Where is Media Headed? : Media Outlook for 2016

Media Outlook for 2016
Three Part Series.

The Media Outlook for 2016 was presented last December 15, 2015 at the Fairmont Makati. The Outlooks were in three parts.

1.    Redefining Television by Mr. Gabriel Buluran, General Manager of Kantar Media Philippines.
2.    Outlook for the Out of Home (OOH) by Mr. Lloyd Tronco, Executive Director of the Philippine Center for Out-of-Home Media Research and Science (PhilCourse)
3.    2016 Media Insights Study Highlights by Mr. Jay Bautista. General Manager of Strategic Consumer and Media Incites, Inc.

For this posting, Out of Home media will be tackled. This is done with regards to the advertising aspect and the media utilized.

Mr. Tronco cited historical precedence with regards to OOH. That as far back as the 1930s. This was evidenced by the OOH of the Manila Electric Railroad and Light Company 9MERALCO) notwithstanding the various billboards of Chesterfield and even Botica Boie during the pre-war years. The moving Cafe Puro billboard at Binondo also lays testament on the heritage and the efficacy of OOH advertising in the Philippines.

Going by the Philippine Golden Highway wich is called EDSA, the presence of OOH along the 24 kilometer strectch lends credence on how effective and also lucrative the OOH industry is. Currently, EDSA has 1,500 billboards, 26 LED billboards on its northbound leg and 25 LED billboards on its southbound lane.

With regards to exposure and reach that drives sales and purchases, statistics disclosed that only 14% stay at home and 86% are exposed to OOH. Most importantly, the current largest market segment, the Millenials have statistics that only 3% of them stay out home and thus within the reach of OOH.

Thus, the future market of Philippine OOH remains bright.

The challenges in the business situation remains.

Several factors point tio challenges, threats but more so on the opportunities. That trend of unbridled construction of billboards on 2015 continued the trend. What is partly considered as a threat is that there is a combination of billboards being considered as a real estate transaction by property owners thus selection and even strategic placements of billboards are defeated by placing as many ads as possible in a single contiguous space. This clutters and diffuses the messages being conveyed by the placements.

 Another is that Local Government Units (LGUs) who are among the owners of the most strategic locations have realized that OOH is  a good source of revenues.

This factor also is included in various concerns such as cost of maintenance, the media cost is projected to increase and OOH media inflation.

The resistance to OOH is also attributed to the grey area between OOH and merchandising, the rising popularity of digital media and the lack of understanding on the fuill potential of OOH.

OOH cannot be treated as an adjunct of what is on print and on video. Its content must be unique in itself since it is visual media but the dearth of knowledge on harnessing OOH that is integrated  with digital media campaigns.

The forecast for OOH are the following.

The main users of OOH are:

Politicians
Financial Services
Tech products
Website, apps and tech startups

What is needed are more LED and LCD screens and digital, mobile integration.