Internationally, OOH media is changing with the times. New digital platforms have opened up new opportunities for advertisers and the media owner.However, South Africa may be a bit slow in embracing such advancements.

Les Holley, executive director of Out of Home Media South Africa (OHMSA), says that regulators are becoming stricter on OOH regulations and this is affecting negatively on the progress of the industry.

For example, regulations prevent OOH from using moving and interactive images in South Africa citing driver distraction as a motivator. This is despite the fact that International studies have shown that this does not cause any direct harm to road-users and in fact has proven to be well received.

Unfortunately, some councils are prohibiting the advancement of the OOH industry KwaZulu-Natal for example, is currently in the process of placing bans on all OOH media in the province. The Cape also has strict regulations in place that disallow the medium to grow; the laws to gain OOH space is very limiting and applications takes about 6 months to process.

In an era where technology is changing on a daily basis, it's unfortunate that the regulators are not progressing to an international level, despite the fact that other industries are empowered to embrace change, says Holley.

Moreover, council has the opportunity to reap the financial benefits from OOH for site rentalThe options for OOH are endless, and digital advertising tends to be of a high-quality because the of the intricacy of the medium. OHMSA would like to believe that South African cities will eventually embrace the concept of the digital medium in all its formats but the critical question is, when we finally do accept it, how far ahead will the rest of the world be?

Certain instances and regulations are also preventing corporate South Africa from maximizing the opportunities that the digital medium offers. Despite the difficulties that regulators place on the market, digital is the way of the world and urban areas should follow in this trend. Digital media offers consumers a chance to interact with the brand, take for example the McDonalds billboard at Piccadilly Circus in the UK. This digital platform allows passersby to take pictures with the billboard as a background, it creates the illusion of smoke coming out of the ears or the subject holding an umbrella in the rain.

Digital mediums work very well in shopping malls, airports and other closed environments in South Africa and according to Holley, South Africa has the means to step up to the opportunities if we rethink the rules and regulations.