After registering a 20 per cent de-growth in 2009, the outlook for the outdoor industry looks relatively optimistic. According to the Pitch-Madison Media Ad Outlook 2010, outdoor will grow by 15 per cent, thereby clocking around Rs 1,305 crore this year. But in terms of actual contribution to the national ad revenue, the projected growth is 6.2 per cent as compared to last year's rate of 6.1 per cent.

The 15 per cent growth however, is on a reduced base of Rs 1,135 crore. In absolute numbers therefore, the projected growth does not even come up to the 2008 levels, when it earned Rs 1,419 crore in advertising. But keeping in mind the severe hit it took in the last quarter of 2008 and the first half of 2009, the picture looks cheerful. "I believe 2010 - 2011 will be the year of outdoor. The harsh lessons learnt in the past two years will stand the industry in good stead, as it will be forced to review its official tenders and balance its sorry ambitions. It will be a time to recoup losses, but significantly better than the previous year," says Noomi Mehta, Managing Director, Selvel Vantage Group. Mehta predicts that outdoor advertising will grow between Rs 200 to 300 crore in the next 12 months.

The lessons for the outdoor industry, as Mehta mentions, have indeed been hard. With Mumbai, the financial capital of India and a key location for outdoor advertising, being severely hit post October 2008, the industry saw a steep fall from the red-hot growth of 28 per cent and 11 per cent in 2007 and 2008 respectively. The industry perspective for 2010 is much more optimistic though. Indrajit Sen, President - Projects, Laqshay Media, affirms, "Industry turnover can be safely expected to hit about Rs 1,700 - 1,800 crore again, that is, to 2007-08 pre-downturn levels - with sustained high occupancy levels and rising selling rates."

Campaigns, which had become shorter in the last twelve months, are expected to be long term in nature. For instance, some companies such as Tata Tea, rely heavily on outdoor to take their message to the masses. Outdoor stands next only to television in Tata Tea's media mix for its Jaago Re campaign. The digital OOH players like OOH Media and LiveMedia too are hopeful that this year will be good for them. "We expect to double our ad revenues in the next 12 months. Our medium is designed to be more focused in terms of reaching out to key audiences and hence the wastage for an advertiser is far less compared to any other medium," iterates Ishaan Raina, Chief Executive Officer, OOH Media.

Rajan Mehta, Founder and CEO, LiveMedia, too expects outdoor, and especially digital OOH to climb a few steps up the ladder of priority for marketers in 2010. "The industry is coming out of the gloom. I believe spends on outdoor will increase because people are in a growth mood," he adds.

There are several avenues which could drive the growth for outdoor advertising as the macroeconomic and business sentiments improve. As Sunder Hemarajani, Managing Director, Times OOH, says, "Advertising in India is known to follow the GDP growth rate. Hence ad spend is expected to go up this year." Secondly, a lot of advertising will be activity led - such as those leading up to Commonwealth Games in Delhi. The IPL too is expected to provide a boost to outdoor advertising, among others. Probably the most important feature that will contribute the most to the sustained success of this industry is the Indian Outdoor Survey (IOS). IOS, the audience measurement system for outdoor media in India, has been launched by Media Research User's Council (MRUC), a non-profit body that conducts print readership research in India. It comes as a planning software that provides details on 4,500 outdoor sites in 1,000 road stretches in Mumbai based on its research. "In 2010, MRUC needs to publish IOS final for Mumbai, Pune and at least three other cities and initiate field work in three more," says Indrajit Sen, President - Projects, Laqshya Media.

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