APN Outdoor CEO James Warburton says the out of home industry needs to use the recent deals between Ooh!Media and Adshel and JCDecaux and APN Outdoor as an opportunity to really "grow up".
Speaking to AdNews, the outdoor boss, whose business yesterday recieved Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) approval to be acquired by international giant JCDecaux, said the new landscape media landscape needed further leadership and industry collaboration.
"I hope that the outdoor industry can really pull together and work as one, it's time to really grow up and really think about the future and work collaboratively together," he says.
Warburton added that the Outdoor Media Association (OMA) also needed to reapproach how it looked at the bigger issues facing the industry, and members need to stop "fighting amongst each other" and look at the bigger picture.
"It's crazy that we sit here today with all the investment, hundreds of millions of dollars all having gone into digital, large format, billboards, yet we don't have the audience measurement to support it," Warburton says.
"Instead we have this situation where everyone goes head-to-head, beating each other up to win business based on discount when we haven't even got measurement of its effectiveness."
He says the shortening of compeition will highlight the key oppurtunities that the industry should be taking advantage off, particualrly with further growth projected over the next two years.
Under the new deals, JCDecaux and Ooh!Media will become the two largest players in Australia's out of home sector, with each now in possession of large format and street furniture assets.
"It really gives a fresh opportunity for the industry, and there needs to be an independent leadership at all levels but also someone with political connections at the top," Warbuton says.
"Outdoor tends to get run over by ministers who want to make an example of us, whether it's with alcohol or gaming, yet we are only 6% of market.
"The PwC projections from its outlook report, has us in 2020 as representing 7.9% of market, so the opportunity for the industry is not to fight each other but to actually work together to improve."
Warburton pointed to the success of the TV sector as a objective the outdoor industry should be moving toward.
He says the reinvention and collaborative work that the major networks have achieved through their work with ThinkTV highlights how an industry can produce better outcomes by working in unison.
"ThinkTV and the television industry has done an extraordinary job of reinventing itself with all the platforms that have been applauded by the media buyers," Warburton says.
"Our industry needs to have one platform and one objective moving forward and these are really important things, so outdoor needs to use this an opportunity to consider how it can progress and grow moving forward."
When it comes to adopting a uniform measurement platform, most of the major outdoor vendors have committed to using campaign delivery reporting platform Seedooh.
The independent OOH ad tech platform aggregates classic and digital screen data with campaign booking information to allow advertisers and media buyers to monitor campaign delivery, providing confidence on the buying side.
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