ISBA and IPA ruling angers poster chiefs

Poster contractors are preparing to do battle with the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers (ISBA) after its agreement on a new definition of the poster market with the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA).

ISBA has joined the IPA, which gave its decision last month, in agreeing to a definition of the poster market as a sector split into static and mobile poster sites. The IPA has proposed that ownership limits in the two markets could rise from 25 to 30 per cent, but ISBA has rejected this.

“It is as nonsensical and illogical as the previous definition of the market,” says Roger Fernley, managing director of British Transport Advertising. “It is just shunting the problem around and is not broad enough.”

If accepted by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), the inclusion of railway concourse and London Underground panels in the static market would increase the total size of the old roadside market but decrease the size of the transport market.

Transport contractors are especially unhappy with a proposed definition of the poster market that would allow roadside contractors to grow at their expense. “There are three bus contractors which would blow a hole in any such definition immediately,” says Fernley.