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 Outdoor advertising firm BackLite Media has secured 10 new hoarding locations on Sheikh Zayed Road, and renewed its existing 14 sites, it announced yesterday.
The new hoardings will be scattered liberally between interchanges one and four of Dubai’s arterial highway, covering probably the busiest stretch of the road – and the area where there are convenient long traffic jams, giving drivers ample time to gaze longingly at advertised products.
Possibly.
“We are very pleased to secure an extension of our existing 14 locations and to be awarded an additional 10 locations. This gives both our clients and us security that BackLite's high quality advertising signs will continue to be available for a long time to come,” said BackLite MD James Bicknell in a press release.
BackLite also recently secured rights to stick ads up on a stretch of SZR’s lamp posts.
Dubai’s outdoor advertising market has taken the brunt of the misery resulting from last year’s property crash in the emirate, watching as the lucrative multi-million-dirham deals for single hoardings evaporated almost overnight.
Currently a number of SZR hoardings – belonging to many companies – lie empty, as year-long deals have expired without anything booked to replace them.
Given this, BackLite’s desire to grab yet more space might seem counter-intuitive – aka a big mistake – seeing as firms aren’t able to shift their existing inventory.
However, we might speculate that the firm is not perhaps that daft, and has managed to secure a more cost-effective deal for the sites than might have been possible before, and is looking to the long term.
BackLite chairman Bengt Bendeus’s press release comments would seem to support this: “We are firmly committed to the future of Dubai. We truly believe Dubai will come out of the recession better and stronger and we want to be a part of this. Dubai is a wonderful place to do business and we are here for the long term to grow with it.”
The new sites will be up and running later this year, according to BackLite’s press release.
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