Yesterday of course the Out-of-Home Video Advertising Bureau (OVAB) unveiled its Audience Metrics Guidelines and a recommended currency metric, termed the Average Unit Audience.
In a keynote speech by OVAB President; Suzanne Alecia outlined what the guidelines mean for digital and video out-of-home advertising networks and research providers and more importantly what needs to be followed in order for networks to capture comparable audience data and begin the process of defining all of the acceptable research methods.
To download a copy of the Guidelines, click on http://www.ovab.org/content/resources [1] and choose the Audience Metric Guidelines link.
The Average Unit Audience is an interesting proposal for a metric. Intended to be used across all out-of-home video advertising it should 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, could well allow consistent reporting if 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.
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.
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.
Kris Magel, EVP, Director National Broadcast, Initiative told us “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”
Suzanne Alecia, President of OVAB said “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,”
She added “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”
Jim Spaeth, Founding Partner of Sequent Partners and Steve Singer, led this whole initiative and said “This is an important coming of age event for this medium. We needed broad cooperation from the industry to do this right and were delighted to have it.”
In the US the groundwork has been done, now the hard work really starts. This needs to go global.