Developmental marketing - sustainable development for advertising

The outdoor advertising explosion has been driven by increasing innovation in terms of delivery methods. While the classic road-side billboard remains a fixture of local highways, outdoor advertising now offers advertisers a rapidly expanding range of opportunities: from airport busses and travellators to skyscrapers and trains - the range of choice, and exposure, grows daily.

High impact outdoor can reach across the entire LSM scale, a fact which proves alluring to advertisers seeking exposure across the market place. Critically, high impact outdoor advertising is unique in that it really does catch the eye of the consumer, breaking down 'advertising immunity' that has been built up over decades.

There is another aspect to outdoor advertising, however - one that has not yet been fully explored by the advertising industry. High impact outdoor advertising carries with it the potential to contribute significantly to social development organisations and local government.

"Outdoor is changing fast," says Caryn Cohen, CEO of Wideopen Advertising. "We're seeing continuing development of new outdoor mediums. A lot of these springboard off city infrastructure (publicly and privately owned) in order to capture the attention of consumers."

"The partnership potential here is really strong. Partnerships between advertising agencies and social organisations have the ability to get money to where it is sorely needed. At the same time, urban environments can be made brighter - and safer."

Wideopen recently closed what was the largest ever outdoor advertising deal in South Africa - placing the airport busses at Johannesburg International. The company's social development division, Arms Wideopen, was also behind the Cell C Real City Project. The Cell C Real City Project (which is currently the largest ever outdoor contract awarded in South Africa) has seen 39 buildings within the Johannesburg CBD rejuvenated through building wrap advertising, featuring designs from South Africa's leading young artists.

According to Cohen, Arms Wideopen focused on bringing real benefits to the city when selecting the sites for the Cell C Real City Project - not only in terms of aesthetics, but also in terms of essential infrastructure that is currently being eroded. The lighting provided by the project, for example, is essential for public safety in the Johannesburg CBD.

"The Cell C Real City Project has brought a lot of infrastructure development to the CBD," says Cohen. "In addition to the 39 wrapped buildings (which have brought 200 floodlights to the city streets), a range of other buildings will also be re-vamped using paint. The sum total of the project is a much improved mood and atmosphere in the inner city - Joburg has become increasingly attractive, and functional."

"The key to high impact outdoor advertising is to ensure that the creative work is outstanding," says Cohen. "Outdoor has traditionally suffered from boring, 'punch line' creative. But with the Cell C Real City Project, it was essential that the artwork does good things for the city. Let's face it, wrapping a building with 'product' advertising would have been downright distasteful."

Given a high level of creative input, high impact outdoor advertising clearly offers significant partnership opportunities for local advertisers and social development organisations.

"There are so many organisations out there crying out for financial help," Cohen continues. "What could be better than to get a face lift for your building and money flowing into your coffers at the same time?"

When viewed within a context of sustainable development, Cohen believes that developmental marketing offers one of the few truly effective ways of forming partnerships between the advertising community, big business and NGO's.

"Unfortunately, the local advertising industry has a pretty poor record when it comes to contributing to the social upliftment of the country," she says.

"A lot of doors are now opening up within the outdoor sector. It is up to the key players within the industry to put their thinking caps on and to work out how to give everyone a slice of the pie."