Article

OVAB releases Audience Metrics Guidelines, sells out first Summit

‘Average Unit Audience' introduced as common currency metric for digital out-of-home media.

October 29, 2008

The focus of the guidelines is a recommended currency metric, named the "Average Unit Audience," which is designed to be used as a common unit of measure during discussions between networks, advertisers, researchers and agencies involved in digital out-of-home DOOH media.

Click to download OVAB's Audience Metrics Guidelines

The guidelines and metric was announced during a keynote address by the organization's president, Suzanne Alecia, where she have the history of the guidelines, outlined the content of the 82-page document and explained how OVAB will help implement this standard in the industry.

Suzanne Alecia, president of OVAB, releases the guidelines in the keynote address.

She also said that the Average Unit Audience metric will hopefully allow for audience measurement in all out-of-home video advertising to be considered by agencies in the same way as television, Internet and radio.

"The metric will help bring together clients and agencies," said Mike DiFranza, president of Captivate Network and chairman of OVAB. "The challenge has been that we have all been tracking this in a different way. The guidelines will improve overall industry communication."

'A more accountable medium'

Average Unit Audience is described in the guidelines as 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. The metric is based on three key dimensions of the networks:

1. Presence – People physically in the vehicle zone, where the screen is both visible and, if appropriate, audible. 2. Notice – Evidence that the screen has been noticed by those people.  3. Dwell time – Amount of time spent in the vehicle zone.

The result is a number of Average Unit Impressions, which Alecia said are comparable to C3 numbers (average commercial minute ratings, as opposed to program ratings) in television, click-thru and page views online and readership for print.

"This metric is making digital out-of-home a more accountable medium," said Andy Batkin, CEO of ProLink Media and co-chair of the event. "We're making it easier for advertisers to buy our media."

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10 months in the making

Work on the guidelines began in January 2008 and many DOOH-focused organizations were consulted in the process, including all 35 OVAB member networks, 17 third party research providers, Sequent Partners, the OVAB Agency Advisory Board and the AAAA's Media Research Committee. As for the future of the guidelines, Alecia said that 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, and assist those groups in implementing them into the digital ad buying process.

"This couldn't be a better time for the release of the guidelines," said Francois M. De Gaspé Beaubien, chairman of Zoom Media and co-chair of the Digital Media Summit. "OVAB is working to meet the needs of advertisers and agencies at a time when budgets are under constraint.