Indian OOH advertising, which has become stagnant in terms of experimentation and uniqueness, needs a creative push. And this push can be an 'Ambient Advertising' which is an extended version of OOH advertising. Indeed, Ambient advertising has grown multi-folds internationally, but Indian Advertising still needs to walk several miles to match even the half of international standards.  Active Media Innovations is one such company which is trying hard to bring the adrenaline rush with its each campaign in outdoor space. To understand more about their passion & work, Allaboutoutdoor.com spoke to Emraan Kureshi, MD & Founder, Active Media Innovations. Below are the edited excerpts.

1) The ambient advertising share is a miniscule part of the entire budget. How can we grow its share in India? What efforts the Indian OOH industry need to invest to soar its percentage?

Ambient is a measureable medium; I believe all media plans should have a defined percentage of budgets to invest in ambient advertising in the part of a brand marketing campaign. This effort will create more awareness about ambient advertising to set up a new trend.

2) What is Indian brand's outlook towards ambient advertising? How can we enhance spends in ambient advertising?

Globally majorly in Europe and America, the ambient advertising is ON TREND and it is treated as a NEW MEDIA with the integration of technology. However in Indian market, the trend is picking up with the buying patterns of brands; they are integrating ambient innovation campaigns in their media plans. The spends can only be enhanced by the awareness about the impact of the media that a brand can get a 360 degree mileage through ambient campaigns.

3) You are one of the pioneers in ambient advertising in India. How did you plan to venture in this niche advertising? How has been your journey so far?

The journey so far is very exciting and challenging at every moment. With every brief, there is always a new challenge to do something even more impactful and we are living up to it with our work done till now. And we are committed to write a new history in Indian advertising with our innovations.

I have been travelling across the planet and seeing the evolution of advertising in various part of the world. As far as India is concerned, there is a need for media to evolve, therefore we are committed to make this EVOLUTION and we are the only agency in Asia which is giving guaranteed EARNED media that is a new ROI format investment done on technology to our clients.

4) You have been handling a lot of international projects? Any specific reason?

Yes, there is a huge clientele in international markets, the most important reason is AN IDEA; we come up with quite impactful ideas for our clients and second most important reason is POWER OF EXECUTION. The beauty of the idea lies in the execution and we have mastered the art of execution and we have execution capacities across 7 continents.

5) Also ambient advertising has been majorly used for movie promotions. Is there anything in pipeline for any brand?

I have a deep affection for cinema, which motivates me to work towards the dream. We have been successfully creating campaigns for Hollywood & Bollywood and in 2015; we executed more than 50 movies which turned out to be blockbusters. Having said that, yes brands are integral part of our business. We have a great clientele of MNCs who have realized the potential of ambient advertising and we are regularly working with them.

6) Ambient advertising is all about using places innovatively which needs lot of permissions and approvals and permissions from Indian municipals is a huge challenge. How do you deal with this issue?

Yes seeking permission is a very challenging part; there is a protocol that everyone needs to follow with the respective government & authorities. However when the protocol is followed along with complete paperwork and proper system of applications, then getting NOCs isn't that hard.

7) You have been discovering a lot in ambient advertising in India through your projects. What are your upcoming plans in terms of taking this to different avenues & cities?

Biggest plan is to expand. In Indian market, we are soon launching in Delhi to provide solution to client bases in Delhi this year. Internationally, we are going to launch soon in AMSTERDAM i.e. a great market for ambient advertising.

8) Biggest of all how are you planning to take this next level by incorporating technology and other outdoor formats like traditional media?

We are successfully integrating the technology in almost each campaign that we execute on traditional formats... for instance, recently we executed India's first Augmented Reality billboard for Channel V for it dance show D-4; it was a static billboard which we transformed into a dancing media with the technology integration.  Indeed it is the time for outdoor medium to become more engaging, interactive and more responding to social media.

9) How can we match international standards?

Execution is the KING, we can only match with pristine execution standards.

10) Recently you participated and won awards. How significant is this kind of recognition for you and your company?

We are very thankful and grateful to our clients and also to the jury & the organizers of awards function. We participated for the first time and Winning awards in our debut participation was like a grand welcome by outdoor advertising for us. The recognition at awards got us a tremendous opportunity for the business and in exploring new avenues.