Coming up with a brilliant idea that the client falls in love with is the easy part. Convincing everyone from media owners and town planners to telecoms, transport officials and even rock-climbing clubs that it should be allowed to happen is the real challenge — but it can and has been done.
Air-conditioner ads can now blow cool air on passers-by. Digital roadside screens can be rotated by remote control to face the flow of traffic at both ends of the working day, with messages changed across a network to suit the time of day. GPS-based bus ads can be changed depending on where in a city a bus happens to be, and interactive screens that you can talk to with your mobile phone exist where once there were static billboards.
But behind the headlines and new-look skylines resulting from the most adventurous uses of outdoor media space are tales of sleepless nights, spiralling budgets, bureaucratic mazes and impossible production deadlines. "It is not easy to make these wild ideas happen," says Mindy Kwan, assistant brand communications manager at adidas, which has won a clutch of awards for its 'Impossible sprint' up the side of buildings in Hong Kong and Osaka, and, for the World Cup, flung New Zealand consumers through the air inside a giant football attached to a bungee cord. 'Impossible sprint' involved not only a media agency, Carat, building management and the local Government, but also a rock-climbing association, which vouched for the safety of the set-up.
"It takes a long time to negotiate with building management. 'Be the ball' (in New Zealand) took around three months from the planning to the execution," Kwan says.
"However, as we have strong experience in these kind of events and advertising campaigns, our partners have confidence in us and we achieved a win-win situation with a lot of coverage and public awareness."
The approvals process for campaigns and events that break new ground can be time-consuming and complicated, but it is, on the whole, getting easier in major Asian markets. "Increasingly, it's becoming more and more possible; people aren't putting up as many barriers as you might have thought they would," says Tess Caven, marketing director of MEC Asia-Pacific. "They're realising that some of these things say something good about a city, that they're doing something different and creative."
In Singapore, known for having tough restrictions, DHL was able to have a branded hot-air balloon ride with the blessing of the Civil Aviation Authority, because the idea pitched to authorities was not as an advertising stunt but a tourist attraction. The balloon — which is tethered but rises to a height of 40 storeys — is known locally as 'the DHL balloon'.
Similarly, Government doubts in Hong Kong about wrapping Two IFC tower — which dominates the Central skyline— in pink for the Financial Times were overcome when they were convinced that post-Sars Hong Kong could do with positive international headlines. Caven points out: "It's always going to be about finding the right person who's going to listen sympathetically."
India's labyrinth-like bureaucracy is one of the most difficult to deal with, with overlaps in responsibility, and difficulty reaching the real decision-makers early enough in the process. Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and Thailand are considered the easiest of the major markets in which to pioneer new outdoor media. Korea is a tougher nut to crack; there, even 3D bus shelter ads are not allowed.
Even in the more developed ad markets, though, it's not always simple to find the right ear to bend, or to bend it sufficiently. "Quite often, (non-traditional) ideas get refused on the first attempt in Singapore," says Ron Graham, COO Asia-Pacific at Kinetic Worldwide Media.
"We've had situations (there) where we've been trying to do projections on buildings and the Government bodies can't get their heads around it. It's not broadcasting and it's not building. Because it's different, the approval bodies don't know what to do with it."
Media owners, meanwhile, increasingly aware of the revenue that advertising deals can bring in, are growing more amenable to sharing their space.
"They're becoming more open-minded. The first one of anything is always a little bit more difficult, but once someone's tried it and proved it works it gets easier," says Kwan. "There's also the media revenue for the building, so I believe more advertisers and even the building owners themselves are coming up with great ideas."
For Louis Vuitton, which has used giant constructions of its signature luggage to promote new store openings and reopenings in China, "red tape is not a problem", says Peachie Dieken, LV's Hong Kong and Taiwan advertising and editions manager. When a giant trunk was erected in the arrivals hall of Hong Kong airport, Dieken says the Airport Authority was extremely cooperative. "They loved the idea and were happy to work with us," she says.
Plenty of great ideas don't get the go-ahead, though, despite the new-found flexibility. MindShare wanted to lay real turf or synthetic grass in train stations in Singapore and Hong Kong for Nike, but had to settle for floor stickers showing photos of grass because of fears that passengers would slip on real or imitation grass.
Glenda Long, regional sales and marketing manager of JCDecaux Asia, says a property client who wanted to put real furniture in front of its concourse posters was not allowed because of concerns passengers would trip over it.
"An airline client had an idea to decorate a subway into an airport with a baggage reclaim carousel. However, the idea was not allowed because it might hinder passengers' traffic flow," Long says. "And a female personal care product wanted to add cushions to train seats to communicate the softness and comfort of the product… This was not allowed because it would make male passengers embarrassed."
Problems with production are rarely an issue. "Asia being Asia, you can always find someone to do what you want in a very short time," says one outdoor insider.
The client getting cold feet is usually of more concern, often when they see the production bill. "Sometimes it goes in the 'too-hard' basket — things like if it's a special build, a one-off, a client saying 'well, there's this versus 20 billboards, I'd rather have 20 billboards'."
Other times, the compromise that wins an idea approval from city authorities is too great for the client to swallow, or the approvals process takes so long — or starts so late in the campaign planning — that the start of a campaign is missed.
The time issue is a particular bugbear for Kinetic's Graham, who says too many outdoor campaigns are planned only after everything else, when there's a bit of leftover budget. But it seems that where there's tenacity and a budget, there's usually a way.
Graham recalls the last-minute scramble to turn a 30 metre-wide Shanghai billboard into a 3D display with a mock giant window-cleaner's basket for Malaysia Airlines. The basket is empty, with the cleaner's clothes left behind while he hits the beach. But days before it was due to be erected, there was still no council approval, the structure was in pieces in a factory three hours away, and the basket had not even been designed.
Around-the-clock determination — including ordering tailors to make the oversize clothing, and lengthy meetings with the council and building owner — meant it went ahead. Graham says: "Five days later, the site was up and we had an extremely happy client, an owner of a unique location in the middle of Shanghai, but if any one of these important steps was not completed, the whole project would have been a failure."
The old adage about genius being 99 per cent perspiration and one per cent inspiration springs to mind.
