The outdoor media industry’s new audience measurement system, MOVE (Measurement of Outdoor Visibility and Exposure), will be launched nationally in February 2010.
MOVE Chairman Steve O’Connor said the MOVE system had been built, and the Sydney audience measurement data was ready for release. However, he said data processing for the other four markets – Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth – would not be finalised until January 2010.
“There was robust debate by the members of the MOVE Board as to whether or not to release the system this year with Sydney data only, and then roll out the other markets as they became available,” Mr O’Connor said. “In the end, the Board resolved that it was in the industry’s best interests to launch all markets and all formats at the same time.”
The MOVE system will be launched in all five markets, commencing with a Sydney event on 23 February.
MOVE will be the world’s first audience measurement system for Out-of-Home media to cover all the major formats and audience environments. Once launched, it will be the only Australian outdoor media measurement system endorsed by the Outdoor Media Association (OMA), the Media Federation of Australia (MFA) and the Australian Association of National Advertisers (AANA).
MOVE Chief Executive Officer, Helen Willoughby said the launch of the system would introduce a new currency to Australian media - Likelihood To See (LTS) – which would significantly increase the accountability and transparency of all outdoor media formats.
Ms Willoughby said LTS involved the discounting of audiences so that only those people who in all probability are likely to see an advertisement or media campaign are included in the results.
“MOVE will provide media buyers direct access to a web-based planning tool which will produce reach and frequency results for outdoor advertising campaigns based entirely on LTS contacts,” Ms Willoughby said.
MOVE has been developed at a cost of $5million by a consortium of Australian and international research companies headed by the Brisbane-based transport and travel modellers, Veitch Lister Consulting (VLC). Funding was provided by outdoor media operators and through the support of a Federal Government Industry Co-operative Innovation Program (ICIP) grant of $830,000.
Mr O’Connor said outside the grant, the majority of funds had been provided by the five major companies – APN Outdoor, EYE, Adshel, JCDecaux and oOh!media – with remaining input from other outdoor companies in the MOVE system. These are: TorchMedia, GOA Billboards, Bishopp Outdoor Advertising, Metrospace Outdoor Advertising, Savage Outdoor Advertising, Outdoor Systems, independent outdoor media (iOM) and Bailey Outdoor Advertising.
The project commenced following an international call for tenders in March 2005 to develop a world-class audience measurement system capable of covering all the major formats in Australia, including those located in internal airports and shopping centres.
The development of the project has been guided by a Technical Committee headed by the former OzTAM Chief Executive Officer, Ian Muir, and including MFA representative, John Grono. Both men are highly regarded as among Australia’s leading audience measurement researchers.
Mr Muir emphasised the complexity of the MOVE project in terms of its scope and scale and acknowledged the hard work of Committee members, including senior representatives of the outdoor media companies and the OMA.
“MOVE is very different from other media measurement systems which are effectively measuring the same black box. With this system we have 60,000 individual faces carrying unique characteristics that impact the target audiences in different ways depending on variables such as the time of day, the speed of the traffic, and their exact geographic location.
“In addition, the building of MOVE has required the integration of four different processing applications which were necessary to combine the enormous amount of data involved.”
Ms Willoughby said the original timeframe was extended to accommodate the involvement of Simon Cooper, the architect of the UK’s successful POSTAR outdoor audience measurement system, and to address identified issues following a thorough review of the Sydney data which was released to operators in April this year.
“Late last year we were fortunate to obtain the services of Mr Cooper who is arguably the world’s leading expert in visibility research for the outdoor media sector,” Ms Willoughby said.
“Mr Cooper’s role was to enable the conversion of the total audiences into LTS contacts within the MOVE system. “With regards to the Sydney data, we found a number of issues that had been caused either through the integration of the different processing applications, or in the way individual faces had been classified. These needed to be rectified before we could proceed to market.”
Ms Willoughby said the launch of MOVE would be a major turning point for the outdoor media industry that would change forever the way in which the media is considered by agencies and advertisers.
Some key facts about MOVE
- MOVE has been built to provide greater accountability for media buyers and advertisers on the reach and frequency of outdoor advertising campaigns.
- MOVE will enable the outdoor media industry to compete more effectively with other media by introducing a more accurate media currency – Likelihood To See (LTS).
- MOVE is a web-based, cross-format planning tool that will be directly accessible by media buyers, commercial outdoor media companies (OMA Media Display Members) and other authorised users.
- Data sources used for MOVE include:
- Site characteristics of 60,000 faces across the four categories of Roadside – billboards; Roadside – other; Transport and Retail/Lifestyle.
- Australian Bureau of Statistics Census population statistics.
- Travel information of 600,000 individual person trips sourced from 68,000 Government Household Travel Surveys.
- Land use information of each market – schools, shopping centres, workplaces, etc.
- Road, public transport and pedestrian networks of each of the five markets.
- Survey results of 15,000 respondents used to determine movement within airports and shopping centres, as well as trip variability over time.
- Eye tracking studies covering 15 years global research.
5. MOVE’s data is stored on a cluster of 32 computers from which the audience measurement results are generated.
Outdoor Media Association
www.oma.org.au
