Leading outdoor media infrastructure owner Wildstone has strengthened its existing agreement with Salford City Council with the addition of a fifth site in a prime inbound city centre location.
Wildstone first entered into a partnership with the Greater Manchester borough council back in 2023, developing four new sites on redundant council land, in return for which Salford City Council receives both rent and regular campaigns advertised on the screens. Media sales for all four sites are managed by 75Media, which is also the operator for the new site on the Salford Underpass.
The new site is the most prominently located of the billboards, with the 96-sheet 20-metre digital advertising screen occupying a prime position on the Salford Underpass at Broad Street on the A6. Its marquee gateway location will give advertisers access to a significant amount of inbound city centre traffic, with a weekly traffic count of over 228,000 and estimated impressions of almost 2,000,000 per month.
Salford City Council will receive annual rental payments, as well as seven fortnightly campaigns on the screen for its own communications. Councillor Hannah Robinson-Smith, lead member for culture, heritage, equalities, sports and leisure at Salford City Council, said: “Good, clear and engaging communications are so important for a council and using outdoor media is now an essential part of our marketing mix for key campaign activity aimed at our residents. The Salford Underpass board will now enable us to share campaign activity more widely, hopefully making more residents aware of important services, support and initiatives that are available and encouraging them to access this support.
“Digital outdoor is a format that has helped us deliver on our objectives across a variety of campaigns, including litter prevention, election attendance and recruitment drives for foster carers. We’ve used it for our Household Support Fund campaign, which resulted in 6,000 applications from residents seeking support with food, fuel and energy, over a six-month period. It supported our campaign for the Salford Firework Weekend, which attracted over 20,000 people to the events, as well as a range of other local city events. The income generated from this partnership is also hugely important to us as a council and we welcome the ongoing development of this partnership.”
Alex Simpson, operations director at 75Media, said the location of the new site would ensure its success for advertisers: “The D96 Salford Underpass site is a fantastic addition to our large format network. Positioned on the busy A6 going into Manchester city centre, the site gets over 960,000 impressions every fortnight, offering brands a powerful opportunity to engage with a huge and diverse audience. At 75Media, we are committed to securing the best locations like this that deliver a real impact for our clients.”
Mike Duty, head of development at Wildstone, added: “We’re really pleased that this partnership with Salford City Council has been so successful for the local council and its residents. There can be no better endorsement than a local authority wanting to expand the number of locations and as well as this fifth site, two further sites are also under development.
“We’re especially proud we were able to install a digital screen on this particular site – it was a challenging project due to its location and the surrounding structures, with clever engineering required to design a self-supporting structure that was independent of the retaining walls on either side. The construction was a success thanks to strong collaboration between our expert delivery team, Salford Council’s Structures and Bridges engineering team and our principal contractors, Titchfield Group.”
