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Out Of Home Panelists Eye Auto Sector Return

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One thing all panelists at the Advertising Club of New York's Second Annual Out of Home conference in New York could agree on is that outdoor media is at least holding its own in this economy, and perhaps even outperforming other media.

Still, maintained Steve Ridley, COO, Global Kinetic, the outdoor industry is treading water, even if it has done the dead man's float better than other media this year. "The good news is, out of home maintained market share. The bad news is, it maintained market share. You can't define your success by the sickest guy in the room."

Those on Wednesday's panel also generally agreed that next year will see a return to a greater or lesser degree of the automotive sector; as well as a stronger presence of entertainment industry ads. Jason Kiefer, EVP at Posterscope USA, predicted that pharma, financial and telecommunications will be big out-of-home advertisers in coming months.

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But the elephant in the room was the new paradigm for measuring outdoor media, the Audit Bureau's (TAB) "Eyes On" standard, which goes into effect next month. Said Paul Meyer, president and CEO of Clear Channel Outdoor: "The real driver to bring advertisers to the outdoor media, or at least bring outdoor up to date with other media in terms of metrics, is Eyes On."

The new system, which TAB developed with research firms like GfK Group, the Telmar Group and Transearch, combines traffic and travel patterns with a physiologic measure of eye movement to measure engagement. On its Web site, the bureau calls Eyes On "a much richer and credible currency for buying and selling Out of Home media ... based on the audiences they actually deliver. Eyes On will help identify both high-reach mass and highly targeted campaigns."

The bureau explains that Eyes On Impressions, or EOI's, are a set of ad-engagement parameters developed from research using eye-tracking technology from viewing stations near outdoor ads. For example, for roadside ads the new measurement standards take into account things like unit format, size, orientation to a road, and type of road.

"There has always been an obstacle with outdoor," said Meyer. "We could tell advertisers better than other media who had an opportunity to see signs, but couldn't tell advertisers who was actually seeing signs. We now have a credible measurement system, and it will bring advertisers who need to target better to outdoor. Second, with the advent of digital, we go from a medium that six months ago had tens of thousands of signs posted by blue-collar workers with paste and paper to the most high-tech digital execution of any medium digital. Advertisers can now advertise outdoor with maximum flexibility."

Kiefer says Eyes On will be the first real change in eight decades in outdoor measurement. But he says there will be a learning curve for advertisers and their agencies. "We will need to educate agencies and clients. Vendors will need to know how to use it and sell space with it." The new standard will eliminate barriers that advertisers have faced in dealing with outdoor media, per Meyer. "Two major weaknesses have been, first, a measuring system that is not compatible with any other planners' tools; out of home was never integrated into media plans on the same basis as other media, which has been a huge disadvantage for us. We tended to be an afterthought. Second, we constantly have advertisers saying we have to give them better information on who they are reaching. Both deficiencies are eliminated with Eyes On."

Ridley said ebullience over Eyes On is premature. He says the most it will do is bring outdoor up to par. "It will let us maintain market share. We are bringing ourselves up to a level playing field. But it's only going part way to solving the out of home puzzle."

Johanna Breman Tzur, SVP and head of brand advertising for HSBC Bank's North American operations, said the new standard will make a big difference for her marketing. "We have to be more discerning about placement and creative so we aren't just rolling out everywhere. We think Eyes On will be important to drive value. This year, we have asked media partners for better measurement of our buys."

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