The rate of outdoor advertising in Ghana has seen a remarkable growth in recent times. The influx of numerous notices on various advertising sites has shaped environmental outlook to society.
Serving as an effective means for several organizations and sole proprietorship enterprises in the brief creation of awareness, outdoor advertising has come to stay in the entrepreneurship scene in the country.
According to experts, Ghana is at a 75% rate of entry with billboards advertisement alone with the figures likely to increase by 2020. Ideally, billboard ads are positioned in strategic prime locations along high traffic roads enabling maximum exposure. In the capital city, Accra, sites on the constantly busy principal roads including George walker bush highway, Liberation road, Tema Motor way, Kanda highway, Tetteh Quarshie interchange and the DR Busia high way are filled with all kinds of open-air advertisements positioned to capture prospective buyer’s attention of several products, services and ideas presented for patronage.
Often deployed as one of the main tools in promoting offers for large companies, outdoor advertising has also been rapidly adopted by small scale businesses in reaching their targeted markets in Ghana.
In Ghana today, almost every business is said to have an adverting station either standing close by or a few miles away from the business premises. Although most outdoor advertisements are not created to allow room for immediate feedback, customers and prospective buyers are often left with creative and imaginative ideas of what an offer is capable of achieving.
As such businesses in the country today spent relatively huge sums on just advertising as well as all forms of communication of products, services and ideas.
Aiding a number of companies in reaching out to the masses with outdoor ads are Eear Multimedia, Alliance Media Ghana, GH Media among others who go about the routine of putting up giant billboards for public viewing periodically.
Depending on a company’s or individuals preferred size, billboard displayed prices ranges from GHC I, 500.00 to GHC 4000.00 across the country. Other outdoor advertisements such as posters and banners can also go for approximately GHC350.00 to GHC1000.00.
These facts and figures reveal the length to which organizations have understood the significance and role that advertising in general plays in the profitable development of enterprises as well as the nation’s economy as a whole.
More advertising firms are springing up in the communication sector of the corporate world. In so doing the industry has employed a high number of Ghanaians in every field of advertising. The ad industry has inherently generated income for numerous citizens helping in the cut down of unemployment rate in Ghana.
Although advertising has brought a lot of good to the economy, the level of clutter that has come along with it is rather unhealthy. The disorganized manner at which banners mounted and posters are displayed in the public is not reflective of what advertisements are meant to achieve.
Over the years both the government and individuals have tried putting mechanisms in place to curb the menace. On the contrary it seems the legal requirement of authorization and notice of the “post no bill” cliché has not yielded the desired results.
Major buildings, bridges and walls within the nation’s capital are filled with numerous advertising messages that puts readers off due to the mess it creates on the landscapes of Ghana.
Ghana is currently at a place of ensuring good sanitation in the society which has been a major challenge for years and has caused the nation financially. It now becomes expedient that advertising materials do not contribute to this pending problem.
Advertising firms can improve advertising materials to sustain all forms of weather and seasonal conditions in order not to add up to waste control issues the nation faces regularly. In addition, key players of communication such as the ministry of communication should improvise methods on the rate at which licenses are issued out with regards to advertising in open-air.
Overall the good that advertising brings to the nation, organizations along with individuals outweighs the few challenges it faces in the country. Companies have been relieved of inter-personal process of creating awareness. Outdoor Advertising has supported businesses in Ghana to produce better on a wider scale effectively and efficiently.
The prospects for the future with advertisement is of high optimism.
By: Gabriel Odonkor
