“It is About Being Distinctive”

AW: What is outdoor advertising?

Alwyn Scott Chairman and Managing Director Global Media Services Limited

ALWYN: It covers quite a range of applications and falls under out of home (OOH) advertising, which is everything but mass media (including point of sale). We look at outdoor advertising as being anything between your home and the point of purchase along what we call the path to purchase. Whatever advertising you come across in that space is called outdoor advertising.

AW: Where does outdoor fit in the advertiser’s toolbox?

ALWYN: It is really supplementary. You find that people have a mass media campaign and then they use outdoor to reinforce the message. It is usually used in highly populated areas where it can be visible, because one of the most important things in advertising is frequency of exposure. Outdoor is an efficient way to get that frequent exposure which supports recall, which then puts your brand at the top of the hierarchy when somebody has a decision to make.

AW: What kind of advertiser should be using outdoor?

ALWYN: Well…all advertisers. The thing is, when people talk about outdoor they are normally talking about billboards, but outdoor is not limited to that. It is a communication tool that helps you interact with your target market. Outdoor is any structure that lets you put your brand in front of a target market, so any – and all – advertisers will benefit from using outdoor.

AW: I have seen figures from other markets that suggest over seventy percent of outdoor advertising are done by localized advertisers. Does that hold true in Jamaica?

ALWYN: Yes, certainly, because outdoor is usually designed for a specific geographic area. The people who are most interested in reaching that market would be people in your local community.

AW: What does outdoor really offer the advertiser in terms of value?

ALWYN: The critical thing is frequency of exposure. I don’t think there are many media opportunities that give the type of frequency that outdoor can. You travel a particular route every day and the messages are always there, coming or going. Some people even use outdoor advertising as markers.

AW: How does outdoor compare to other options like radio or television?

ALWYN: I think it is part of a mix, I don’t see it as one or the other. But if your business is in Half Way Tree and you are doing radio advertising, people all the way in Montego Bay will be reached by your message and you are paying for that reach. The problem is that is not really benefitting your business. When you look at it in terms of the cost per thousand (CPM) you have to think about the quality of that thousand you are reaching. I think outdoor delivers that quality thousand better than other media.

AW: How do you measure outdoor advertising and its effectiveness?

Scroll Boxes

ALWYN: Outdoor advertising is measured in terms of traffic counts and so on. It is very crude. We really don’t measure personal interactions. The tools for measurement are basic and just give an indication of audiences. They also don’t tell the levels of engagement with the message. I think that all the measurement tools we use [here in Jamaica] for all media are crude. There is technology that is evolving which will give us more accurate information on audience interaction, particularly in the digital sign space.

AW: What are the opportunities around digital signage now?

ALWYN: Wow…that segment is exploding now. More and more people are seeing that digital signage – especially at point of sale – is an important element in the consumer’s decision making. We actually see where digital signage at point of sale affects sales positively, and in significant ways. We know there is a very definite relationship between digital signage and sales lift.

AW: What are the drivers of growth in the outdoor segment of the industry?

Roto Sign

ALWYN: We think it is about being distinctive. Right now there is a cacophony of billboard structures, much of them very similar. So what we do is try to differentiate the look and feel of our outdoor solutions. We design custom applications for our clients, which then make them stand out from the rest. So when everybody else starts to do that, we find something else again. The main idea is to be able to stand apart. We use technology and design in our efforts to be different and it does not necessarily have to be expensive. Our clients can even pay less to stand out, depending on the type of application.

AW: What are some examples of creative outdoor advertising here?

ALWYN: Hillside branding is a good example. We have a sign for Red Stripe in Montego Bay that has been featured in the US. It’s lit at night and people notice it. The sign gives that brand certain dominance. We were the first company to start using community signs as an advertising tool. We use route buses to cover the entire island. You can have your brand moving from Kingston to Ochi and from Ochi to MoBay, so the brand is on the move and pops up all over. We also have a multiple, back-lit scrollbox coming out where we join several scroll boxes together. Depending on the configuration we can form a ten by thirty foot board. As I said before, we believe in being distinctive.