Moscow ad rates rising as outdoor ban approaches
Outdoor-advertising prices are climbing in Moscow following the imposition of restrictions in several areas including major tourist attractions.
As reported by SCREENS.tv in May, the Moscow government unexpectedly issued a decree banning all outdoor signage and advertising in historic areas around the Kremlin (pictured), the Novodevichy Monastery and the Kolomenskoye Estate. It had previously issued advertising licences on payment of a fee.
The plan is for the ban to be phased in between January and December 2009 to allow for existing licences for billboards and digital-signage systems in these areas to expire on a controlled basis. The Kremlin area will be the first affected, with the prohibition in place from January.
But it now seems that the effects of the ban, combined with growing demand for out-of-home advertising, have already started to bite. According to Andrey Bereskin, an analyst with market-research firm Espar Analytik, ad rates have risen in anticipation.
News Outdoor, a major Russian outdoor-advertising firm, said its revenues from Moscow during the first half of 2008 were up a hefty 48 percent compared to the same period last year.
Lariss Schipanova, News Outdoor's head of research and analysis, added that new advertisers are still coming into the Moscow market. During the second quarter, she said, the company had signed up 20 new clients for contracts worth 3m roubles ($128,000).
Moscow's mayor Yury Luzhkov has gone on record as saying that the ban comes after a campaign by residents in the historic areas of the city.
But some commercial signage will be permitted at bus stops and on public phones, as well as on selected benches and roadside barriers. That could, it has been speculated, provide a loophole allowing smaller digital-signage screens to be deployed at street level.
www.newsoutdoor.ru
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