Race to win the best billing sites

By PETER GRIFFIN

Australian advertising company Eye Corp is planning to hire 10 more people before the end of the year after winning the right to manage billboard advertising for Auckland International Airport.

Eye Corp took over the billboard advertising contract with the airport company, previously held by competitor Look, this week.

The airport is one of the biggest advertising sites in the country. Eye Corp's 10-year contract is thought to be worth about $2 million a year in revenue.

The deal was won in a tightly contested auction.

It gives Eye Corp, which sells billboard space in shopping malls but has yet to make inroads in the market for roadside and building-mounted billboards, a solid toe-hold in the New Zealand market, dominated by two firms - Look and Oggi.

Look is a joint venture between APN News & Media, the publisher of the Herald, and Clear Channel. It operates about 460 outdoor sites nationwide.

Oggi is locally owned and has 300 sites.

Eye Corp is fully owned by Australian network Channel Ten, which itself is part-owned by Canadian media group CanWest.

CanWest owns TV3 and C4.

Eye Corp will now expand its two-person local office headed by Pauline Hanton.

Its Sydney-based group marketing manager, Janine Wood, said the company had other airports in its sights as well as billboard sites round the country.

The company's prime aim was "unzipping the walking wallets" - capturing the glances of pedestrians as they hurry through shopping malls and airports.

Outdoor advertising is a relatively small but growing market for Eye Corp and its competitors.

Accounting for just 3 per cent of the total advertising spend, the outdoor market is worth about $47 million a year, up from $7 million a decade ago.

Wood said Eye Corp's shopping mall business was healthy.

"Our shopping centre inventory is pretty much sold out for the rest of the year.

"The only reason it's happening is because outdoor advertising is the last true broadcast medium," said Wood, pointing out that TV audiences were becoming more fragmented.

She said some advertisers were turning to billboards because print and TV slots were booked out.

Eye Corp's expansion is viewed positively by at least one competitor.

Oggi managing director Gordon Frykberg said he would much rather go head-to-head with Eye Corp than a host of small, independent billboard advertising agents.

"It will make it harder for smaller operators, who are the bane of all of us."

He said the small operators were seen to add less value to advertising.

"They bring destructive elements in terms of over-rating the value of potential sites, but also in the way they sell their sites to advertising agencies," Frykberg said.

The big spenders on outdoor advertising are telecoms suppliers, banks, other financial institutions and the media.

"It's the other mediums' medium," said Wood, pointing out the heavy use of billboard advertising by TVNZ and CanWest.

Telecom is the big spender in outdoor ads, pushing its cellphone services and broadband packages.

Wood said the cost of putting together advertising for billboards had remained static, but new digital printing technology had reduced the cost of making the billboards.

Although TV commercials held the creative high-ground of the advertising industry, outdoor billboards were popular with creative directors because of the large, static canvas they had to work with, she said.

"The most creative way to demonstrate their skills is in outdoor. They've only a fleeting moment to do it in."