In Conversation with Futuristic Perspectives

Over the weekend, I was offered an opportunity to speak at a two-day session with the second-year students of PGDM, specialising in Media and Entertainment Management at MICA, Ahmedabad. It was to be held as a part of the module titled - ‘Business of Out-Of-Home’. A module that was designed to elucidate the fundamentals of OOH, its global as well as India-specific landscape. It also covered the processes and the scope for OOH with a lens towards the future.

Sieving through a multitude of success stories, I decided upon the ones that have superb takeaways. Armed with these, I was sure of the fact that there is a lot to catch up on in the arena of OOH. The tech-savvy generation is perpetually curious – asking questions to introspect and striving to explore multiple opportunities before they settle down on something concrete.

Post the session, the keenness of students to understand the industry’s approach in standardisation further motivated me, leading to a mini- discussion on how the growth of this data will change the approach towards the medium.

It has often disheartened me, that OOH as a discipline, is prone to lacunae when it comes to dispensing information. This prima facie is the scenario due to popular misconceptions that OOH is an extension of the marketing pie-chart as a whole. As a result, there are hardly any institution offering specialisation courses in OOH.

Ironically enough, this field is set to grow by leaps and bounds owing to the entry of Mobile OOH and digital OOH onto the scene. A collective market share of merely 5-6% only and the lack of avenues to understand this medium better, become the reasons why this field does not get the recognition it deserves. 

However, mapping the speed at which technology is rapidly getting interwoven in our everyday lives, DOOH is well on its way to become the new advertising portal for a lot of brands. Inferentially, it is time, that resources are actioned into place for future reference and, for me, this seems like the perfect place to begin.

Because the industry is so volatile and our Indian market is so diverse, this kind of one-on-one interaction helps engage the audience better. It was a detailed module with aspects of the industry that no one has ever talked about; and indeed, a refreshing change to learn something by giving away my learnings. This further let me learn by unlearning on my own.

I believe, that we as industry veterans and media practitioners, in the field of PR or OOH, should slice out time from our work schedules to spend it with the millennial generation. The reason being that sometimes, the next big business expansion plan could be sitting somewhere in the audience. A gold mine of hidden potential that can bring in a fresh perspective for the future. This session stood testament to this exact belief! And, I am excited for having been a part of it.