MUMBAI: The banking sector spends Rs 20 billion on outdoor advertising medium and it is more effective than television but less than print, according to ICICI Bank corporate brand group head Ronita Mitra.
Lack of measurability in the outdoor advertising medium, however, is one of the most contentious challenges the sector currently faces, Mitra said.
While speaking at the seventh edition of Outdoor Advertising Convention, Mitra said that hindrances such as changing traffic trends, delivery scale versus credibility and complexity with the spread of commercials hamper the scope of measurability.
Mitra underlined, “Having to send out teams to analyse the ads is another impediment.”
Talking about drawbacks, there are several high-points in this medium as well.
“We communicate with all the socio-economic groups and our target audience is male, aged between 25-55 years. The outdoor message delivers undiluted and localised messages, in terms of look and feel. Moreover, messages are clear and call to action or how to get in touch becomes simpler with this medium,” Mitra stated.
While public sector banks use this medium the most, multinational banks adapt a much focused geographic approach. “In most cases outdoor media is used to reinforce a multimedia campaign - in some cases, to create an impact on city or national scale; and in very few cases as a standalone medium,” Mitra revealed.
Talking about various forms of outdoor advertisement, Mitra cited the example of ICICI’s ‘khayaal aapka’ campaign, which she termed as thematic propositions, under which various new products were promoted.“‘khayaal aapka’ is the master brand, within which there can be various individual product brands such as privilege banking and home loans.” Mitra noted.
Mitra spoke about the ‘three creative’ the bank experimented with: bill transfer, fund transfer and book movie tickets. “We put up ads of bill payment and fund transfers on bus shelters, while booking movie tickets was promoted next to ticket counters at various cinema halls. And after analysing the pre- and post-activity results, we found that the awareness about the three features has gone up by 50 per cent.”
This activity not only created awareness but also reinforced an image of innovation for the bank, Mitra concluded.
