If you are on your way and don’t know where you are going, then you are certainly headed nowhere. I wish I could say this fits the description of the Pakistani Out Of Home (OOH) media industry, but it doesn’t. Maybe ‘stop-start’ is a better way to explain why this sector has not progressed at all during the past few decades.

In Pakistan, thousands of people associated with OOH advertising wake up every morning to repeat exactly what they have been doing for years. And every single night they retire to their beds, happy to do and continue doing this all over again the next day. It’s as if replicating a ‘same day, every day’ strategy is the only one the OOH media industry subscribes to. If ever a film were made about our OOH media industry, U2’s song ‘Stuck in a moment’ could well be its official soundtrack. (Google the lyrics right now and you will know what I mean.)

So, what went wrong and why? Without wanting to disparage anyone, my answer would be everything and that too at almost all levels. What should have evolved as an organised business capable of identifying and developing convergence points for technology, information and art, has ended up as a cluster of small and disorganised entities engaged in the business of populating urban tin jungles.

The issues surrounding OOH are legion, but what baffles me completely is the astonishing consistency with which all industry stakeholders are breaching basic principles of business wisdom. In a game where it is all about maximising eyeballs and minimising the per exposure cost, how is it that the people who fund this industry with advertising budgets worth millions of dollars every year have never considered initiating a research study that would (at least) ascertain the exact number of vehicles plying urban Pakistan’s major roads and arteries? In short, the data required to calculate GRPs, TRPs and CPMs does not exist and no one is bothered! Mindboggling, isn’t it? Aren’t professional buyers (regardless of what they buy) supposed to know the ROIs at the end of it all?

In 2007, industry experts operating in more structured environments projected that the global market for OOH advertising would hit the $30 billon mark by 2010 (Source: Global Industry Analysts Inc.) and it did. This is how well-informed, progressive industries operate. Today, at end of 2011, we do not even know the size of Pakistan’s OOH industry in 2010 with any degree of precision. Guess-estimates indicate that OOH in Pakistan accounted for between eight and 23% of the overall advertising spend in 2010 or to put it in monetary terms between 2.4 and seven billion rupees.

My take on this? Well, theoretical considerations suggest that a variance of almost 300% should not even be termed as a variance. It is just a shot in the dark, if anything at all.

While we are busy streamlining the basics, advertisers elsewhere are creating new revenue streams by developing symbiotic relationships between smartphones and outdoor ad panels. Yet, it takes our media planners five to seven days to assemble a proposal that contains nothing more than a few photographs, sizes and availability dates – a ‘show and sell’ trade practice comparable to how roadside vendors sell vegetables by the kilogramme.

OOH advertising as a medium is insanely effective, but the lack of quantifiable data has turned it into something deeply flawed; a below the line activity, as referred to by most professionals in this part of the world.

To understand how crucial data is to the effectiveness of this medium, it is essential to understand what ‘data’ entails. The job does not end with data on eyeball measurements, it actually begins there. Tagging all display vehicles, cataloguing them under the different categories of OOH advertising and gauging audience response to each one of them is second on the list.

In the UK, industry analysts have reviewed growth trends in digital technology (one of the many OOH vehicles available to them) and have shared the projected growth figures for the next 10 years. According to research by Kinetic Worldwide (a globally reputed media planning and buying firm), digital technology will grow OOH’s total media share in the UK from £880 million (2010) to £1.15 billion by 2020. Digital revenue will reach almost £260 million accounting for approximately 23% of total OOH spend.

Kinetic’s analysis of various focus groups and dipstick surveys has revealed that “half of the consumers in the UK already see the value of interacting with posters, with 20% even expecting to be recognised by posters in the future; 75% expect to carry a smartphone or tablet computer; 66% expect to see digital screens in most city centres; 70% think digital posters are beneficial in high dwell time locations.”

It is this level of information that not only helps advertisers determine what consumers notice and relate to, it also helps media owners plan their future investments more effectively.

Unfortunately, Pakistan’s OOH industry has managed to reduce itself to a series of commercial transactions only. The good news is that the damage can be easily rectified. If only half a percent of the annual OOH ad spend flowing from advertisers to media owners was routed to research, the industry will reshape itself in no time. However, the first step will have to come from the advertisers; OOH media owners, barring a few exceptions, have always had a scant regard for data. For decades, they have been doing it all wrong and thinking it is all right.

Rafi Abidi is the founder of Sign Source. rafi.abidi@gmail.com