The city administration has been asked to accompany its planned gubernatorial decree on outdoor ads with clear guidelines on how space should be categorized.

Speaking in a discussion organized by the Indonesian Outdoor Media Association (AMLI), the Indonesian Association of Advertising Companies (PPPI), the Association of Indonesian Advertisement Producers (APPINA) and the Jakarta provincial office of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KADIN Jaya) here over the weekend, AMLI’s General Secretary Nuke Mayasaphira said the administration’s blueprint for outdoor ads should be based on maps clearly indicating which locations allow or restrict the display of outdoor advertisements in Jakarta.

“A blueprint detailing arrangements for outdoor advertisements and sanctions for any violations will give the decree greater legal standing. The blueprint should also outline a clear system and procedures to be obeyed by all stakeholders,” she said.

The discussion was held over the weekend to allow inputs from other stakeholders than the city administration’s, which plans to issue a gubernatorial decree regulating outdoor advertisements in the capital in the near future.

The regulation is expected to map Jakarta into areas where outdoor ads are either prohibited, tightly controlled, moderately controlled and specially controlled.

Nuke pointed out once the administration ruled certain areas were prohibited from displaying outdoor advertisements,  those rules should be upheld no matter who wanted to display advertisements or how much they were willing to pay.

Edy Kuntadi, chairman of the Jakarta’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s (KADIN), said a clear and consistent regulation on outdoor advertisements would create a level playing field for firms involved in the business.

“It will also support the administration’s efforts to bring about the ‘Jakarta Service City’,” he said, adding that aesthetic outdoor ads could help create the image that Jakarta is the best place to do business.

“A city without outdoor advertisements is like a dead city. It will weaken the city’s business image and could discourage investors to come here,” he said.

But Untung Widodo, a city planning analyst, said the administration should not only focus on increasing tax incomes from the ads.

“The growth of outdoor advertisements that always follows the growth of an economy should not make Jakarta a jungle of advertisements, disregarding other public uses of outdoor space. The way outdoor advertisement is regulated should include aesthetic criteria as well as accommodate other social roles outdoor spaces play,” he said.

He said, for example, an outdoor advertisement displayed on a road should not jeopardize the safety of motorists driving on it. There are many ads in the city hiding traffic signs along some roads or even at traffic lights on road junctions.

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