Charmine Moldrich: Think big for growth

Five years ago Charmaine Moldrich was taking a break having finished her position with the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority (SHFA) when she took a phone call from Steve O’Conor, who runs street furniture business JC Decaux in this country, saying that it would be a good idea for her to put her name down for the upcoming role as CEO of the Outdoor Media Association (OMA).

That call resulted in Moldrich being appointed to the high profile position in what has been the fastest growing sector of print, with year on year consistent increases that have made the rest of the industry green with envy, and a sector which is still full of opportunity for printers.

She says, “My knowledge of outdoor media at that time came as a buyer. My background was in the arts world – Prior to working at SHFA I had been –the Director of Marketing at the Historic Houses Trust and had, in that position, been a direct buyer of outdoor advertising  so I knew that it worked, it gave the impact, the immediacy and the accessibility that caused a reaction and a response.

Moldrich was happy to leave the NSW public service. She says, “When it comes to politics as I’m an unguarded and direct person, so being in a political environment like a State Government bureaucracy was  not my forte. I took the CEO’s role at OMA because I could see it was an industry on the move. I was also impressed by Board of the OMA, they are a very smart,saavy, committed and straight talking and I thought the skills I had developed in leading organisations, and in developing and achieving strategic outcomes would be well suited to the industry.”

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That Board has overseen an industry that has been on a straight line growth trajectory ever since, and has its fair share of issues to deal with. Part of the success for outdoor media has come through the implementation of the MOVE system, a highly sophisticated audience measurement systems that  measures how many people are likely to see  a particular piece of outdoor media. The big difference between MOVE and other audience measurement systems is that rather than extrapolating figures upwards, from a sample of a few, it starts with the whole population and  filters out all the ways someone may not see the media. It uses a combination of more than a dozen different data sets to come up with what is regarded as a fairly accurate figure. Moldrich says, “The figures MOVE provides are of people likely to see signs rather than on the number of people whohave the opportunity to see a sign.”

Moldrich’s entry to the OMA came as MOVE was being launched, and of course it was driven by the MOVE team headed byher predecessor, Helen Willoughby Moldrich says, “All the congratulations for launching this amazing system into the marketbecame a bit embarrassing as I hadn’t had anything to do with development, I just happened to be there at the time it was first revealed.” But MOVE is now four years old and its continued development and promotion has been under the tutelage of Moldrich and the MOVE team.

 

Key outdoor drivers

According to Moldrich there are three key drivers that will ensure that outdoor media continues to move ahead in the coming years in Australia. She says, “Outdoor lifestyles, technology development and media fragmentation are the irrefutable reasons why outdoor media will increase in the years to come.”

For the OMA the trend to outdoor lifestyle comes first from an increasing population, and an increasingly urban population. She says, “Australia’s population will continue to increase, and that increase will be greatest in our cities, leading to much higher density living. The capital cities in particular are moving away from the detached dwelling on a quarter acre block scenario of our parents generation and into unit living, so the number of people per square kilometer is rising exponentially. For advertisers and the outdoor media industry this density is gold, as it means far more people eyeballing the content.

Moldrich also highlights a population that is increasingly concerned with health and well-being, which in turns leads to an outdoor lifestyle. She says, “Australians are increasingly concerned with taking care of themselves, and you don’t do that by staying at home, and especially when you live in a unit. You get out, so foot and vehicle traffic is increasing. And when you have no yard you go to the park. And urban living increasingly means walking or taking public transport as cities become clogged, meaning time spent eyeballing outdoor media is increased. More people seeing the media for longer periods, you can see why urbanization and outdoor lifestyle is a key driver. And with better demographic data more clearly defined target groups can be identified, for instance that group may be fathers of young children taking an active role in their children’s lives. That is very attractive to brand owners.

The second key driver that Moldrich says is driving the irrevocable growth of outdoor media is technology, particularly smartphones and their apps. She says, “People have fallen in love with their technology. Far from being wary of it virtually all demographics are now using their smartphones with confidence, and are using their technology to meet day to day needs. The combination of smartphone and outdoor media is irresistible. People who see an outdoor media that has some appeal to them can link through their technology to whatever it is they are interested in, a car, a pop concert, a pair of shoes, and find out where they are sold, make appointments, compare prices. Outdoor media drives desire, creates emotion, and generates response, and with technology that response is there and then, and in the hands of the consumer.

According to Moldrich because the internet has also created brands that only exist in cyberspace – companies such as Expedia, Google, Amazon – there is a need for those companies to present themselves in the real world, and outdoor media is a key platform to achieve that. Moldrich says “afterall it is important to remind people of what you are selling.”

The third plank in Moldrich’s assessment of why outdoor media will continue to grow is the remarkable fragmentation of competing media. She says, “Ten years ago there were five TV channels, now there are 200 on TV itself, and thousands more viewable through the internet on tablet, PC and now on TV.. You can buy DVD box sets of entire series without advertising and choose when you want to watch. Radio is similar, there are the main Aussie stations, but virtually every radio station in the world is now available via live streaming on your smartphone. And with Australia having a high immigrant population there has been a large take-up, so car drivers for instance will be listening to radio live from their country of origin, rather than the traditional Aussie commercial stations. This fragmentation is very difficult for marketeers, because their reach is limited, and in stark contrast to outdoor media, which has the same high impact it has always had because it still reaches a massive audience who are out and about each day. MOVE tells us that nine our to ten Australians leave home everyday.”

Moldrich reckons the Apple iPhone is largely responsible for Australians embracing technology, she says, “Jobs made technology very easy to use, as well as being fun, and it works.”

“These three key drivers will only increase in their power and influence, and each one of them is very good news for outdoor media, as the changes are accelerating rapidly, which means more growth for outdoor advertising.”.  

While technology represents an opportunity it also presents a threat to printers, particularly in digital outdoor media. Modrich says, “There is no doubt digital outdoor media will grow as the price of the technology reduces, but printers need to understand that it won’t spell the end of the printed outdoor media by any means. There are specific places where it works well, but there are also limitations.”

Road authorities have very strict rules about where large digital signs can be place on the roadside in order not to distract drivers. . The general public could be forgiven for thinking that there has been a recent proliferation of outdoor media, however Moldrich says that while the number of host locations has grown it isn’t that easy to put a new sign up. She says, “In Australia there are a lot of regulatory hoops to go through, it is very hard to get new signage up. Part of the difficulties come from aesthetic objections, part from misconceptions that even static signs cause distractions for drivers which could lead to vehicle accidents. In fact, as Moldrich is quick to point out,  by far the majority of car accidents are caused by in-car driver distraction, which is evidenced by research.

The OMA is scoring some successful wins, recently both the WA and Queensland roads authorities are running trials of outdoor media on their land. Moldrich says, “Some governments view outdoor media as a way of raising income in these times when governments are looking for new revenue streams outside the taxpayers’ pockets. , But we have to make sure that the private sector has the same rights as government, we don’t want a situation to develop where government enables outdoor media on its land but prohibits it on private land.”

 

The job

Moldrich says her job is essentially four fold, and she enjoys them all. She says, “I get to work with the smart IT end of the business  on the MOVEaudience measurement system, I negotiate with and lobby government, I work on strategic marketing of the industry, and I get to work with a varied group of stakeholders and members.. The members are inspiring, they are competitors but come together for the good of the industry. The likes of APN Outdoor, oOh Media, JC Decaux and Adshel are all part of the OMA, we would represent some 95 per cent of the industry. Although in overall media terms we are a small industry – outdoor media is worth about $550m at the moment – we have a unity that enables us to get our voice heard.

The OMA is probably most visible to the public in its regular stoushes with various politicians over content. In a recent controversy in Queensland Moldrich was famously quoted as saying, “Surely there are more important things to get upset in the world about than Miranda Kerr’s underwear.”

The sexualisation of imagery is an ongoing debate, however Moldrich says that while the outdoor media companies bear the brunt of it they are just the last in a long line of stakeholders that the image has been through. She says, “The client, the creative agency, the media agency all have been involved, and the image will have been through all their filters before it gets to us.” Moldrich says OMA member companies do sometimes reject ads that it deems may be in breach of the AANA code of ethics, she also says that self regulation is the way to manage these issues. Moldrich as a committed feminist and supporter of women’s rights believes that the time has long past where advertisers can rely on ‘Sex Selling’ and should be aware that consumers view these tactics more cynically these days. Moldrich is supported by the research that says Australians love humourous advertising. Since joining the OMA, Moldrich has introduced an education program for members to help them understand the 12 self regulartory codes the OMA members sign up to.

Moldrich sees the drop in the number of complaints upheld since this program was introduced as “clear proof if ever it was needed that the outdoor industry is perfectly in tune with the general public and community standards.” The number of complaints against outdoor media has shrunk dramatically during Moldrich’s tenure. In 2011 there were around 30,000 outdoor campaigns and only eight complaints that were upheld, in 2013 that was down to one complaint that was upheld.

 

Print

Print is of course integral to outdoor media, and Moldrich says that printers can be assured that will continue to be so. However she says that nothing stays the same, “Printers will have to evolve, but it has always been so. The producers of illuminated texts that didn’t embrace Gutenberg’s revolution were out of work within a generation, and outdoor media printers need to embrace digital, particularly the integration of digital with print. There will be some slippage in print in some areas, for instance in shopping centres where there is a stable climate and a secure environment then digital will rise, but there will be other areas where static outdoor media will thrive, as it is immediate, inexpensive, and when used in combination with technology can offer unrivalled engagement.”


 

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