OAA relaunches as Outdoor Media Centre
The Outdoor Advertising Association has relaunched under the new name Outdoor Media Centre in a bid to modernise its operations and perceptions of outdoor media.
The rebrand aims to reposition the trade body as a resource centre to support media planners at both agencies and clients.
The changes are the first under new CEO Mike Baker who took over from Alan James in May.
In its new guise, the Outdoor Media Centre says it will market the outdoor medium, “celebrate change, herald new campaigns and put its weight behind new industry audience research”.
It is also launching a new website www.outdoormediacentre.org.uk to provide a more “customer-facing” presence for the organisation and resources such as videos, photos, and case studies from agency and client side providing “arguments for using outdoor media”.
CEO Mike Baker told Marketing Week: “Outdoor is not as clearly defined as radio or cinema as a media, it means many more things to more people. It used to be about six-sheets, but now it’s about everything else from digital, broadcast, taxis, washrooms and more.”
The outdoor industry has welcomed the new organisation saying that it will “invigorate” the outdoor sector.
Clear Channel Outdoor CEO Matthew Dearden, former BT marketing director, says: “There is an opportunity to provide a fuller role and change perceptions by showing clients and agencies what you can do with outdoor.”
“It’s move away from being an inward facing trade body to an more outward facing organisation there to help clients and the media owners.”
The outdoor advertising industry is currently being reviewed by The Office of Fair Trading to scrutinise the concentration of buying and selling power.
Stats about outdoor:
- Outdoor accounts for 9% of all display advertising
- Outdoor revenue grew 12.5% in 2010, second only to TV
