OUT-OF-HOME ADVERTISING:

Status and Trends

With outdoor advertising dating back to when man communicated ideas by carving stone plates and displaying them in public places, out-of-home (OOH) advertising can be regarded as one of the oldest forms of advertising.

In the 7th PANA General Membership Meeting held last July 31 at the Hard Rock Café in Glorietta 3, OAAP fellows graced the luncheon to update the advertisers on the current status of out-of-home advertising in the Philippines, laws related to outdoor advertising and what’s in store for the future of OOH.

Danny Adapon, Senior Vice-President of Luneta Advertising, narrated, “In the early 1960s, outdoor advertising was regarded as a primary medium of advertising in the Philippines. This prompted the 15 established outdoor advertising companies then to form the Outdoor Advertising Association of the Philippines (OAAP) on August 13, 1964.” The association now has 100 members and the number is still growing.

Adapon enumerated the advantages of patronizing OAAP-member companies over non-members. The most important of which is the protection of the advertisers from unethical trade practices, as OAAP has inherent power to sanction erring members.

Atty. Joe Vale, OAAP President and Owner of Luneta Advertising, then discussed the salient points of “The Additional Rules & Regulations on Signs or Signboard Structures,” issued by DPWH early this year and the set of laws that govern the design, construction, support and anchorage of billboards.

Rey Inobaya, Country Manager of Kinetic Worldwide Media Philippines Inc., was quick to add, however, that the understanding of out-of-home advertising must not be limited to just the use of billboards. Lamp post banners, waiting sheds, wall murals, and other executions literally seen outside the home can already be classified under this category.

Inobaya was pleased to reveal that certain tools are already available to aid OOH planning and buying in the local setting. He shared the tools being used by their company, such as Perspective Plus – a mapping tool to identify proximity to target audience or point-of-sale, Cluster Zoning – a tool to identify unique audience in the main thoroughfares of Metro Manila and the Audience Impact Measurement – an OOH Evaluation Tool to measure OTS (Opportunity to see), CPM (Cost per mille), and net audience by weighing all factors affecting OOH effectiveness.

Global and local executions were presented to familiarize the advertisers with various options available in OOH advertising. Moreover, fresh executions such as sound shelters, opinionator shelter and elumin8 are some of the new technologies to be infused to the local OOH industry in the near future.

Aside from improvements in the creative aspect of OOH, advertisers are also assured that OAAP is already working on the guidelines or brackets of pricing as well as in devising means to evaluate OOH effectiveness. This will greatly aid the advertisers in determining the cost-effectiveness of OOH.

Keeping in mind that an integrated marketing communications (IMC) approach is the best strategy at present time, perhaps it is high time for advertisers to include OOH in their synergistic media mix.