Digital Outdoor Debate Sparks Mixed Views

There were mixed views on the state of digital outdoor advertising at yesterday’s ‘Future of Outdoor’ seminar hosted by MediaTel Group, with some panellists claiming that the formats were the way forward and others expressing concern that the industry was adopting technology for the sake of it.

Tim Bleakley, managing director of CBS Outdoor, believed that digital outdoor formats would “attract advertisers and convince people to spend more time with us as an industry and as people in how they achieve their objectives in the market place.”

He said: “Digital is a shop window for the industry and it will attract new advertisers not just into digital but into the medium full stop where they can start to use multimedia campaigns and use other formats – some will be static some digital.”

Meanwhile, Barry Sayer, UK president of Clear Channel Outdoor, was of the view that digital was the way forward and that outdoor and digital would one day become one and the same.

“All poster sites will eventually get replaced with digital screens because it will just be another poster panel,” he said. “The only difference will be that the digital panel will be far more flexible. The industry should be moving this way.”

However Roy Jeans, CEO of IPM, expressed some concern. Whilst admitting there was a trend to increasing digital spend (from 2% last year to a forecast of around 4% or 5% for this year), he said he was not convinced that digital was the root of all solutions. The industry had a long way to go, he remarked, highlighting the fact that there was a lot of cynicism amongst the advertising fraternity about what digital does, how quickly it will be installed, and the pricing of digital going forward.

Craig Wills, head of strategy – Open at JCDecaux, was more sceptical. “This is where the concern comes in – probably from a planning point of view – to have a statement which is ‘Outdoor will be the ultimate flexible medium with day part planning across all formats in all places’ seems to be potentially breaking down the model which is actually incredibly successful,” he stated.

“We’re reaping the rewards of five, six, seven years of heavy investment from all players in the marketplace. We know that fragmentation has played in to our hands, yet we’re going to play the fragmentation game.”

He said: “Maybe transport is really good for flexible day part planning on digital, but actually the core of the business that delivers that massive investment is still in mass market, solid communication and cut through, less is more, and that’s still working for us. We can do it, but should we do it is the question.

“That’s a bit of a worry because from the agency side, that’s a whole new planning model, what it means for the creative agencies is different and actually there’s no actual proven success that day part planning on large format advertising is really what the market always wants.”

He also said that it felt like digital was being rolled out at such a rate just because it was possible. “The plan and the schedule should be led by consultation rather than just for the sake of it,” he said, expressing concern at the rapid growth.

There was also concern from Clive Punter, CEO of CBS Outdoor International, who questioned the readiness of the industry for digital from the floor.

He said the industry was being brave, but added that he was not sure that the industry was collaborating enough about how it develops its systems of learning and creativity.

“I don’t think as an industry we’re geared up at the moment to really understand [the buying and selling of digital] properly,” he said.

Sayer was less concerned, outlining that the industry would react to demand. “I think if the market does not want day part planning then we wont give it to them,” he stated. ” We have moved from the paper poster… the next natural phase is to do the whole job digitally. The economics will dictate formats at the end of the day.”

He believes that the fundamental issue is that technology is progressing, leading to more options, which Clear Channel at least welcomes as something that will take place over many years.

He also expressed a belief that large companies should put research and development funds behind new projects to try and make them work for the future to improve the industry.

Wills felt that the industry should be better at singing its praises and not be as shy about what it is doing, whilst Jeans was adamant that it was up to the industry to create demand for products.

“As an industry, both as buyers and sellers, it’s up to us to sell the medium because frankly I don’t think there is a latent demand yet amongst the advertising fraternity to actually use outdoor’s digital inventory,” he admitted. “It’s changing at a reasonable pace but it’s not perhaps changing at the pace we would like.”

Media journalist Ray Snoddy added: “If these guys are smart enough they’ll use digital for a proper purpose.”

MediaTel Group: 020 7439 7575 www.mediatelgroup.co.uk