Jordan media | Outdoor ads in Amman
It seems that what is happening in New York City is happening in Amman, a clash between Greater Amman Municipality and Outdoor Media Companies in Jordan about municipality’s intentions of removing rooftops displays in Amman.
Outdoor companies acknowledged that some of these displays cause a minor optical pollution that can be resolved through dialogue. In a letter to the mayor, 20 companies emphasized the importance of protecting city’s grace but they criticized revealing those plans by the municipality before agreeing on alternatives. According to those media houses this announcement caused extreme losses due to flinch in bookings by advertisers and agencies.
In a press conference held last Saturday, the mayor Eng. Omar Maani assured that “logical” alternatives will be created and all rooftops will be removed since they are vision-offensive. Maani said that Amman is witnessing an extreme optical pollution due to the chaos in outdoor ad displays. Maani added that the municipality is working closely with ad industry’s players to create a system that retain the cultural and architectural aspect of the city but media companies said that they weren’t involved in any of those meetings with municipality for the past 20 days.
Media companies said this will lead to major losses to this sector from the printing houses to ink, steel, electronics dealers to the printing materials providers and all investors and employees in this sector.
Hind AlFaiz, an owner of one of the outdoor media houses was upset of using the name of his majesty King Abdullah II in every case; she said “some officials in the municipality mentioned that this act is inspired by Royal instructions to make Amman more beautiful”.
Apparently this clash started last June when the municipality agreed with those companies to select few streets as a case study to figure out a solution and open the door for suggestions to enhance the scene in Amman, those streets are: Madinah Munwarah Street, Wasfi AlTal Street, Prince Hassan Street and Ibn Khaldoon Street.
Media companies asked for time line to fix the situation of banned displays in case some decision has been taken. They also asked to divide the increase on fees on the outdoor displays on stages.
Eliminating rooftops in Amman is a first step that will be followed by eliminating other outdoor mediums such as wall panels and mupis. Outdoor advertising is a growing sector the total outdoor spends increased 34% last year to form 20% of the total advertising spends in Jordan, in year 2005 total outdoor spends was 162 million US dollars.
