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Home » Viewpoints » 'COMPASS & Beacon deployed together will be path-breaking’

'COMPASS & Beacon deployed together will be path-breaking’

By Bhawana Anand - September 21, 2020

Bharat Rajamani, CEO, US Advertising points out that myopic efforts taken in isolation, especially to prove supremacy over others, is not helping the sector grow

Audience data

It’s ironic that outdoor is the oldest media for advertising, yet it does not have an evolved and unanimously accepted audience metrics. Every outdoor agency today is coming up with one tool or the other and claiming it to be the best tool to measure audience exposure. In my view these myopic efforts taken in isolation, especially to prove supremacy over others, is not helping the sector grow.

Bharat Rajamani, CEO<br>US AdvertisingSince, clients are willing to know the approximate footfall and exposure to the outdoor sites they are buying/evaluating, all agencies have to rely on claimed numbers shared by the media owners. These claims however may or may not be true. Yes, in transit media such as at Metro networks, Railway networks and Airports the audience footfall can be measured more accurately. Hence, in the absence of any common method, we rely on industry estimates for footfall. For some marquee sites and bigger cities, sometimes agencies and media owners perform a dipstick study to measure the footfall.

There are two consumer data points that are of prime importance in marketing; consumption data and income date. Now, income data resides with the government and no one has access to that. Consumption however can be measured to an extent and can be linked back to probable income. We at US Data Maps, have developed a planning tool COMPASS which can give accurate Point of Interest (POI) data (where consumption takes place) for 750+ cities in India. This can help the user identify the area where a marketing initiative can give maximum exposure. There are more than 20 POIs reported in COMPASS.

To take it to the next Level, we have developed the measurement tool called Beacon that can capture and classify actual traffic data on a particular route (cover many OOH sites on that route). The amalgamation of COMPASS and Beacon once deployed will be path breaking.

A common currency

The industry needs to come together and embrace technology that will ensure transparency and propel accountability. As I said earlier, if every agency will continue to develop its own tool as a solution to the problem statement then we may never achieve what Television and Internet has.

 

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