Clear Media picks Mark Thewlis to drive growth in China

Before relocating to Hong Kong earlier this month, Thewlis (pictured) was regional president of Asia-Pacific for Clear Channel (which owns 51 per cent of Clear Media), based in Sydney. He held that post since 2002, overseeing its operations in Australia, New Zealand, India, Japan, Hong Kong, China and Singapore.

A veteran in outdoor marketing since 1998, Thewlis has also worked for Clear Channel’s joint venture in Australia and began his career at Ernst & Young.

In an exclusive interview yesterday, Thewlis told Campaign Asia-Pacific that in the past three to four months, Clear Channel has moved to put more effort into emerging, high-growth markets. Not surprisingly, China is the biggest.  

Thewlis said his remit is to use his extensive international experience to help the existing management of the company drive growth to the next level.

Thewlis pointed out that in China, market share in the OOH market is fragmented, with lots of different players in different cities. Clear Media is in 26 cities (from tier one to tier three) in China. In the Hong Kong market, Clear Media partners with Cody for billboards and Buspak for bus advertising. Clear Media’s main international competitor is JCDecaux. 

As a rough estimation, Thewlis said JCDecaux and Clear Media have captured only 10 per cent of the market in China, whereas a whopping 90 per cent is held by many local players on a city-by-city basis. One of the largest of these is Long Feng, he said.

“People are still spending more time outdoors, and technology is giving display ads a new look and feel," he said. OOH providers can now sell different times of the day, he said, citing McDonald’s promoting breakfast only in the morning time slots as an example.

Thewlis praised double-decker buses in Hong Kong for their quantity, impressive creative canvas, and impact thanks to the city's large population being out and about. "Even the double-decker buses in London don't have this sort of creative impact," he said.

With the high penetration of OOH advertising and smartphones, OOH can communicate with people and support calls to action via QR codes for product sampling and vouchers, for example.

Clear Media is seeing great creativity among brands such as Samsung and Apple, as well as soft drinks and beverage brands like Fanta, using apps and QR codes to reward consumers with coupons and giveaways, he said. 

"Advertisers are demanding more accountability and to see that their advertising dollars are working," Thewlis said. They want proof of their campaign effectiveness and to be able to track the interactions of users. And while audience measurement systems are becoming more sophisticated in some markets, notably Australia, it is still developing in the rest of Asia, he pointed out.

Nonetheless, marketers should not fail to comprehend the importance of OOH, he said. "OOH is relevant media," he said. "Compared to TV, the value of OOH sometimes gets lost, but OOH is a great opportunity to reach a very large audience. If brands are trying to build their brands, and reach a large audience, there are sophisticated ways to target their campaigns to a specific demographic audience."