Page 72 - Print21 Nov-Dec 2019

Out of Home
Print in a digital
outdoor world
With a 40-year career in the outdoor industry, the last 30 as CEO of oOh! Media, Brendon Cook knows more about out-of-home than almost anyone. Print21 editor Wayne Robinson asked him whether print has a future in the $1bn and growing sector.
In a rapidly changing media environment with fragmenting channels and changing consumer habits. out of home media proponents, of whom oOh!media
CEO Brendon Cook is among the leaders, say it offers unrivalled and ongoing benefits to brands in terms of its ability to capture large numbers of relevant eyeballs.
For decades print was the king
of outdoor, and the sector has turbocharged the nation’s digital wide format print businesses with consistent and strong growth for the past two decades. However digital outdoor made its appearance five years ago, and since then has grown significantly; and is now where the majority of the spend on outdoor media goes, breaking through the
50 per cent marker in the last year, sending print spend into the minority.
The value of outdoor media is soaring towards $1bn, representing a decent share of $15bn total Australian media spend. The $1bn marker when it is reached, likely this
year, or next at the latest, is double what it was just a few years ago.
For Brendon Cook though, $1bn is just the start. He says, “That represents around 6 per cent of the overall Australian media spend, we as an industry are aiming for 10 per cent.”
Should print business owners be worried that digital outdoor is going to send print packing? Not according to Cook – whose business owns leading wide format print business Cactus Imaging. He says, “We call print classic and we call it classic for a reason. The benefits of classic are still the same today as they always were. I often use the motorcar example.
A classic motorcar of certain varieties is sometimes worth more than the new shiny toy of the same brand. I mean, classic allows a brand to own something, and to work out how to create their image 100 per cent in that environment. They own the space in a way they don’t with digital.”
While digital has been on a charge for the past five years, to the point where it is now more than 50 per cent of the market, Cook does not see it taking over completely. He says, “I think people are starting to find the balance between how to use classic and digital. Remember that there are still more classic than digital signs.”
Outdoor infrastructure is also
a lot more expensive for digital, Cook says, “It has to withstand
rain, sun, hail as well as vandalism and everything else. Classic has all those bases covered for little cost. But from a pure advertising point
of view, classic provides all the
great strengths that the media has always had. And it is the oldest form of advertising in history– it has survived the test of time.”
In fact Cook believes that digital
is more of an opportunity for print than a threat. He says, “Even though the trend is more money going into digital these days, what you should look at is the opportunity that digital has unlocked for the medium to actually pitch for more of the $15bn Australian media spend. With digital we can pitch more into different areas, in a particular location and contextually relevant. Classic still has the power of location and the power of context to be used in the creative, but if you wanted to change that on a daily basis or an hourly basis, you can with digital. As the industry continues to mature, the complementary nature of the two will be used a lot better by clients.
“At the end of the day out of home is growing, which is why there is more revenue coming in, because we can pitch into that market. And secondly, audiences are being fractured in
other areas.”” Cook points to the proliferation of media channels with streaming TV, online, and multiple radio as making it harder for brands to capture attention, whereas out of home with its big, bold statements
in high visibility locations achieves a cut-through that the others simply cannot match. He says, “There are
so many ways that a person can use their time, so from that point of
view, our strength in delivering one plus reach has never been stronger. Our capability to deliver creativity
at targeted locations has never been stronger, and that’s the real key for the growth in revenue.”
So as far as the foreseeable future goes Cook remains as confident as he has always been in the power of print as part of the outdoor mix.
72 Print21 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2019