Out-of-home advertising is exploding in India, according to The Wall Street Journal (paid sub. req.).
Billboard after billboard, sometimes overlapping, pitch everything from Unilever face cream to Fidelity mutual funds to Samsung televisions and the latest Bollywood blockbuster, “Shakalaka Boom Boom.”
As the economy booms, the billboard business is taking off, climbing more than 40% to 9.78 billion rupees ($239.9 million) in the last five years, according to estimates by TAM Media Research Pvt. Ltd., a Mumbai-based media company. While that still represents less than 10% of total Indian annual advertising spending of 163 billion rupees, it is increasingly important for targeting urban India’s burgeoning middle class — who now commute by car and often find themselves stuck in traffic.
The explosion of interest in outdoor ads in India comes as marketers in other parts of the world, including the U.S., are putting more money into the medium, as a way to reach consumers who are better able to avoid ads in traditional media such as TV and radio.
And therein lies the argument for billboard salesmen everywhere…Outdoor, the medium that can’t be avoided!
