Leading out of home media company CBS Outdoor has put forward a pioneering suggestion, debating whether London should have its financial dominance reflected in the city’s advertising costs. On a par with New York as a global economic apex, London’s bubble of superiority doesn’t quite correlate with the price of its marketing sites – especially when compared to the rest of England.
CBS Outdoor UK holds a prime position throughout London thanks to a contract with the Underground network, an expansive billboard and digital presence within the city, 9,000 buses and an exclusive partnership with the retail centre Westfield Stratford City. And so the company has presented the idea that city-central campaigns should have their prices upweighted, better reflecting the size of London’s purse strings.
Inside the prosperous hub of London, 37,000 restaurants and 34,450 shops last year revelled in sales totalling £62billion, accounting for 30% of the UK’s non-grocery purchases. This puts London ahead of shopping capitals such as Tokyo and Paris, which merely exacerbates the divide between the rest of the country, supported by London’s disposable income being 30% higher than other UK regions and an entire eighth of the city enjoying life as millionaires.
Last Friday the 26th April, CBS Outdoor and MediaTel organised a collection of influential speakers at a City Hall event, with representatives from MediaTel Newsline, the BBC and London Underground presenting arguments along with broadcaster and journalist Peter York. Entitled ‘All Eyes on London’, the panel revealed a feast of facts, figures and plans about London and explained the city’s future in terms of media and advertising.
London Underground MD Mike Brown revealed that “London is growing at a rate equivalent to two tube trains full of people each week”, and so, with Transport for London planning a 50% increase in the city’s transport capacity by 2030, CBS Outdoor’s idea of economically based advertising is generating interest from a lot of bodies. As the world’s top Twitter city, outdoor advertising also has the power to infiltrate other mediums – take the CBS Look For Longer campaign, for example.
CBS Outdoor marketing director, Simon Harrington, said: “There is no formula or algorithm that says if you up-weight London by X it delivers Y, however, we firmly believe London has an increasingly important role to play and we are simply encouraging debate, challenge and re-appraisal.”