News

OVAB releases audience measurement guidelines for digital out-of-home media

October 29, 2008

NEW YORK - The Out-of-Home Video Advertising Bureau (OVAB) unveiled the details of the group's Audience Metrics Guidelines ("Guidelines") and recommended currency metric, termed the Average Unit Audience. In a keynote by the organization's president, Suzanne Alecia, at the Digital Media Summit: Focus on Digital OOH, the Guidelines were publicly outlined for digital and video out-of-home advertising networks and research providers to follow in order to capture comparable audience data and begin the process of defining the acceptable research methods.

Made public for the first time at this inaugural event were the dimensions necessary to calculate Average Unit Audience, the metric for all out-of-home video advertising that will allow for audience measurement in the same way as television, Internet, radio and other traditional media. This currency metric, which is the number and type of people exposed to the media vehicle (screen) with an opportunity to see a unit of time equal to a networks' typical advertising unit, will allow for consistent reporting when three key dimensions are disclosed amongst the networks:

- Presence - In the vehicle zone, where the screen is both visible and, if appropriate, audible.
- Notice - Evidence that the screen has been noticed.
- Dwell time - Time in the vehicle zone.

"These Guidelines represent the first iteration of establishing the necessary data for the out-of-home video advertising industry to achieve ROI that effectively competes with more traditional media," said Suzanne Alecia, president of OVAB. "While these Guidelines outline data that should be recorded, each individual network will have to determine a viable methodology in capturing its own audience data. The success of this initiative will be up to OVAB, the networks and the media research community as we guide our members in fully disclosing data and research methodology."

"I think OVAB has done more in two years for the digital out-of-home industry than virtually any industry trade group has in recent years," said Kris Magel, EVP, Director National Broadcast, Initiative. "The progress they have made is dramatic and should be a catalyst in securing this diverse group of networks a seat at the table when advertisers are making decisions about how to achieve their marketing objectives."

Several organizations were consulted in the creation of the guidelines, including all 35 member networks, 17 third party research providers, Sequent Partners, the OVAB Agency Advisory Board and the AAAA's Media Research Committee. Over the past several months, OVAB has held training seminars for their member companies' sales teams and will continue to work with the networks as they begin providing audience information and understand the details around the specific calculations necessary to complete the OVAB Audience Metrics Research Disclosure Form. In the coming months, OVAB will continue to meet with all major media planning and buying agencies to inform them about the Guidelines and the new audience metric. To download a copy of the Guidelines, click onhereand choose the Audience Metric Guidelines link.

"This is an important coming of age event for this medium," said Jim Spaeth, founding partner of Sequent Partners who, together with Steve Singer, led this initiative. "We needed broad cooperation from the industry to do this right and were delighted to have it."