Outdoor Advertising Regulation

Kazan, Russia

About the city. The comfort of living is a priority for the City of Kazan. One of the important components of this work is the neatness of public spaces without visual pollution.

Goal

The main goal is to arrange the advertising market and regulate advertising distribution on the streets of the city.

Implementation period. Work on the transformation began in early 2006.

Fact

In 2006, the first auction in Russia was held for the right to place advertising constructions. Kazan has become a pioneer, and the requirement to hold auctions at the federal level appeared only in 2008.

Solutions

2006

As the first step, the Department of outdoor advertising and information as part of the Executive Committee of Kazan was created (now MSI Outdoor Advertising and Information Management). The main goal was to conduct a unified city policy in advertising in the city of Kazan. The implementation was started with the formation of a legal framework:

• In August 2006, the first Rules for the placement of outdoor advertising and information on the territory of the city were adopted;
• In October of the same year, the Kazan State Duma approved the Regulations on outdoor advertising and information placement.

The documents became the basis for creating clear and open rules, forming a unified procedure for payments to the city budget for the advertising placement.

As the second step, the City conducted the optimisation. The 3×6 meter billboards were removed from the main highways and intersections of the city, such as the Kremlin Dam, Salimzhanov St., Pushkin St. and so on. In total, more than 200 billboards were dismantled.

In the autumn, the first auction in Russia for the right to place advertising billboard was held. As a result, 85 places were sold, and the city budget received over 28 million rubles of income.

2007

In 2007, the first inventory of all freestanding advertising billboards was performed. As a result, their owners got some permits. Five-year contracts were signed at uniform tariffs. The city budget received another 130 million rubles. The advertising market has finally entered the legal field.

2012

The first large-scale citywide auctions were held. As a result, the city budget received around 254 million rubles per year over five years. The City defined universal requirements for the appearance of advertising billboards for the first time. The total number of 3×6 euro-shields has almost halved, from 1800 to 1000 units.

2018

About 400 euro-shields were dismantled by the owners voluntarily, only 16 forcibly. Thanks to the work carried out over 15 years, the advertising inventory has been reduced by more than two times. The number of euro-shields decreased by 3.5 times (2,050 to 591 places). Budget revenues from advertising activities increased 23 times, from 14 million rubles per year at the beginning of 2006 to 321 million rubles per year today.

2020

In 2020, the City developed and adopted a new program to develop outdoor advertising in Kazan. Instead of large-format advertising constructions, the City is about to increase the share of small-format constructions. Moreover, it is expected that the share of small-format advertising constructions to the total number of constructions will increase from 36% currently to 50% in 2025.

Challenges

The City faced some problems. Some entrepreneurs didn’t agree with the changes, the procedures and the results of the auction. Lot sizes, securing an application for participation in the auction, starting prices, terms of a standard contract were disputed. The administration was illegally required to conduct private auctions only for current market participants. The City managed to defend its ideas in court.

For example, in preparation for the 2012 auction, the owners of advertising constructions opposed expired permits, and they refused to remove them. As a result, the municipality had to dismantle about 600 euro-shields at its own expense. It took six years for the advertising market to fully accept the city’s game rules.

Team

The City of Kazan, MSI Outdoor Advertising and Information Management

Timeline

The City had to streamline the outdoor information media (signages) on the facades of buildings. From 2010 to 2015, more than 13 thousand objects of outdoor information were inventoried. About 5 thousand illegal objects have been identified. As a result, permits were issued for 1800 construction only. The main difficulties were related to the fact that the placement of outdoor media (signages) at the federal level is not properly regulated. The administration of Kazan was able to set the boundary between advertising constructions and outdoor media in municipal acts. The outdoor media were classified as landscaping elements, so their placement became regulated by the Rules of landscaping in Kazan.

The City was managing the transfer of municipal services to an online form. Now permits for the installation and operation of the advertising constructions are issued online. Entrepreneurs can apply for a permit via the Internet on the portal of public services of the Republic of Tatarstan, on the official portal of local self-government bodies of the city of Kazan, on the portal of municipal services of the municipal formation of the city of Kazan.

Kazan ranks first among cities with over a million people in terms of advertising revenue. As a result of the measures taken, the number of advertising constructions has significantly decreased, allowing the architectural heritage of Kazan to be revealed to the eyes of residents and guests.

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