you anticipate in the OOH space?

We believe that the OOH medium in Delhi NCR needs to get more organised in terms of the formats and structures. For example, in  Mumbai the outdoor medium is far more structured and powerful in size. Definitely, the organised media adds value to the communication tools for any brand. Consequently, the OOH advertising in the Delhi-Gurgaon region also needs to come at par. Also the quality of media needs to be improved drastically.

We also need to look at other logistic aspects, such as lighting amongst other parameters. And last but not the least, measurement metrics need to be there.