The month of August has witnessed significant activity in the OOH market. Despite summer holidays keeping city residents in the coastal resorts, the OOH overall occupancy of Greater Cairo has been stable at 75%. Leading industries, like Real Estate, FMCG and Furniture have maintained their occupancy rates on the roads of Greater Cairo. However, Consumer Electronics, Automotive and Broadcast Media have started to peak up in preparation for the upcoming Fall. The strongest industry growth has come from Telecommunications, which has more than doubled to attain an 8% of total OOH occupancy. Orange started the month offering gold to their customers, to later on release Tamer Hosny’s new album. Vodafone has also focused on music, first with a special promotion with Amr Diab, and afterwards adding rap rhythm to their internet bundles, while Etisalat was focusing its outdoor campaign in a cross-promotion with Nokia. Mobile Apps have been active too. We have seen an OOH campaign from logistics app En2L, as well as food delivery service Otlob who has launched new promotions at partner QSR restaurants. Mobile devices brand Huawei has also joined the billboards with a limited outdoor campaign for their latest smartphone model Nova 3. Automotive has also increased their activity. Diamond Motors launched a teaser campaign to present the new Mitsubishi Expander, Mansour also teased audiences about the upcoming launch of MG in Egypt while reinforcing the promotion of Peugeot latest models, and BMW presented the revamped X3 with an outdoor campaign. Consumer Electronics has also grown during the summer. First with the OOH campaign from Avena LED promoting their LED products, followed by Turkish appliances brand BEKO and its new black range of home appliances. Broadcast Media has launched one of the Top Campaigns of the summer, with the presentation on the billboards of Pyramids FC new TV channel – this increasing the visibility of the sector just before the fall arrives. With Eid al-Adha during the second half of August, the non-profit sector has returned to the billboards. El Mesbah El Modee has launched an outdoor campaign for zakat, as well as Misr El Kheir and their usual campaign and Egyptian Food Bank, who has surprised with modern certificates for the sacrifice and amusing visuals. Finance has reduced the occupancy, though the industry has kept adding new campaigns. For example, Mastercard has offered “priceless” rewards for those who travel and Banque du Caire has announced their partnership with Arsenal FC. Most sectors in FMCG have maintained a stable presence without significant changes in the number of OOH ad faces. Except for Fern, who launched an Out-Of-Home campaign for their renowned butter block, the billboards have “flooded” with drinks brands. Schweppes extended their OOH campaign with Shereen Reda and Amir Karara, 7up surprised with Egyptian art, and Beyti juice has repeated creativity in their outdoor like last the summer. Danone has revamped their rebel youthful drinking yoghurt in the billboards and Hayat water has returned to the roads after one year. The foodservice industry has decreased their activity to half, with only 3 new campaigns during August – all from Americana Group QSR franchises. Hardee’s has brought back their Champions meal, KFC has launched the New “Chilla Box”, and Pizza Hut has tripled their cheesy bites. Real Estate has again increased the occupancy share and surpass expectations in variety of campaigns and advertisers. The number of city residential projects has increased on the billboards, specially 6th of October City. Porto Group has certainly been the busiest developer, with OOH campaigns for Porto October and Porto Pyramids – as well as Golf Porto Marina as we will see below. Al Sedek has presented Life Point, and AMID has launched new compound GRANZA. New Cairo has also been highlighted. ZEIN has “featured lots of features” in their new OOH campaign and Al Marasem has continued its 2-in-1 campaign with Yousra until mid-August, when they upgraded to announce new releases. In the meantime, ARDIC has presented the Leeway Apartments and Hassan Allam has launched Residences at Swan Lake New Cairo. The New Capital was once again the hot topic among advertisers. Better Home announced the launch of condos at Midtown and ranked #2 in the Top 20with a massive campaign of almost 100 ad faces, AKAM upgraded the messages for Scenario and ranked #11 in the Top of the month, while Pyramids upgraded the OOH for La Capitale and ranked #10. Castle Landmark revealed their first project and New Plan showcased the home units at Serrano and entered the Top 20 ranking at position #17. Beach resorts continued their stronghold of the billboards. For example, City Edge extended the campaign for North Edge Towers, Projects evolved the campaign for Blues Tiffany with new ad visuals and ranked #3 of the Top 20 of August, and Golf Porto Marina replaced OOH messages. Emtelak brought back Garawla Islands back for summer, just as Novus Stanza did for Golden Beach. And El Shahawi surprised the market with a Hawaiian-themed project in Al Sahel under the name of PALI. And while we wait for the back-to-school season, stay tuned for the latest holiday campaigns and remember: the better the insights, the better the strategy!
