AAG teams up with NRSA, MMDAs to sanitise outdoor advertising spaces
The Advertising Association of Ghana (AAG) has joined forces with the National Road Safety Authority (NRSA) to enforce outdoor advertising regulations to sanitise the space and curb public nuisance.
This follows an upsurge of non-AAG members, as well as players from the local assemblies, who have turned the sector into a virtual jungle across Accra, Kumasi, Sekondi-Takoradi, Koforidua, and other cities in the country.
This free-for-all situation has largely been the result of weak enforcement of the outdoor advertising specifications developed years ago by the Ghana Standards Authority (GSA) in collaboration with the AAG.
In a statement, the AAG said it had resolved to collaborate more closely with the authorities to sanitise the industry and push for proper regulatory frameworks to restore order, noting that there were currently no statutes to manage the disorder in the outdoor advertising sector.
Joint technical committee
To resolve this, the new Director-General of the National Road Safety Authority, Abraham Amaliba, has introduced some level of urgency to sanitise the system, with footprints of cleaning up the billboard mess within Accra for road safety purposes.
Consequently, the AAG has joined forces with the authority to form a joint technical team that would advise the NRSA on both business-conducive and enduring ways to clean up the sector.
So far, the joint technical team has agreed to remove median boards that obstruct motorists’ visibility, as well as certain problematic gantry boards on footbridges.
It is also taking a look at bus shelters and how to manage them without creating safety hazards for motorists and pedestrians.
Aside from its partnership with the NRSA, the AAG has also formed joint-technical teams with some assemblies within Accra, including the Korley-Klottey Municipal Assembly, the Ayawaso North Municipal Assembly and the La Dadekotopon Municipal Assembly to specifically manage and sanitise the outdoor advertising environments within those assemblies.
The AAG further explained in its statement that these efforts aimed to support the government’s recent initiatives to bring order to Ghana’s outdoor advertising space, starting with the capital, Accra.
The outdoor sector is a key part of the advertising industry in Ghana, generating up to $60 million per year, according to 6W Research.
This figure, covering static billboards, digital billboards and transit advertising, among others, contributes over 20 per cent of the total advertising spend, including broadcast, print and digital.
Traditionally, the leading agencies in the sector are predominantly members of the AAG.
