And why only Mumbai, most of our multi-media campaigns on big brands get a nationwide release. Which only makes matters worse when you take into account every billboard at every corner, every other highway, street, building or bus.

Rewind this morning’s drive to office and ponder. How many of those mammoth specimens of creativity lined up on the main roads do you actually remember seeing? (Let alone spend time on.) Did even a single one make you smile, laugh, weep or even think? (Let alone jump out of your seat.)

Take for example, few of the recent film promo posters plastered all over the cities. Dare I say that many of them are far better looking than some of ours. And this, by the way, has got nothing to do with them having celebrities or pretty faces in them. It’s totally about the manner in which they are composed and conceptualized.

Talking about attractive cinema posters, the fact is, even they have logos four times bigger than ours. That, along with several other mandatories, which leaves us with little reason to complain even after a healthy comparative analysis, they started quite late and they are much ahead of us when it comes to this medium in many ways.

So the problem really is this.

We still treat one of the leading mediums in advertising and communication as no more than a reminder medium. And in the bargain, gladly forget that the Outdoor Billboard has a life of its own, charm of its own. For, it not only braves the outdoors and enlarges the scale but also enchants and enlivens. It makes you look up to it. You can generously take a second, or even a third and fourth look if you’re at a signal. It has a longer life. And a better chance you’d catch it at the same place even after a fortnight or two.

So, isn’t it time we give the medium what it duly and truly deserves?

And that, in essence, goes beyond the 2-3 mandatories that we think ought to fill in that space. Because at the end of the day, it is a godforsaken piece of communication. A form of expression. Not mere display or information.

Now even if we were to talk about the basics, we must go back to what we were taught in art school. We were simply told: when the money and time to experiment are inadequate, stick to the basic format and you can’t go wrong. And while it holds true for most things in life, as an advertising industry we fail to get even passing marks.

It’s time to accept faults and take the blame in our stride. Let’s understand first and foremost, that the medium is merely outdoor, not outcast. We have to do better than adapt the last frame of a television commercial or a print ad into a billboard creative.

Clearly, the senior rung has to do more than just crack the basic route and instruct the juniors and studio operators to adapt. Speaking of which, even a 1:1 design isn’t quite the same as, say a 1:2 or a 2:1. How do we expect an operator to do justice to that now?

Let’s open up the possibilities like the scale of the medium itself. Let’s break formats, and even create newer ones. So that outdoor is looked upon as a medium that survives and thrives not just by accident, but by design