New #OOH Playout Reporting Standards

Tristan Cotterill

Outsmart, the trade body for the UK Out of Home advertising industry, and the IPA’s outdoor specialists have announced the publication of OOH Playout Reporting Standards.

Justin Cochrane, Chair of Outsmart, told us “These new standards further enhance the trust and accountability of Out of Home, giving brands even more confidence to embrace the medium.”

This is the first time OOH media sellers and buyers have worked together to develop, publish and implement a common standard for media playout reporting for both classic and digital inventory in the world.

Playout reporting records every time an advert is posted or played on an OOH frame or screen. The new standards provide a common file format and process for collecting and collating playout/posting reports from OOH Media Owners. They are designed for both Classic and Digital OOH and works with both online and offline traded campaigns.

For buyers, the standards provide a common format and method to collect playout reports from all media owners, tracking high volume and high velocity compliance data directly from the media owner playout service. The standard drives efficiencies by further enhancing transparency and simplifying the integration between providers and consumers of the data.

For sellers, the standards provide a common format to unite all posting and playout data with clear technical guidelines and schemas to implement into CMS systems, driving a direct data relationship with the media buyer.

The Out of Home companies that collaborated to establish the OOH Playout Reporting Standards include the media owners Clear Channel, Global, JCDecaux and the agencies Kinetic, Posterscope, Rapport and Talon.

Chris Daines Chair of IPA’s Outdoor Committee said “Positive industry collaboration to develop and drive adoption of common standards is an increasingly important area for Out of Home advertising.”

The OOH Playout Reporting Standards will be deployed in the UK market throughout the second half of 2021 and is available on the Outsmart Github site:

The standard is publicly available, license free and ready for adoption on a global basis here.


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