USING TECH TO MONITOR REACH OF BILLBOARDS

Cameras have been placed below hoardings to record the traffic — how many vehicles pass in front of the billboards in a day, how many minutes do they stop before the hoarding because of traffic snarls, even how many ‘eyeballs’ have gazed over the hoarding

ONE sure way of monitoring the state of the Indian economy — which industry is doing well, which sector is down in the dumps — is to just look at the hoardings as you drive across busy arteries in major cities like Mumbai. An abundance of billboards by mobile phone operators indicates the robust state of the telecom sector; similarly, you can gauge the health of the financial services, real estate, higher education, consumer goods and other sectors by just watching the hoardings as you drive along the Western or Eastern express highways or any of the other major roads in Mumbai.

Right now, the message that comes across loud and clear from the hundreds of hoardings that have been put up is that there is a major battle on for the top political post in the country. While the BJP’s Narendra Modi has clearly won the billboards battle in Mumbai — the sheer number of hoardings projecting the bearded PM candidate is astounding — Rahul Gandhi, the Congress leader steering the Congress campaign is also putting up a stiff fight.

Both the BJP and the Congress are believed to have spent more than a billion rupees each on outdoor advertising (or the Out of Home — OOH — media) in the run-up to the general elections. The Congress had an early start in Mumbai, with hoardings of Rahul towering over the city skyline. But after the elections were announced, the Modi camp dominated the billboards battle.

Of course, active campaigning by citizen groups and also warnings by the chief election commission have resulted in regularisation of political hoardings. In the past, parties would put up cloth banners at major junctions and largerthan-life cut-outs of their leaders in many cities. The political parties did not pay for these hoardings and often the cutouts would block traffic signals, directions and road signs.

But now political parties have to pay the local civic body for the hoardings, which are regulated in terms of size and positioning. The two main parties have hired several advertising agencies for their OOH and other media campaigns.

Agencies nowadays offer a wide range of service to political parties, from outdoor advertising to conveying their message to potential voters through the print, electronic and social media. While print media advertising has fallen significantly, ad spends on both the electronic and social media has gone up substantially in the ongoing elections.

Even in the outdoor media, advertising is becoming more sophisticated. For instance, many of the hoardings are lit up all night with LED lighting and there is special lighting for cut-outs of the leaders.

Some of the agencies have placed cameras below the hoardings to record the traffic — how many vehicles pass in front of the billboards in a day, how many minutes do they stop before the hoarding because of traffic snarls, even how many ‘eyeballs’ have gazed over the hoarding.

The powerful cameras can even capture the glance of the motorist and co-passengers (or bus commuters) on the hoardings and monitor how long did they linger on the posters. The agencies then compile the data and send reports to the political parties about the effectiveness of the OOH media.

The media audit agencies deploy fleets of vehicles mounted with cameras, which also capture video of traffic behind a bus with a political ad, to indicate the effectiveness of such ads. Not surprisingly, the amount of money spent by parties on electioneering is supposed to shatter all records this year. The Centre for Media Studies estimates total expenditure could top Rs300 billion (about Dh18.2 billion) this year, as against just Rs25 billion in 1996 and Rs100 billion in 2004. Others believe expenditure on the 2014 general elections could go up as high as Rs500 billion.