Black players in the billboard industry say they want a bigger share of the multibillion rand pie. Picture: Thobile Mathonsi/African News Agency (ANA)
Johannesburg - The Black Billboard Owners Alliance (BBOA) will host an indaba of all stakeholders under one roof in March 2023 to bring their members into the mainstream so they can stake a claim for a slice of the R48 billion industry from which they feel they are being unfairly marginalised.
The BBOA cites racism as chiefly the reason they are being kicked to the kerb of this money-spinning business, which has traditionally been lily-white. Just recently, the Competition Commission Tribunal slapped one of the giant white companies with an R1, 8 million fine after the company had admitted to price fixing in the culmination of an investigation launched by the Commission in 2011.
The BBOA is adamant the fine is a slap on the wrist; too little, too late.
After making numerous representations to be heard, the BBOA is of the view that a formal conference bringing all role-players together for frank discussions is the only way forward.
Siphosihle Mbuli, administrator at the BBOA says: “The conference is a meeting of the minds of all Out of Home Industry players, from advertisers, agencies, strategists and owners. Since the inception of the BBOA in 2019, the Alliance has consistently engaged all stakeholders such as buyers and brands on the injustice that exists within the industry and pointed at the discriminatory buying practices alongside challenging the cartel behaviour. Black media owners only get a small chunk of the reported billions circulating in the industry. We only get about 5% - and I’m being generous with his figure.”
Mbuli added that this was something the BBOA consistently challenges by advocating with both brands and agencies for greater spending on black media owners.
“The conference will take this advocacy a step further. The conference, after the engagement on an individual level with companies and agencies, will be a catalyst for the creation of a space to take the fight further by creating platforms for solution generation, information sharing, skills development and networking. The conversation for change cannot happen in silos and all role-players must come to the party. All stakeholders are incredibly important to the work done by the BBOA as they play a role in advertising. The banks possess some of the largest holdings for advertising throughout the year.”
The conference will take place in March 2023 over two days featuring various panel discussions and speakers discussing topics from racism in the industry, buying trends and forecasts to the digitisation of the space and growth of OOH Applications, Mbuli says.
“After the conference, the BBOA intended to continue to lead all engagements around the growth and transformation in a more cohesive industry while having created a space for all media players to integrate.”
According to the BBOA, they want to encourage the growth of black participants. Their ways of doing business will, of necessity, also move with the times. This includes the migration from static billboards to the new trend of digital boards. “The indaba will be attended by banks, advertising agencies, brands, media owners and international billboard owners from whom we can learn from.
“We need to move from getting crumbs of the R48 billion a year budget to a more meaningful slice of the cake. We are not only bringing black-owned entities to the table. We are more than that. We cannot be continuously side-lined. We are capable, capacitated and experienced.”
The Alliance boasts 28 companies operating nationwide with around 800 billboards, some in business for more than 25 years. The only reason they are not getting their fair share of the billboards pie is the colour of their ownership, the BBOA gripes.