“The signage is a 365-day salesman”
- says Sanjeev Hajela, president, PRIMESITE (In Interaction)
Out-of-home advertising is getting better and
better with time, what was a rage, just a few
months ago, is now passé. Innovations keep
pouring every now and then. All OOH companies
want to standout in melee of outdoor advertising.
Sanjeev Hajela, President, PRIMESITE - an
independent profit center of Mudra
Communications (P) Limited in conversation with
Smita Dwivedi of Sign & Graphics shares his
outlook about the industry.
Headquarted in Mumbai,
PRIMESITE has a wide
national network serviced
from offices in 16 cities located
strategically across India to deliver
quick and high quality services
to all its clients. An ISO certified
company; it is the only
comprehensive out-of-home
communication agency in
India, which offers value-added
capabilities in retail
merchandising, design and
consulting. “PRIMESITE as an
organization has completed ten
years this June. We started as an
outdoor company, but now we
offer design services for exteriors
and interiors to our customers as
well. We have made separate
chains of businesses and today
retail is one of the biggest streams
for us. We offer pan India
solutions for retail and design
everything from soft items to hard
items. We are also into space
designing for outlets. We get into
complete unveiling of the brand
story at the point-of-sale,”
Sanjeev said.
The holistic approach that the
agency has for its clients makes
them the preferred choice for
those who want nothing but the
best. PRIMESITE has done great
works for its clients, sharing
information about Hyundai Motor
India Limited, he added, “We
have been working on the
Hyundai assignments for over two
years now and completed almost
60 showrooms. Our expertise
speaks for itself everywhere in
their showroom. We have brought
complete consistency right from
the outer elevations to interiors
to all the brand elements.
Moreover, we have been detailed
‘how individual brand elements in
the showroom would interact
with customers’ and ‘how the
service area would interact with
the consumer.’ Our quality
standards and material
specifications have been
consistent.” The success-tale that
started with Hyundai has further
strengthened the company’s
clientele with other automobiles
majors.
Retail segment is one of the
biggest playgrounds for OOH
campaigns, where endless options
of indoor and outdoor displays are
available. He then explained about
Asian Paints campaign, which
covered ten Indian states and over
4500 outlets were connected
through consistent brand story.
“For Asian Paints, we have done
a complete retail manual. It was
a well-researched and executed
campaign. Actually, the interesting
retail manual, which we prepared
explains every minute detail,
including how each individual piece
of real estate needs to be used in
the outlet; what creative, product
and material changes are
required, and how the entire
retail should be brought under
brand use. That is the level of
detailing we provide to our
clients.”
“Our core belief is that retail
is a very strong medium,
which acts as a tremendous
accelerator/optimiser to outdoor
communications and performs as
a 365 days salesman,” Sanjeev
further added.
The other elite names in its
clientele include VLCC, ITC,
Wills Lifestyle, John Players, etc.
PRIMESITE is providing annual
services to its clients. “Our inputs
into the retail cover the entire
span as we provide all regular and
seasonal inputs, in addition to
compete brand inputs. For
seasonal inputs, we provide allnew
set of communication. All our
clients are regular and we work
for them on annual basis. And, yes
more recently, we are doing work
for Samsung mobiles and we
expect it to come out with flying
colours as well,” informed Sanjeev
with a sense of confidence.
When company’s roster includes
bigwigs of various segments, it
must be an experience worth
mentioning. On asking about the
same, he positively replied, “All
our clients are very special to us
and we work with them for long
term basis. We have been
working with ITC for 5 years,
Hyundai for 3 years and Asian
Paints for 3 years in progress. So,
it’s a long-term relationship,
wherein our inputs go from
understanding the brand
completely, and finding the
frequency and longevity of the
communication.”
Explaining more on approach
towards clients, he added, “We
meet our client understands the
channels that they are using and
the level of control they are
having on channels. Obviously, the
level input that one can give on a
completely owned outlet is much
more than multibrand outlet and
hence lesser amount of inputs are
given to the outlets in B and C
segment markets. We understand
how the brand uses channels and
based on the required frequency
of change we suggest them
various options. Two influences
continue to remain very key - the
volume of sales, that these outlets
deliver and visibility index of the
same.”
PRIMESITE has expert designing
and visualizing resources. “We
have architects on board who
understand the spaces
completely. Besides that, we have
experts who understand
material, outlet, retail spaces
apart from brand, very well,” he
added.
“We are dealing with verticals in
health care, town-planning, mass
rapid Transport systems (stations,
airports), retail spaces and malls.
The entire sign and design for
Delhi metro is being done by us.
For us, signage is very big…it’s a
real big thing,” Sanjeev said on a
concluding note.