The hills are alive with the sound of increasing outdoor revenue
Much like Julie Andrews, the Outdoor Media Association of New Zealand has been seen bursting into song to express its emotions recently after the revenue numbers for 2010 were announced. And fair enough too, because with a year-end total of $62.1 million, gross media revenue for the year was up 7.3 percent over 2009, with the second half of the year delivering a 12.2 percent increase on the same period of 2009.
“Our members are very pleased with how out-of-home (OOH) has performed during 2010,” says Jo Davenport, marketing and communications manager for OMANZ. “Sales have continued to go from strength to strength, in what is still a pretty fragile and cautious advertising market.
In what could be seen as evidence of an industry inferiority complex, the standard line that “these results validate a return in confidence of the OOH sector” was uttered once again following the announcement. And, with strong early bookings received for 2011, that confidence looks set to remain in place–and hopefully increase. Although, one spanner in the outdoor works is that while the 500 metre clean zone for the Rugby World Cup appears to have been given the green light, the Ministry of Economic Development hasn’t formally announced its decision yet, so there’s still some uncertainty.
“That coupled with the expectation that OOH media will feature prominently in media plans in the lead up to and during the Rugby World Cup gives us the confidence that 2011 should continue to yield positive results for the industry. From our observations, Out-of-Home media is definitely being taken seriously by both agencies and advertisers as they become more aware of how effective OOH can be within their campaigns. We will work hard to raise the profile and reinforce the strengths of OOH which will help agencies and advertisers realise the benefits our medium has to offer.”
While revenue numbers are on the up, so is the activity at OMANZ, as evidenced by the recent warning shot that was fired in the direction of ‘unsubstantiated claims’ made in an advertisement by Urgent Courier’s Mobile AdVert and the soon-to-be launched new OMANZ branding, which was created by DraftFCB and will be rolled out with the fresh OMANZ website in the next few weeks.
What do you think?