News

Once upon a time outdoor advertising was straightforward - and fairly dull. You booked a billboard site or a poster in a bus shelter for two weeks, reformatted your print creative to fit the space, and a roaming
army of contractors stuck up your ad all over the UK. Maybe, if you were really sophisticated, you had a
scrolling billboard or back-lighting so people could see it at night.

It's little wonder the rest of the media industry scarcely paid any attention -- especially with sexy new media like the internet to talk about.

But then along came the dotcom crash, leaving them nursing a collective hang-over. This was the cue for the outdoor industry, which began to undergo a serious makeover. After sustained investment from the contractors, the sector is now bursting with new creative possibilities.

Super-structures are increasingly creating a visual "wow" factor, while technology such as Bluetooth offers new interactive possibilities so brands can engage with consumers on a one-to-one basis. Billboards are now bigger and more brilliantly lit than ever, and creative types have an almost unlimited canvas.

Outdoor is experiencing its strongest growth at the premium end of the market, with players such as JCDecaux and its top-end Premiere portfolio, Clear Channel with Pinnacle, and Ocean Outdoor, offering spectacular sites, such as Ocean's 1000m2 site on the exterior of the IMAX cinema in London.

It's also no longer just about sight - advertisers can use outdoor to grab attention with sound, and even smell. Clear Channel scared commuters in London and Birmingham in 2005 by incorporating the sinister voice of Darth Vader into a customised bus shelter for the launch of Star Wars Episode 3, while CBS Outdoor (formerly known as Viacom Outdoor) seduced them with mint chocolate smells at Bond Street Underground station in a Christmas campaign for Selfridges department store.

Alan James, chief executive of the Outdoor Advertising Association, says the outdoor sector has just had its 19th consecutive quarter of growth.

"We're doing well because we're putting money into the medium and also because other media are going through a tricky time," James says. "Television audiences are fragmenting and circulations of newspapers are continuing to go down, but outdoor audiences are growing."

Giant screens
At the core of outdoor's transformation is digital screen media, which encompasses everything from Clear Channel's giant screen at Piccadilly Circus and network of digital billboards in key locations across London to JCDecaux's Torch on the M4 and CBS Outdoor's digital escalator panels on the Tube.

One of the pioneers was Titan Outdoor (previously known as Maiden Outdoor), which five years ago started developing its Transvision network of giant screens showing editorial content and advertising next to the indicator boards in mainline rail stations. The company now has 18 screens at 17 stations across the UK.

Streetbroadcast, which specialises in raised six-sheets on lampposts in retail parks and roadside ocations around the UK, is now introducing a digital screen network called StreetLive, which combines public service messages from the local government authority with advertising. Meanwhile, Primesight is planning to introduce digital screens in convenience stores, health clubs and cinema foyers by the end of this year.
Even London's famous red buses are not sacrosanct - CBS Outdoor has LED displays on the sides of buses, with in-built GPS units so the screens can play an ad for Boots at the exact moment the bus passes by a Boots store.

A key part of the appeal of digital is the flexibility to change creative executions or book tactical campaigns by time of day, or day of week. Advertisers and agencies rave about the creative possibilities of digital outdoor and the opportunity for such clever targeting. Yet, in revenue terms, digital outdoor has lagged behind expectations partly because clients have been loath to pay the premiums that the media owners need to justify purchasing such expensive equipment.

Now the technology has become cheap enough to justify its existence on a serious scale and two key developments could help turn hype into reality. One catalyst for growth will be JCDecaux's pounds 25m upgrade of its airport advertising estate when Heathrow Terminal 5 opens in March next year, which will include a hefty digital component. The other is the pounds 72m investment programme promised for the advertising estate on the London Underground, after CBS Outdoor won a renewal of its ad concession last year.
Tim Bleakley, UK managing director, sales and marketing of CBS Outdoor, explains that the entire Tube environment will be improved, not just with big-ticket items such as digital screens but also with simple upgrades such as frames for all posters.
But it is the digital component that is grabbing most attention. CBS has already started installing 52-inch LCD screens in ticket halls, offering full motion video in high definition, and is months away from starting a trial of cross-track projection advertising in a live station environment. The digital escalator panels, which started as an initial trial at Tottenham Court Road station, are now in place at Paddington, Euston and Bond Street.

Bleakley acknowledges there have been some delays to the build programme but notes the challenges are enormous.

"We're building 21st-century technology in 19th-century infrastructure," he says, adding that advertisers have been very supportive and are starting to embrace the creative possibilities of the new medium. InBev, the brewing company behind Stella Artois, Tennants, Beck's and Leffe, was one of the first advertisers on the digital escalator panels in the Tube network, advertising Beck's beer only between the hours of 5pm and midnight. "It allows us to do things that, with conventional out-of-home media, we could never do," says Paul Evans, senior media manager for InBev.

Barry Sayer, chief executive of Clear Channel Outdoor UK, says interactivity is a key strength of digital outdoor, as shown by a recent campaign for the Central Office of Information celebrating 60 years of public information films. Members of the public could download iconic films such as Charlie Says and Green Cross Code onto their mobile phones from a Bluetooth-enabled six-sheet unit in the foyer of the Imax Cinema.

And while some say digital is simply attracting buzz because it is "new and exciting", there are those who reject the notion that it is just hype. Jeremy Male, chief executive of JCDecaux, says: "Digital this year will be worth in the region of pounds 50m - that's pretty impressive considering it's come from nowhere and it's all new money."