PRIMEDIA OUTDOOR DELIVERS ON ELECTION PRESSURES

Primedia Outdoor, the largest wholly South African owned outdoor advertising company, secured the contract to communicate much of the Independent Electoral Commission’s (IEC’s) massive voter registration drive, as well as a significant portion of certain political parties’ outdoor campaigns in the run-up to the April 2004 elections. The assignment presented Primedia Outdoor with the task of flighting over 270 000 square meters of flexface posters across much of their national billboard portfolio, and less than four weeks to complete most of the undertaking.

Pete Piccione, Managing Director of Primedia Outdoor says ‘The build up to the elections saw liberal investments by various political parties as well as the IEC in Outdoor media. The logistics involved in meeting the deadlines stipulated by clients required careful planning and superior operational capability to flight the campaigns timeously.”

“Outdoor media strategies adopted by the clients incorporated a range of formats, from high impact Spectaculars, 9 x 6 Prime Position Billboards and 6 x 4’s, to smaller format 48 Sheets, and Consumer Ads. Primedia Outdoor’s highly efficient and dedicated network of operational partners provides us with the means to implement comprehensive, national outdoor campaigns of this nature.”

Piccione continues, “Our subcontractors put in a considerable amount of effort for these campaigns, with posting of boards taking place seven days a week and well into the night on several occasions.”

Piccione cites the fact that Primedia Outdoor’s billboards have been adapted to take flexface posters as opposed to the old self-adhesive vinyl or paper posters previously used, as having made the project possible. “This substantially reduced flighting times, allowing effective implementation within client delivery timeframes.”

The use of digitally printed flexface posters as a standard on outdoor has been made possible by considerable reductions in print costs, while the finishes achieved are of a far higher quality than the older screen-printing methods used for self-adhesive vinyl and paper posters.