'Put up the sites on time'

Average spend on and approach to OOH

We spent 25% of the entire budget on OOH. We are going to  increase  the  outdoor  budget  this  year  considering that  the  electronic  media  is  becoming  costlier.  Also, we  may  do  some  filler  campaigns  too,  as  these  kinds of  campaigns  have  become  popular  these  days.  We generally take 40-50 sites for each campaign. We have done campaigns for Choco Bite product this year where we  concentrated  more  on  formats  like  unipoles  and metro sites. We displayed on more than 100 metro sites for 3 months.


Role of OOH

Shakti  Bhog  is  a  market  leader  in  flour  in  India  and we  are  getting  competition  from  other  brands  like Aashirwad.  We  have  been  rewarded  as  India's  most attractive brand in flour wheat atta category based on a survey conducted in more than 16 cities. The credit for this goes to OOH medium also. In fact we have even increased our sales recently because of OOH .

Comparative performance of OOH

The  biggest  advantage  of  OOH  medium  is  that  it  is  a localized medium. A place like Delhi is a cosmopolitan city as all kinds and categories of people come here. So through outdoor you can cater to 95% of the audience. Now  we  are  launching  our  new  product  called  Shakti Bhog Gold Tea. We will be doing an OOH campaign for this  launch  later  in  January  or  Mid  Feb.  We  are  also launching Gold tea in 4-5 states and are entering the cornflakes  market  too;  the  product  will  be  launched soon.

Exploring formats

We have tried all kind of properties such as billboards, gantries, and good unipoles. We tried metro properties the first time and it was a good success as it caters to a huge number of travelers and is a big property. I believe the Delhi Metro is far better than the London Tube Rail. But being a FMCG brand, we don't take public utilities.

Strong OOH markets

No  other  city  can  be  compared  to  Delhi.  Delhi  has  all kind  of  formats  such  as  street  furniture  and  others which  can  be  compared  with  international  standards. Even a city like Mumbai is far behind Delhi in terms of OOH. For example, Mumbai's Bus shelters are smaller
than Delhi. Also, wall panels are allowed in Delhi.

Defining innovation

We  always  believe  in  doing  fresh  innovations.  For example, recently we did a backlit atta bag on hoarding which people noticed very well. We wanted to innovate on  metro  properties  as  well  but  couldn't  because of  restrictions.  But  even  there  we  took  backlit  star flex  which  very  few  people  use.  Going  ahead,  we  will certainly go for more innovations for our new launches.

Creative approach to campaigns

OOH medium gives the visibility for a few seconds. The idea  is  to  have  minimum  messaging  and  maximum reach.  Our  creative  include  the  product,  tagline,  the brand  ambassador  and  the  rate  of  the  product.  We don't  like  to  put  in  a  lot  of  information  and  make  it
looked cluttered.

Measuring impact

Monitoring  is  a  big  task.  We  ask  our  vendors  to  sell images every week because they can't remove and put other  sites.  Lighting  is  also  a  big  issue.   And  to  deal with this, we have an internal team which does surprise visits  to  these  sites.   I  for  my  part  keep changing  my travelling routes too and keep checking the sites status. Overall  I  do  feel  the  advertising  standards  have  been raised.

Role  of  Specialist  Agencies  and  expectations  from them

We always take the sites directly from media owners all over the country and through this we save on cost. But lack of transparency is an issue and has to be sorted out.

Message to Media Owners

There  are  three  utmost  important  things  which  are needed:  determination,  dedication  and  punctuality. Media owners should put the sites on time and give the images on time.

Factors that will drive OOH spends

I think the conditions of the sites should be improved. Also, media owners should fulfill the work commitment. They shouldn't sell one site and then install the flex on another.