Development Trends of Traditional Outdoor Media Advertising in 2015

The domestic outdoor advertising market in 2015 was very "quiet" in the first few days. However, "calm" is not indifferent, and the pressure brought by the changes in the domestic outdoor advertising market in 2014 also "gathered" the "momentum" of outdoor media advertisers and outdoor advertising agencies to cope with the changes in the "calm". This "momentum" comes not only from advertisers and outdoor advertising media operators' perceptions of the past year, but also from their changes in the content that has attracted audience attention in the past year. It also comes from their insights into the development trend of traditional outdoor advertising in 2015 from the changes.

The domestic traditional outdoor media advertising market in 2014 has the following four things in common:

1. The traditional outdoor media advertising area continues to decrease, resulting in a significant shrinkage of traditional outdoor media advertising resources in various places;

2. The price of outdoor media advertising continues to rise, becoming a common problem faced by advertisers;

3. Traditional outdoor media advertising (excluding subways) in Beijing, Shanghai, Jinan, Wuhan, Guangzhou and other top 10 cities is relatively stable;

4. Real estate/construction engineering, postal and telecommunications, commerce and service industries were the main contributors to outdoor media advertising in 2014, showing a significant increase in industry concentration in outdoor media advertising;

The existence of these commonalities shows that, on the one hand, as localities intensify efforts to build urban images, traditional outdoor media advertising resources will further decrease in the future, and the reduction of traditional outdoor media advertising resources will highlight the effect of "scarcity makes things more valuable". On the other hand, the relative concentration and “eye-catching” of the outdoor media advertising industry also shows that outdoor media advertising resources in first-tier cities such as Beijing and Shanghai are relatively saturated. The development of new advertising resources will become the focus of outdoor media advertising operators in 2015.

For this reason, some domestic research institutions pointed out that in 2015, the phenomenon of domestic outdoor media companies being dispersed and having uneven levels will become more obvious. In addition to a few "oligarch" companies, a considerable number of small outdoor media companies will face difficulties and challenges such as rising media procurement costs, slow or even negative profit growth, and a lack of high-quality resources. At the same time, in view of the fact that outdoor media, especially large and powerful outdoor media companies, are gradually laying out outdoor media advertising networks and extending the tentacles of outdoor media to prime urban areas. In the future, the influence of outdoor media advertising on scale to drive benefits will be very limited. However, there is still room for development in second- and third-tier cities, and they may become the focus of outdoor media advertising operators.

Some people in the industry also believe that the media environment in today's era has entered the multi-screen era. TV, online video, mobile video, outdoor LED display new media, etc. are the mainstream media in the big video era. This actually shows that outdoor media and other media can better coordinate communication and is a key factor for outdoor media advertising to improve accuracy and expand influence. In addition, future outdoor media advertising will receive more precise communication effects through technological innovation and creative breakthroughs. Increasing the interaction between outdoor media advertising and consumers and improving the accuracy of outdoor media advertising communication will become key requirements for outdoor media advertisers in 2015.