MediaTel

Outdoor advertising has a tremendous future, especially in the digital world, according to chief executive of Future plc, Stevie Spring, who was on the panel at MediaTel Group's Media Question Time, held in London last night.

"I think out of home has been the new broadcast for a very long time," she said. "The ability of out of home to deliver concurrent messages, albeit simple ones, to vast numbers of people concurrently at an affordable price is one that has helped fuel the growth of outdoor and long may it continue.

"As in any set of figures though you need to put a degree of caution in there," she warned. "Of course more people are spending more time on out of home, of course outdoor is the most perfect medium in conjunction with online... there is a degree of '99 revisited.

"But I think that we need to remember that the growth in outdoor hides the fact of an explosion of inventory, and the truth is� the growth in outdoor revenues has not kept pace with the growth in outdoor inventory and there's as big a gap in outdoor as there is in the rest of the media marketplace. I think we have to be very careful in carrying on this explosion of inventory against an advertising share that can't maintain it."

Fellow panelist Guy Zitter, managing director of the Daily Mail, admitted that he was a fan of outdoor as a medium but it wasn't "the new broadcast".

"The brutal reality is that it's a relatively small medium and it is actually quite expensive... I think if you've got exactly the right job for outdoor you can make it work. It's good for some things and it's not for others," he said.

Jim Hytner, group marketing director of Barclays, was less positive about outdoor as a medium. "I think digital outdoor has a long, long, long way to go before clients should take it seriously," he said. "We've had very disappointing experiences with digital outdoor, the delivery is not very good, it's sort of 1980s-esque at the moment.

"I think it's just a misperception that the minute some new technology comes along and attaches itself to a medium that we should all pile in there and say it's the best thing, " he said. "I'm sounding old-fashioned but I love telly, I love the Daily Mail, I love a bit of radio and I love a bit of search... I don't think [outdoor is] the next big thing."

MediaTel Group: 020 7439 7575 www.mediatelgroup.co.uk