Ronan McGrane stands at one of the company's printers, at NOA's offices on Courtney Walsh Drive, St Andrew. - Norman Grindley /Acting Photography Editor

Caribbean and Central America," said McGrane.

Slevin and his partners apparently see in Jamaica not virgin territory for outdoor advertising, but one that, with the introduction of first world techniques and technologies, could be on the cusp of growth even though Jamaica's advertising industry has been largely stagnant for years.

Analysts estimate the size of the industry reached $5 billion in 2007, but stress that it hardly grows much more than the rate of inflation.

McGrane declined to disclose how much Slevin and his partners spent for NOA and City Graphics and is cagey about providing numbers from which this might be estimated.

But he told the Financial Gleaner: "We are investing upwards of US$3 million over the next 18 months. We are upgrading our facilities and the range of media."

Demand will increase

Slevin's assumption is that international companies coming into Jamaica, and elsewhere in the Caribbean and the Americas, will increasingly demand the quality of outdoor advertising, in a range of media, and a standard of service that they receive in their home markets.

"It is a developing market," said McGrane. "We are working on our infrastructure and we intend to give the advertisers who are flocking into Jamaica the same quality they receive globally."

For example, McGrane is about to introduce a new form of advertising here, the mono-pole, a cylindrical metal pole on which advertising is mounted, and used in countries abroad but never yet in Jamaica.

There were three of them lying on NOA's grounds Wednesday. They can, said McGrane, withstand winds of category five hurricane strength.

5,000 'faces'

It is estimated that there are about 5,000 of what the outdoor advertising industry refers to as 'faces'.

But this segment of the operation accounts for only about a third of the new NOA's group sales. Two-thirds is from printing and related businesses.

It used to be that cigarette and drink firms, the so-called sin products, dominated outdoor advertising, but increasingly, the banking and mobile telephone advertising wars are being fought from billboards, bus shelters and the sides of vehicles.

According to McGrane, outdoor advertising in relatively cheap compared to other media, and by introducing new and creative techniques marketers can quickly roll out or change the emphases of campaigns.

If NOA and other outdoor advertising companies - they are just about to launch a trade association - are able to convince advertisers that this is the new best thing, they expect that much of the initial growth will come at the expense of television, estimated to account, at present, about 25 per cent of annual advertising spend. Radio, too, is expected to suffer.

Migrated to cable

In the past two decades, for instance, a substantial chunk of the Jamaican audience for domestic free-to-air television has migrated to cable. Although the new government will allow for domestic advertising on cable networks, there are questions about its likely impact, given that the hundreds of US and international channels available to Jamaican subscribers have created an even more variegated market.

"TV is going to be even more debilitated," said McGrane, in making a case for his own industry. "We are not watching as much television as we did."

Moreover, in tight economic times, firms often cut back on advertising, and, noted McGrane, "the first to be cut is TV".

Radio to decline

Radio, with its 15 per cent share of the advertising market, by the analysis of the NOA boss, could also see a stagnation if not decline of its share of the advertising market, which has to be shared among a larger number of players.

"People are taking more and more of the music on the iPods and other devices, and their phones," McGrane said.

"The Internet is growing but penetration in relatively low in Jamaica."

Surprisingly, the element of Jamaica media that McGrane says continues to hold its own is newspapers - the one that is under most pressure internationally.

The print media here is estimated to account for about 40 per cent of the island's advertising business.

business@gleanerjm.com