It's been decades since the first neon signs were hoisted above the region's capitals and many more since sandwich boards were being trudged around city centres, but it's only now that the power of outdoor advertising is being properly acknowledged and embraced in Asia.
"The opportunities are increasing quite considerably in pretty much all markets," says Jonathan Thurlow, deputy regional director for Universal McCann.
The standard of work that's resulting from new opportunities, and from more thoughtful use of long-standing outdoor media options, is being celebrated not just in the region, but internationally. TBWA Japan's now world-famous 'Vertical football' work for Adidas won a gold Lion at Cannes this year, Starcom Thailand won a media Lion for its use of cinema for Heineken, in owning the digital sound check that accompanies films. And J. Walter Thompson in Malaysia won the top prize for outdoor work, the outdoor Grand Prix, in Cannes, for the 'missile car' created for television station Ch-9, in which giant model missiles appeared to be moments away from hitting a vehicle.
Some of the region's most creative outdoor work - despite the long lead times and intense bureaucratic headaches involved in getting it approved - is being done in mainland China. Only a few years ago, production quality for posters was so hit and miss that many major advertisers refused to use them at all, and site ownership in some cities was so scattered that almost every placement had to be negotiated individually.
"Outdoor is now the second-biggest media in China after TV," says Sam Lam, vice-president - business of Tom Outdoor Media Group, which launched in 2001 and claims to be the biggest specialist outdoor media company in China. "This is no longer a supporting medium."
He says expansion by international outdoor specialists such as MPI and JCDecaux have made it much easier for agencies and advertisers to buy multiple sites across several cities. At the same time, WTO entry and the upcoming Beijing Olympics have made outdoor an attractive way for international brands to communicate with visitors to China, as well as office workers on their way home or out to dinner.
In Hong Kong, as well as giant building wraps in the Financial Times style, bus wraps and train wraps, an essentially low-tech but high-impact form of tunnel advertising has this summer revolutionised commutes on underground sections of the MTR. A new media player in the region, Submedia, has created United Airlines and Budweiser advertising that appears to move like a film as the train moves; in June, the same technology was launched on Tokyo's Ginza line for Suntory, and Submedia is planning to hit other Asian markets soon.
In Thailand, long famed for its super-sized - and occasionally lethally large - outdoor signage, advertisers have the technology to create billboards that are part-lightbox, with moving parts. Soon, they may also be able to use Bangkok's new underground rail line, which is operating but without any advertising at all, as a high-level dispute over who has the right to sell media space there drags on.
Narong Tresuchan, who heads OMD in Bangkok, says the growth in popularity of outdoor there is for some advertisers a cost issue - their budgets simply don't stretch to TV. Others, however, are seeing that it's working for some of the country's biggest advertisers and, as TV rates rise and outdoor remains so much more affordable - they're prepared to give it a go.
"Unilever started to shift money into outdoor about three years ago, and people really took notice," he says. "There's no measurement of outdoor in Thailand, but when clients are happy with it, they talk about it, and it grows from there."
In Thailand, total adspend on outdoor was up 25 per cent in the first half of this year, according to Nielsen Media Research, and spending on cinema advertising rose 43 per cent. In Hong Kong, outdoor adspend was up 33 per cent during the same period. Outdoor and transit advertising in Japan, meanwhile, is worth about US$5 million a year and accounts for about 10 per cent of total adspend, figures from Dentsu show.
New technology is one reason for the rise in spend. Another is flexibility on the part of media owners, who are offering much shorter contract periods than just a few years ago, making it cost-effective to use outdoor for short-term promotional work rather than, say, year-round branding on an airport billboard.
General consensus is that the growth in outdoor is coming, at least in part, from budgets that previously went to TV.
"It's increasingly difficult for TV to reach the audiences that were once expected," says Douglas Woodring, CEO of Submedia Asia. "We have more channels to chose from, devices for blocking ads, more distractions and choices. TV has traditionally been the default choice for reaching a large mass of customers in the most efficient way, yet this is no longer a sure bet."
If necessity is the mother of invention, then the growing number of displays in the already-cluttered streetscapes of Asia's capitals have given media and creative agencies cause to work harder, not only to be noticed, but to resonate with the target audience. "They have to be more creative," says Thurlow, "because as these different types of out of home opportunities emerge, the context of what you're seeing and how you're seeing it becomes increasingly important. If you're going to put an out of home message into a CBD environment, for example, it needs to be in context with people's frame of mind. It's not just a question of where you put the message, it's where, when and what."
With this in mind, media agencies are setting up dedicated in-house units to handle outdoor, or linking up with outdoor partners, a trend something outdoor specialists say is being driven primarily by clients.
"Agencies have probably been lulled into a bit of laziness in the past," says Ron Graham, head of Poster Publicity Asia-Pacific. "They've found it easier to spend the budget fairly simply on a TV and press mix... and at the front end, more clients are expecting better accountability from their out of home investments."
Such investments from agencies reflect the industry's belief that the noise currently being made in outdoor is yet to reach a crescendo. Outdoor adspend in Asia still lags behind that in Europe as a proportion of total spend, and in China, for instance, where Tom's Lam says outdoor has shown double-digit increases for the past 10 years, growth of more than 10 per cent is expected for at least the next two years.
"This is not a trend that's just a peak of fashion or what's in vogue at the moment," says Graham of Poster Publicity. "It really is a long term upward trend."
CREATIVITY BUBBLES OVER: FROM BUILDING TO BUS WRAPS, ADVERTISERS EXPERIMENT WITH OUTDOOR'S EXPANSIVE CANVAS
LOUIS VUITTON
Louis Vuitton celebrated its 150th birthday in grand style in Hong Kong in April, with a celebrity-studded party that took place inside a giant LV 'trunk' - a canvas tent measuring 72m x30mx16m. It was the talk of of the region, not just on the night, but in the weeks it took to construct.
In Shanghai, meanwhile, a 27-metre wide replica of an LV monogram canvas case is built as the hoarding for the Plaza 66 LV store.
MOTOROLA
If most outdoor advertising works by getting consumers to look up, then Starcom and Heartland Media China's work for Motorola over Chinese New Year stood out for getting them to look down. Images of Motorola products rotated at people's feet in bar areas in six major cities. The work was followed by a similar campaign for Wrigley and Beijing and Shanghai, and later for Remy Martin and Nike.
UNITED AIRLINES
Submedia made its Asian debut in Hong Kong's mass transit railway system (MTR) in April, with a United Airlines campaign using its old-fashioned yet revolutionary tunnel advertising technology.
After success in the US with clients such as Amex and Calvin Klein, Submedia's work, in which passengers see images moving with their train, is making waves in Asia.
Recall rates monitored by Nielsen in Hong Kong are impressive, and the company says it's seen people get back on a train to see the 'show' again.
In June, Submedia launched in Tokyo with a Suntory campaign. Budweiser is taking the Hong Kong space over summer, and Submedia says other transport networks in the region are keen to talk.
SONY ERICSSON
Beijing office workers were introduced to larger-than-life images of the Sony Ericsson T628, on their way into the office, when MEC placed giant phone stickers onto either side of revolving doors in two office blocks. In a media first for this market, young professionals were targeted in a way that allowed them to see the product up close, and see through the door by looking through the phone's 'screen'. The work was in place between May and June.
NIKE
When construction work in Singapore's East Coast Parkway meant blocking off a section of trail popular with long-distance runners, Ogilvy & Mather sprinted in with a Nike ad on the hoarding where the route ended, saying 'For true runners, the road never ends.' What it lacks in size and technology this ad makes up for in timeliness and relevance to its target audience.
HARRY POTTER & THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN
The children of Singapore experienced a little of the magic of Harry Potter in May, when a 'triple-decker' chartered bus offered free rides along Orchard Road to promote the latest in the series of Harry films.
Client Warner Bros supplied the creative used to give the double-decker an extra level. The company created the look of the Knight Bus - which in the films race through the streets of London, shapeshifting as necessary to maneuver through human traffic - by dressing it up in brilliant purple to give it the appearance that it had three levels instead of two.
Kids were taken into the spellbinding world of Harry Potter with a 30-minute ride on-board the 'bewitching bus'. The 'Triple Decker Mysterious Knight Bus' stopped at a specially created mystery bus stop outside National Youth Park.
Actors on-board role-played scenes from the movie, and kids were offered several other activities, including face painting.
Media agency MEC says the work helped box office takings of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban outstrip those of the previous two Harry Potter films and saw the company pick up extensive press coverage in Singapore and abroad through the promotion.
J-WAVE
The hills were literally alive with the sound of music when Dentsu turned a skyscraper outside Tokyo city into a giant radio sound indicator to mark the arrival in town of new radio station J-Wave.
Hundreds of green lights in windows up to the 40th floor were arranged to 'dance' in sync with the music and announcements on air, bringing the vision truly to life and capturing attention for miles around.
MCDONALD'S
In Singapore, OMD covered MRT trains inside and out with the big grins of McDonald's 'I'm lovin' it' models, while signs at bus shelters point pedestrians to their nearest McDonald's and buses had ads hanging above the seats. In Hong Kong, trains have been covered in McDonald's 'graffiti', and entire buildings have been lit up with the words 'I'm lovin' it'.