Outdoor media is everywhere you look; the billboard attached to the building you walk past every morning on the way to work, the advertising you see splashed across a bus as you are stuck in traffic, or the large sign on the airport terminal you rush past when boarding your flight.
Outdoor print, also known as static or classic outdoor is now mainly produced on digital inkjet wide format printers. Traditionally, commercial printers have not been involved in wide format printing, however since the global financial crisis, there has been a strong push in commercial printers diversifying into this area of print. These days, printers who have failed to gain any exposure in this market are seen as falling behind the eight-ball.
Port Melbourne’s Kosdown Printing, which started out as a humble family business, is one of a multitude of traditional commercial printers which have taken the leap into outdoor print. Director David Downie says he was prompted to invest in the market three years ago at the request of a big client.
“We currently produce outdoor signage for quite a few customers across the state, we provide the design and a lot of it we print in house. We have a lot of capabilities today that my father cannot believe,” Downie says.
“We won a contract with a client we had been working with for eight years and they told us they were about to put their outdoor signage to tender and asked if we could have a go at it. It was not our traditional expertise, but they were happy with the way we had looked after them with everything else.
“It was beneficial for them because we could keep the colour control and branding consistent, and all their work would be produced under one roof. So they asked us if we could try it, we won the tender, we developed the skill and now we do it.”
Market growth
The Outdoor Media Association (OMA) is the peak national industry body that represents most of Australia’s traditional and digital outdoor media display companies and production facilities, as well as some media display asset owners. The outdoor media giants consist of the big four: oOh!media, APN Outdoor, Adshel and QMS Media. These companies own the outdoor infrastructure on which they sell space and time to advertising clients.
According to OMA CEO Charmaine Moldrich, outdoor advertising revenue in all formats continues to surge each year. Between 2014 and 2015, the year on year revenue growth of the entire market rocketed 17 per cent to $677.8m, with printed outdoor responsible for 71.9 per cent of this haul, and the year before was a similar story, and the year before that, and for the past 20 years.
Opus Group’s outdoor division, Cactus Imaging is currently being acquired by oOh!media in vertical integration play. It provides grand format and large format printing for outdoor advertising across Australia. Cactus general manager of operations Keith Ferrell says printed billboards currently make up 65 per cent of the company’s total work. He says, “oOh!media acquired Cactus Imaging for a reason, they do not just see it as a print outdoor company, but an integral mix of what they are trying to do going forward.”
But of course, no industry is without digital disrupters, and the same rings true for outdoor. Over the past couple of years, advertisers searching for the latest, trendiest concepts in technology have embraced digital outdoor media, which involves LED screens displaying brand messaging similar to short television advertisements.
“It is no secret that digital outdoor has become the new buzzword,” Moldrich says. “Digital outdoor is a challenge to the printed poster as it offers immediacy and flexibility.” A challenge it is indeed, because according to OMA data, digital revenue has grown from a 17 per cent share in 2014 to 28.1 per cent in 2015, and continues to climb.
Digital: friend or foe?
If there was ever an expert on digital outdoor in Australia, it would be oOh!media founder and CEO Brendon Cook, and with the digital age well upon us he has become the driving force behind the outdoor giant’s growing digital strategy.
While accepting the Marketer of the Year Award at the 2016 ADMA Australian Creativity & Effectiveness (AC&E) Awards ceremony in Sydney, Cook told the audience: “The evolution of change in a disruptive society is fantastic and as marketers we should be embracing the change.”
Currently 32 per cent of oOh!media’s revenue comes from digital outdoor, which Cook expects will surge to 50 per cent by 2018. Its digital growth strategy, known as the Signature Collection, has seen the company roll out $50m in digital billboards and interactive touch screen displays to date.
Digital does offer advertisers new features in technology which print cannot provide, one being ‘dynamic targeted messaging’ which allows advertisers to update their product display in real time, relevant to weather, news, events or time of day.
An oOh!media digital billboard recently installed in Brisbane’s CBD possesses such technology, allowing it to display a ‘Good morning Brisbane’ message during the first part of the day, which then switches to ‘Good afternoon Brisbane, drive safely’ after midday.
Cook says, “A McDonald’s campaign we ran some time ago now had various McDonald’s products that we had promoted, so there was a whole heap of static promotion, but with the digital side we did it around weather. So if the south of Perth was raining but the north of Perth was hot, we would have different messages being promoted, north Perth would have ice-cream advertised, south Perth had the burger.”
The company is also targeting the retail arena with the Excite screen network, which recorded more than 400,000 shopper engagements with interactive campaigns during its first year. These smaller screens are the same height as an average adult and are dotted around retail centres and malls, offering shoppers an engaging advertising experience with multi-touch screen; Kinect 2.0 gesture control; voice recognition; web-cam; audio and 4G connection – features which print outdoor cannot provide.
Opportunity in outdoor
The immediacy of digital means campaigns can be run for shorter periods and the changeover of campaigns will occur more frequently, which generates more opportunity for advertising revenue. However Cactus Imaging’s Keith Ferrell says printers considering the outdoor market should not view digital as a toothed tiger.
“Some people see it as a threat, I actually see it as an opportunity believe it or not. There are opportunities in digital for companies providing outdoor if they have their house in order,” Ferrell says. “Cactus Imaging can meet very strict deadlines that coincide with the media push in digital billboards, I believe that static combined with digital billboards becomes a strong mix. It is really up to the outdoor print companies to be able to start turning things around in 24 hours, and that is where I see the opportunities.”
Despite being a digital convert, Cook is still a firm believer that print will continue to have its own place in outdoor. He explains that from a regulatory point of view, when it comes to billboards, not every sign can be made digital, and currently some of the most prime billboard locations cannot be digitised because a nearby road’s safety rules may prohibit it. Cook adds that in many cases, it is not cost effective to convert a static billboard to digital.
OMA’s Charmaine Moldrich echoes this sentiment, she says printed, tangible outdoor advertising will always have an artistic edge over digital screens. “Printed posters offer high impact and visibility, are the ultimate creative canvas and still make up over 70 per cent of our total inventory,” Moldrich adds. “We have always seen technology as our friend and while it is a strong factor in driving our overall growth, it is just the icing on the top of the tried and true outdoor poster.”
But those printers still intrigued by the capabilities digital outdoor provides are not limited to offering only static for their customers. Spicers recently started supplying digital outdoor solutions to its clients they were on display at its Visual Impact Sydney stand.
Spicers has also brought on LED screen specialist Simon Biton to the team three months ago to assist its customers in getting involved in the digital outdoor market. Biton says, “For us, getting involved has been a natural progression. We have gone from supplying paper, to signage materials because printers have started buying wide format printers, to the next big thing which is digital signage. Those interested can give us a call for anything regarding the outdoor market and I can explain the digital outdoor technology, how to use it, and also the benefits and limitations.”
Some printers such as Valley Edge Design in Brisbane are already in digital signage. No printer in the side format business can afford to ignore it, but it seems print will continue to be a major part of the outdoor landscape.
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