‘A common OOH currency to measure the media is vital’

Dave Roberts, CEO, Primemedia, & Chairman, Out of Home Measurement Council, South Africa made his presentation on ‘What it takes to create & launch a common OOH currency – The South African experience’ at OAC 2017 that was organised in Mumbai during July 28-29.

Dave stated that the research process began from the year 2011 and it began with making an effort to get all stakeholders together. The stakeholders did not include the advertisers, but only the media owners.

The measurement covered all the 21 metropolitan regions and 23 cities in South Africa. Some media owners insisted on a cost per panel, but that was ruled out because no two panels were same.

The metrics include GRPs, Average Frequency, Reach, Impacts and hence Total Cost – Cost per GRP, CPT and Cost per panel.

The research was based on GPS Travel Inventory and involved a multiple contractual model between the media owners and the software company. The technical committee was led by Kuper Research, a marketing committee and a user advisory panel which included media agency stakeholders.

Future research will include parameters such Rural, Sampling, and Digital panels. Illumination parameters, Satellite imagery updates and data releases, said Dave

Dave shared that the analysis that was done in 2014 on the outdoor industry and its reach were not accepted by the industry and had to be discarded. But those learnings ensured that the analysis presented in 2017 was accepted and provided a credible solution to the metrics starved industry.