Festive season boosts outdoor advertising; agencies predict 10-30% increase in ad spends

As the upcoming festive season approaches, outdoor advertising has emerged as a lucrative avenue for advertisers. Outdoor agencies are optimistic, anticipating a potential increase of ad spends by at least 10% YoY, which could even zoom up to 30% YoY for brands operating in categories such as automobiles, FMCG, consumer durables, paint, furnishings, fashion and apparel, electronics, retail, etc.

Haresh Nayak

According to Haresh Nayak, Founder and CEO, Connect Network, the ad spends for festive seasons exponentially go high to approximately 30% increase (YoY) from categories such as Fashion and Lifestyle, Durables and Automobiles which leverage a mix of all three- traditional OOH, experiential and DOOH.

In his view, this time around, Finance and Real Estate have also shown a significantly increased interest in outdoor advertising.

“Festive season accounts for around 40% of industry spends in the last three months of the current year wherein client prospecting and agility are both crucial to have the best outcome. As of now, the market outlook is positive and therefore, we feel that there will be significant growth in ad spends this year,” he stated.

Rohit Chopra

Similarly, Rohit Chopra, COO, Times Innovative Media (Times OOH), also pointed out that it's common to observe a surge of 20%-30% in ad budgets allocated by brands that deal in consumer durables, automobiles, paint and furnishings, as well as fashion and apparel since it is the same financial boost that drives the launch of multimedia and multi-city tactical campaigns, aimed to shape a comprehensive brand image in consumers' minds.

But since Diwali falls in November this year, he is optimistic that brand expenditures will span a more extended duration.

“The festive season emerges as a pivotal period for marketers to fuel sales expansion and to achieve this, Out-of-Home (OOH) advertising, including pDOOH which allows brands to launch campaigns with relevancy or anamorphic 3D content, assumes significance due to its capacity for high or lasting brand recall, leveraging the grand scale of the medium,” he added.

He further went on to add that what’s intriguing this festive period is that certain categories like  Sanitary, Furnishings, Real Estate, Jewellery, and Home Décor, are showing a renewed interest and allocating a larger portion of their budgets towards airport advertising, for utilising prime airport spaces to reach a discerning audience that travels both nationally and internationally.

“Times OOH consistently maintains a high occupancy rate for its assets, with airports being particularly sought-after for advertising due to their extended dwell time and premium positioning. While this trend persists even during the festive season, there's typically an increased demand for effective and widespread frequency-building networks as well,” he stated.

Jayesh Yagnik

Aligning to the aforementioned narratives, Jayesh Yagnik, CEO, MOMS Outdoor, also stated that since Q3 of the financial year typically consists of the festive period,  one could easily say that more than 30% of annual spends happens in this quarter.

“Even though the high demand ad spaces might vary, depending on factors such as geography, audience demographics, and market trends, major metropolitan centres, commercial districts, transportation hubs, and well-known tourist attractions have been the preferred locations for outdoor advertising due to their great exposure and potential for reaching a wide audience, large-format displays, transit advertisements, and digital billboards,” he opined.

He then went on to emphasise that while larger and more established firms in industries like retail, automotive, technology, and consumer goods have a history of making major investments in OOH advertising because of its capacity to reach a wide audience, multiple brands have been shifting towards outdoor as part of their plan to create omnipresence, i.e- integration of outdoor media and digital.

Amarjeet Hudda

In the views of Amarjeet Hudda, COO, Laqshya Solutions, as well, the ad budget allocation for outdoor media tends to increase 10-15% YoY during the festive period, especially from leading spenders which typically belong to the categories such as real estate, automobile, consumer electronics, retail, FMCG as well as e-commerce, travel and entertainment, which are showing more interest in OOH ads.

As per him, while the demand is higher for both static and digital, digital OOH is a new thing now as it offers dynamic content delivery and therefore, he is both positive and confident of the festive season contributing significantly to the cumulative ad revenue of the Group.

“Since the challenges on OOH ads during festive mainly revolve around gauging campaign impact and standing out amid clutter, the Group has developed an in-house tool that aids in outdoor campaign results measurement called SHARP. Brands can differentiate through innovative visuals and engaging storytelling. Industry trends include 3D Anamorphic Interactive displays, AI-driven personalisation and integration with mobile tech for interactive experiences,” he suggested.

Ankur Rastogi

Ankur Rastogi, Founder and CEO, All About Outdoor Group, also opined that there is a clear purchase push during the festive and in order to sell more, brands have to invest more in securing recall amongst prospective customers.

“Certain purchases are related to festive like buying a car, house, jewellery, furniture, and consumer durables as it is auspicious to buy during this time hence brands need to induce people to invest. Also, branding during the festive really pushes decision-making since the customer is thinking of making a purchase, which is why there is a need to have an overall 360-degree campaign targeted around seeking attention,” he said.

He also pointed out that there is surely an increase in the budget during the festive, as a percentage of sales, which is ‘just marginally’ higher but looks ‘a lot higher’, since in the current day and age, brands have very strong and impactful storefronts that often act as billboards and therefore one is not required to adopt too much.

Amit Thakkar

Partner and Chief Sales, Excellent Publicity, Amit Thakkar, also expressed high hopes from the holiday season and predicted that outdoor mediums might witness a YoY increase of 12-15% owing to increased interest from some of the top spending categories such as Automobiles, Fintech, FMCG, Government, and Edutech, particularly for Digital OOH advertisements which offer both an innovative appeal and a wider reach.

“During the festive season, agencies earn approximately 45% of total ad revenue. This year, we anticipate growth of between 13-20% because in addition to high footfall locations for the ads, we have also focused on executing innovative and creative outdoor campaigns to increase the effectiveness of the campaigns and currently have ad spaces available in all major airports,” he added.

That being said, OOH advertising is currently dominated by static and digital hoardings in high-traffic and high-value areas but has recently been impacted by limitations in personalisation and creativity, as well as the inability to measure impact and engagement and calculate ROI.

“Currently, brands are trying to make outdoor ads with minimal message and maximum impact in order to make them impactful and effective. What advertisers really need to do is strategise by customising the creative content, colours, themes, and messaging to culturally and emotionally relate with specific festivals and then look for the best ad placements to ensure the greatest amount of footfall,” he added.

In the views of Connect Network’s Nayak, the geo-contextual OOH approach can enable marketers to strategically customise messages based on specific locales and facilitates businesses to effectively engage with pertinent demographics within regions as well as empower brands to optimise the dissemination of their narratives, aligning them with local cultural sensibilities and preferences.

Moreover, MOMS Outdoors’ Yagnik also shared the viewpoint that advertisers often adjust their outdoor strategies to align with different festive occasions in order to capture the attention of their target audience through customisation which allows them to incorporate elements related to the specific festive occasion or even use the local/regional languages or nuances to strengthen a deeper connect, make an emotional appeal and use the same to build gripping stories that are frequently linked to joy, celebration, and togetherness or even promote limited-time offers, discounts, and special deals as people often make purchases during the time.

He then went on to add that there has been a rise in DOOH ads since they allow advertisers to easily change and adapt their creatives to suit different occasions and events due to their ability to offer dynamic content, real-time updates, and targeted messaging.

Touching upon the revenue raked in by the OOH industry player generally during the festive period, All About Outdoor Group’s Rastogi emphasised that it all depends on the clients.

“If an agency has FMCG and auto then it may have a wave showing revenue generation round the year but for other categories, it's very stable,” he said.

That being said, this time around, there is more inventory than ever, as a result of which vendors have great occupancy and even the best sites are running on 60% occupancy as compared to the earlier 80-85%, he added.

Furthermore, he also suggested that OOH shall soon be used like online media where investments will be secured through impressions and exposures will be performed through time parting and huge dependence on location data, which is precisely what Prooh.AI aims to do in the coming times.

Commenting on the challenges faced by brands when resorting to OOH advertising, Nayak shared the opinion that some of the factors which require utmost attention when advertising outdoors include location selection for maximum visibility, weather impact on ad longevity, regulatory compliance, target audience alignment, and measurement of campaign effectiveness.

Hence, balancing creativity with practicality while accounting for these factors is essential for a successful and impactful OOH strategy and can help brands stand out by infusing uniqueness, evoking emotions, conveying a clear message, using innovative formats, incorporating humour or storytelling, leveraging interactive elements, focusing on authenticity, and aligning with their core values, he stated.

During the course of the interaction, Yagnik also predicted that the upcoming trend that brands can adapt to is that of AI and AR integration since it allows one to create a unique visual long-term impact on the audience.

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