Seasoned professional, Kingsley Onwukaeme, the founder of OOH Academy has decried the dearth of uniform and harmonised pricing system for practitioners in the Nigerian out-of-home advertising space.
Speaking in an exclusive interview, he called on stakeholders to initiate a laid down common framework aimed at improving the relevance and comparability of the OOH practice.
According to him, it is necessary to specify a methodological framework that is consistent in harmonising the price index of the outdoor practitioners to discourage price discrimination among agencies. He maintained that it is not optimal to implement a different pricing mechanism on the same channel if Outdoor professionals want to achieve success in attracting customers to expand a larger market share.
Lamenting on the negative impact of the economic down-turn on their operational cost, the passionate outdoor practitioner said stakeholders need to make the necessary efforts to establish some laid down rules and clients’ compliance in understanding of the framework to enable them abide with the sets unified price instead of abandoning one agency in the quest for a cheaper agency.
“I know every business is facing economic hardship, but outdoor is facing more hardships, it is even harder for the outdoor industry because, everybody wants to still buy at the same old rate, it is a very serious issue, although some clients understand this challenge but some will say, if you don’t want to transact at that same old rate, we move to another agency that will do it. This is because they know billboard owners have structures close by the same region, so if one agency refuses to do it, they believe the next agency will do it but this cannot happen in the media buying sector.”
“But if we have a unified price system, it would have helped us to curb this situation that we are facing right now. This also points to the issue of measurement, because if there are measurement metrics, it would have helped us to create a unified price system. I am appealing to the clients to understand that out-of-home members are not immune to today’s hardship that affects all business environments. Besides, the mode of our business operations incurs lots of expenses. Prices increase every day, so there is no way you can stick to the same old price of yesterday and still survive. Stakeholders should be able to create a kind of uniformed price system because; it is making it difficult for practitioners to negotiate.”
In his assessment of the OOH industry in the recent time, he observed that the year 2023 was an impressive year as the industry witnessed a lot of progress especially with the boom that comes with an electioneering year.
“The outdoor has been highly impacted in the out-gone year being an electioneering year and themself from revenue generation because of the whole economic situation.
But notwithstanding, last year, the industry experienced a little bit of high spending due to the electioneering year, when you compare it to non-electioneering years. The industry also experienced a spike during the Christmas season; definitely, festive period is when outdoor experiences a lot of high spends as lots of purchases happen during the season, so brands strive for visibility.
“On the landscape point of view, the industry experienced some innovations, which began with the anamorphic digital LED that was introduced to the Nigerian markets by Alpha and Jam at the airport. It was a transitional year for the OOH, the appointment of Prince Fatiu Adegbola Akiolu as the new Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Lagos State Signage and Advertisement Agency (LASAA) and the emergence of Sola Akinsiku, as the president of the Out-of-Home Advertising Association of Nigeria, OAAN. In summary, the industry experienced growth in all ramifications
Making his projection for the year, he envisaged that business will present a positive outlook to sustain the momentum of the progress and this will be driven by several forces which include the emergence of new entrants of several brands in the market.
“We expect a pick up on spend, because new brands are finding their way into our market gradually. Mind you, the huge spend that outdoor is experiencing now is not even coming from the big top spenders we used to know in the past like the telcos and the rest of the likes. There are other brands that are spending, such as the betting brands and several others who are now willing to take on advertising seriously. We expect a pick up because people now understand the value outdoor is bringing to the market, he stated.
