Savia Jane Pinto
OOH

Posterscope is launched in India

The outdoor arm of the Aegis Media Group has stepped in on a strong footing, with many interesting clients in its kitty

Media conglomerate Aegis Media has launched its outdoor division, Posterscope, in India.

Ashish Bhasin, chairman, India, and chief executive officer, Southeast Asia, Aegis Media, was on the lookout for experienced hands to handle the reins of Posterscope.

Bhasin has picked out two people from the outdoor unit that he had started while he was at Lintas. Haresh Nayak from Aaren Initiative and Sushil Pandey have joined Posterscope, in addition to Vinay Goel from Tata Indicom.

Haresh Nayak will serve as general manager, Posterscope, India. He has more than a decade of experience in the outdoor field. He began his career at Prime Outdoor, where he spent about six years. He then moved to Aaren Initiative for another seven years, where he worked as business director. He worked on brands such as Tata Indicom (nationally), Pantaloons, Big Bazaar and was responsible for business development.

Sushil Pandey, who was responsible for many financial services clients while at Aaren, has been selected to lead the West and South zones. Vinay Goel will lead the North zone.

In an official communiqué, Annie Rickard, president, Posterscope Worldwide, says, “India is an exciting and strategically important market, and we are happy to be launching Posterscope here. The best in class Posterscope tools, insights, best practices and all the other resources of our network will be available to Posterscope India from inception.”

Posterscope is launched in India
Ashish Bhasin
The outdoor unit was launched on September 16 and operations will start on September 18. Five offices have been set up, one each in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Chennai. Apart from these, 18 associate and affiliate offices have been set up in smaller towns. These are equipped with personnel to carry out implementation.

Posterscope aims to grow from 23 offices to 32 in the first month of operations.

Posterscope India aims to bring in a high level of accountability, transparency and professionalism in the unorganised and cluttered Indian outdoor industry. It will work with media owners to bring in best practices from around the world. It will introduce research and data based tools.

One of these is Prism, a collection of tools that has been developed over time in order to provide a cutting edge to Posterscope’s clients. Prism comprises 13 different tools; of these, Prism Plan, Prism Map, Prism Creative, Prism Postar and Prism Monitor will be introduced in India.

The first to be introduced will be Prism Map, a mapping tool, to map out of home media options from hoarding to street furniture sites in the top 32 cities, including metros, mini metros and Tier I towns. Every site will be classified, rated and recorded visually using video based tools and monitored periodically. A state of the art monitoring system, which allows the use of the latest technology, is being implemented.

“Posterscope’s strategy is to be the best out of home expert with the latest tools customised to India and a pan India network, thus making India on par with the developed countries in terms of outdoor advertising,” says Bhasin, speaking to afaqs!

Posterscope is launched in India
Haresh Nayak
Another new brand, Hyperspace, will also be launched under Posterscope. This division will focus on innovation and creativity and will offer clients effective and better solutions in the out of home space.

Nayak shares his current agenda with afaqs!: “Getting the system in place, starting work on new clients and bringing on newer clients.” Some of Posterscope’s global clients, which are also present in India, are Philips, Adidas, Reebok, RayBan and Puma.

“We are looking for a major telecom business in our kitty,” shares Nayak. This is because, as outdoor is a localised medium, they’d like to be present even at the ground level.

Internationally, Posterscope is present in Europe, South Africa, the Asia Pacific and the US. In the Asia Pacific region, Posterscope is present in China, Malaysia and Taiwan.

Aegis Media comprises Carat, the media buying and planning arm; Posterscope, the OOH company; Isobar, the digital company; and Vizeum.

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