OUTDOOR billboard advertising campaigning in Jamaica is gaining traction and can no longer be considered the poor cousin of print, TV, and radio.

National Outdoor Advertising (NOA) is Jamaica’s leading outdoor advertising company and is set to build on the gains it has already made.

Originally founded by Eddie Chaichong some forty years ago, the company was bought two and a half years ago by Vincent Slevin who merged it with City Graphics. Slevin as chairman together with his CEO Ronan McGrane set about changing how outdoor advertising campaigns are conceptualised and executed in Jamaica.

Last week, National Outdoor Media held a breakfast briefing at the Terra Nova Hotel in St Andrew to point out to the advertising community the potency of outdoor advertising.

Slevin and his team explained the rationale behind an outdoor advertising billboard that shows a sonogram of a baby Jesus, halo and all with the words. “He’s on His way. Christmas starts with Christ.” One can be forgiven for assuming that the campaign was commissioned by a religious organisation or denomination but that is not the case.

National Outdoor Advertising ran this display to test the power and speed of the outdoor medium to reach an audience. And the results proved remarkable.

We commissioned independent research from Marketing Surveys Limited (MSL) and were delighted by the results. There was a high level of recall with 23 per cent of Jamaicans recalling seeing the display after only five weeks’ exposure to the advertisements. That’s around one in four Jamaicans. Furthermore, the display ran on only 21 billboards throughout Jamaica in the main population centres. We are looking to design innovative campaigns and make them cost effective,”said Slevin.

Rowena Coe, Director of MSL added: “The figures surprised us too. They are on a par or greater than awareness we have tracked in other media. We also proved that the reach of outdoor advertising is very wide amongst the Jamaican population, with an overall 82 per cent awareness of some billboards in the past week.”

According to Slevin, the outdoor industry in Jamaica is worth J$1 billion and accounts for an estimated 13 per cent share of all display advertising. NOA rents space on over 1000 billboards of all sizes throughout the country. NOA’s chairman is of the view that outdoor billboard advertising can be a compliment to traditional media and can get the message out in a distilled format that can reach a mass market. This form of advertising is involuntary and is in your face. It reaches everybody, even those who don’t have access to a newspaper, television or radio. We want to improve the quality of outdoor advertising and change the way things are done. Outdoor advertising has historically been harder to measure than its big rivals – TV, radio and print. This initiative is part of a major marketing programme from NOA to improve the accountability of the medium to advertisers.

Since Slevin bought the company, he has seen a 15 to 20 per cent growth in revenues and notes this is despite a downturn in the economy, which gives him great heart as he looks to the future. NOA has well done swell out of the telecoms battle and has signed up Digicel, Claro and LIME as clients. He has seen good business also from the security firms and financial services companies. He would like to see more outdoor billboard advertising from the drink companies that appeal to a mass market.

NOA holds the contract for the sale of exterior advertising at Norman Manley International Airport, for the sale of internal and external advertising on JUTC buses and for sales of advertising sites at both Montego Bay and Bay Metro. Slevin now plans to take NOA into the wider Caribbean.

The company has announced the launch of ARAWAK, a web tool which uses Google Earth and unique software to show an advertiser’s billboard in situ. NOA’s Creative Director, Mark Ho-Tai who developed Arawak for NOA said, “This is a great way to increase our accountability to advertisers. People always ask me, “Where’s my billboard? When is it going up? How does it look? They can now do all this online. Arawak does all this and more.”