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Nigel Mansell |
In Media Week (May 11) Patrick Barrett was crystal ball gazing as to the likely content, value and success of the Outdoor Conference in Barcelona. Patrick was of the opinion that no real issues would be discussed and that the conference had "the air of a junket about it". The last Outdoor Conference was held three years ago in Madrid and some of Patrick's thoughts might have seemed pertinent then, but not now. It wasn't an "air of unity" that pervaded Barcelona, more a feeling of an industry pulling in the same direction, for the benefit of advertisers. Outdoor only ever holds a conference when sufficient content warrants a worthwhile couple of days away - in this case three years' worth of improvements and change were condensed into one and a half days of presentations. The theme for Barcelona was a well chosen: "What you see, is what you get".
This referred not only to Postar (which measures "eyes on panels" rather than just gross passages), but also outdoor's transparency. All speakers were well prepared, knowledgeable and entertaining. Siân Davies of the Henley Centre once again proved to be on song with a brilliant presentation, picking up on the seeds she had sown in Madrid. Her thoughts being that advertisers should exploit the way outdoor is consumed by placing ads to hit the right people, in the right mindset, in the right environment, thereby maximising message delivery. The emergence of more targeted planning was debated, as conceivably this might detract from outdoor's most attractive offering - broadcasting to the nation.
The view of the conference was that these were mutually compatible and most saw the narrowcast options as complementing rather than detracting.
Other than learning from excellent presenters - Michael Greenlees, Stephen Carter, Alan Rutherford, Stevie Spring and Mike Moran to name a few - there were several recurring points in all sessions that resulted in questions for the panel. A list of key action points was agreed:
- Outdoor is to market itself better, possibly through a Poster Marketing Bureau.
- A one-day conference in London every 18 months to attract an even wider range of advertisers.
- Specialist expertise should be better integrated into strategic media planning.
- l The Poster Awards ceremony, currently organised by ±±¾©Èü³µpk10, should be revamped to include media in the award process. My overall out-take was of an excellent conference where the future of outdoor
had several successful possible outcomes.
In the face of a meld of PC and TV, video on demand, infotainment, bluetooth and 3G phones, wider and further travel, outdoor would become increasingly important at both mass and one-to-one communication levels. The unanimous view was that this should result in an increased share of advertising revenue from eight to 10%.
However, the best suggestion came from the last speaker of the conference - Jeremy Bullmore. His proposal? It was for one of the trade press titles to set up a "name and shame" box for the month's worst creative work on posters - complete with photographic evidence and the people responsible for abysmal creative appearing
on the beautiful medium -
outdoor. What a great idea.
Final mention must go to the timorous chairmanship of Rupert Howell, who having overcome his "crippling diffidence", never failed to impress.
Nigel Mansell is
managing director,
Concord
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