OOH in Bihar & Jharkhand is economical & impactful: Uninor

How has your spend on OOH in Bihar & Jharkhand changed (increased/decreased) in the last few years? Could you elaborate with numbers?

Bihar and Jharkhand have a good amount of dependency on the OOH medium. Apart from the telecom category, other industries are also keen to position their brand via the OOH medium. We feel this is one of the important mediums for creating top-of-the-mind awareness of any kind of product and for positioning of a brand.

When it comes to spend, we as a brand are quite active on outdoor media, although the OOH landscape in capital towns like Patna and Ranchi are cluttered. Also, there are issues like getting good sites and there is a good amount of competition to acquire those sites. We spend close to 0.7-1.0% of our revenue on this medium. And we would like to continue with this budget at the moment. We always say that Uninor is’sabse sasta’ brand so we believe the medium that we use should communicate better, stand longer and of course it should give me the opportunity to go to Patna and also connect well with other tier II and III towns. We are spending around 42-45% of our budget on OOH.

Which are your key markets in Bihar and Jharkhand?

In Bihar, Patna, Bhagalpur, Muzzafarpur, Gaya, Begusarai are the key markets. And in Jharkhand, Jamshedpur, Ranchi, and Dhanbad are the important places. Also, there are towns like Samastipur, Darbhanga, Biharsharif, Nawada etc.

Any preferred formats which you think work better in this region?

Different formats work differently in different markets. For instance, in Patna at Dakbangla hoardings work very well because there is lot of traffic there. And in tier II and III cities wall wraps work much better.

Roughly how many properties per format do you use for a campaign?

We go for quite a mix of things as we believe that a format’s performance depends on the spot and footfall in that area. There is no fixed number as such that works for us. We go to the market to execute a campaign and then get the numbers.

Compared to other states, how does OOH perform for you in Bihar & Jharkhand excluding Bihar?

Bihar is a strong Hindi belt. We don’t advertise on TVC because this region mostly watches the regional channels. We communicate to our consumers through OOH.

What are the challenges there?

Clutter is one big challenge. Another challenge with Bihar is while taking sites, we need to check whether they are authorised or not. Next is availability of sites, especially in Tier II & III cities.

What changes would you like to see in the agency role?

Agencies should start thinking how can we rope in consumers and we can make that happen in Tier II and III cities. They should have a certain idea of how we must re-position ourselves there. Importantly, they should get us the right property at the right place.