The MediaBusiness has spoken with O. Nevelchuk, the General Director of Group of Companies "RTM-Ukraine" and the head of the Industrial Committee of outdoor advertising(ICOA), about the results of the 1st quarter of 2015 of the Outdoor market and the prospects for 2015.
- Could you assess the market dynamics for the first 3 months of the year?
O. N.: If we talk about quantity of planes, the market declined by 13% in comparison with the 1st quarter of last year. January and February are traditionally the low sales season in the outdoor advertising. We expected that the first 2 months of 2015 will be worse than a year ago. But March had a positive dynamics, which adjusted the indicators to 8% in comparison with March 2014 (according to Doors Consulting.) It is difficult to say about all the market, but throughout the network of "RTM-Ukraine" occupancy on the budget format 6x3 m in April 2015 has already exceeded 80 %. For comparison: in April 2014 occupancy of 6x3 network of "RTM-Ukraine" was about 64 %.
So there is a reason for cautious optimism. We see that outdoor advertising as a channel of communication remains priority for advertisers and attractive for more clients among small and medium businesses.
- Could you tell us in more detail what has changed in the types of clients?
O. N.: The TOP 10 categories remained almost unchanged . The leader is still Trade with its market share of 23 % of the total number of planes purchased in January-March 2015.The next one is Social Advertising and Entertainment with shares of 11 % in plane terms. Trade and Social Advertising in January-March reduced the volume of purchases by 20 and 16% respectively, but the volume of the Entertainment category increased by 23 in comparison with the 1st quarter of the previous year in the number of planes.
The 10 most significantly reducing is in the category Automotive Transport: almost in half, -48 % 23 in comparison with the 1st quarter of 2014. The reason is obvious, the primary market of vehicles is declining. But as the advertising operator in the International Airport "KIEV", which has always enjoyed strong demand from automotive companies, "RTM-Ukraine" notes a growing interest in non-standard advertising, which ensures contact with the Target Audience of car manufacturers. This trend of 2014 has passed in 2015
About the benefits: the category Real Estate increased by 40 %: in plane terms in the 1st quarter of 2015 and its share has increased from 5 to 9% in the number of planes. 16 % - category Finance (its share increased from 3 % in the 1st quarter of 2014 to 4 % in 2015). The Communication showed 3% growth in the volume of purchased planes and in the market share: from 5 to 6% in the 1st quarter of 2015. There is 3 % growth in the volume of purchases in the category Tourism. Customers from the category Insurance has invested by 43% more in outdoor advertising than last year.
- What are your predictions for 2015?
O. N.: It's difficult to do the forecasts for long period. You need to recognize that advertisers are increasingly choosing short term strategy for planning their campaigns. Customers plan for the next 2-3 months and start to book planes 1-2 months earlier.
However, the cost of thousands of contacts (CPT) in outdoor advertising has been and will be one of the lowest, and this is a huge advantage of our media today. Even with the current trend of short-term planning more and more customers prolong their programs.
If some political or economic factors don't change the situation, the outdoor advertising market will remain stable in 2015. But it may by decrease at the level of 1-5 % in comparison with 2014.
- Do you mean that the task of 2015 is to keep the status quo? Have plans of modernization of industry been postponed until better times?
O. N.: Neither the Clients nor the city authorities give operators the option to defer network upgrades . The crisis never diminish the quality requirements of services, on the contrary, it always raises them. The effectiveness of any advertising channel of communication is the first key question for Customers now. Outdoor advertising responds with modernization studies and gain control over their quality. In 2015 ICOA put in priority the tasks associated with the promotion of the purity and relevance of Outdoor-research. ICOA actively involved in the work at the stage of a planned spring recalculation of passenger traffic by Doors Consulting company.
The actual task of the industry is the evolution of outdoor advertising as a channel of communication, using precise modern methods of planning and evaluating the effectiveness of advertising campaigns. I think that 2015 will be the year of the Foundation of a new relationship between Customers and OOH.
There is a range of topics that are being actively discussed by the participants of the ICOA, and they all relate to methods for increasing of attractiveness of Out-of-Home media for Clients.
