Outdoor ASIA - July 2018

28 August 2018

MEDIA MATTERS

‘OOH must collaborate and look

outwards’

Bob Wootton, Executive Director, FEPE International, shares his thoughts on

wide-ranging themes relating to OOH advertising and regulation in an interview to

Rajiv Raghunath. Edited excerpts:

FEPE International brings OOH firms from around the

globe on a common platform. As you internationalise

FEPE’s peer-to-peer networking and knowledge

sharing platform, which are the areas where you see

significant scope for global collaborations across

geographies?

First, it’s reassuring that you understand what FEPE is

and does! Some people with longer memories still see

us as mainly European even though we are now truly

global and heading even further in that direction. Our

future activities and communications will reinforce this.

One of the most frequently-used words at this year’s

record-breaking FEPE Annual Congress in Sorento, Italy,

was collaboration. It’s clear – and everyone agrees –

that Out of Home must collaborate and look outwards

if it is to increase its share of existing ad budgets and

bring new categories into the medium.

The major media owners and buyers are of course

already connected across territories, but FEPE can act

as another connector between different markets, also

including regional and local players where appropriate.

That said, competing OOH companies can only

collaborate so far before they start to share the very

things that give them competitive advantage, so we

need to be focused and pragmatic about just how far is

practical. We must also be mindful of competition laws.

Fortunately, FEPE and its members believe that there’s

some way to go before we hit that point.

You have worked very closely with government

bodies on behalf of the advertising industry. How is

that experience helping you in your current role as

Executive Director of FEPE International? Are there

very many areas where government bodies and the

OOH industry can work together?

I was Director of the body representing British

Advertisers for 20 years, during which time we had

extensive dealings with UK and European Governments

on a wide range of issues from competition issues like

media monopolies caused by consolidation through

to the regulation of tobacco, alcohol, foods which

are considered high in fat, salt and sugar, and finally

gambling. And the UK Government is also one of the

country’s biggest advertisers, so we engaged on social

policy drivers too.

Different territories have markedly different attitudes

towards advertising and social policy – and these

can change quite rapidly as Governments themselves

change -- so a global approach is not appropriate.