• by June 18, 2004

LESS MAY BE MORE FOR OUTDOOR ADVERTISING -- Lately, we've been hearing a lot of buzz about VAI. No it's not a new PC line from Sony. And it's not an Internet-telephony service being pitched via hilarious TV commercials. VAI, or "visibility adjustment impacts," is a new metric being championed by some members of the outdoor advertising industry that could give out-of-home the same level of media planning accountability as the most dominant in-the-home medium, television. How do we know this? Because Tony Jarvis says so, and Jarvis, senior vice president and director of the strategic insights group at MediaCom is a pretty knowledgeable guy on the subject of media planning metrics. He has to be, with clients like Procter & Gamble, there's not a lot of margin for error in a media plan. And the problem for media with less accountable metrics is they tend to get downplayed, or left out of the mix.

Jarvis made that point eminently clear about magazines last week during the Association of National Advertisers Print Advertising Forum in New York, where he advocated more pre-testing of print ads to give marketers and agencies the same confidence levels they have with heavily copy-tested TV spots. He made it again this week for outdoor media during a presentation at the ESOMAR conference in Geneva, Switzerland. Why are VAIs a more accountable metric for outdoor ads? Because they actually factor not just the traffic available to see an outdoor posting, but the likelihood that people may actually look at the ads. And amazing as that seems, that is a quantum leap for the outdoor advertising industry and one that Jarvis says could fundamentally change the way outdoor advertising is planned and bought, as well as the share of advertising budgets that go into outdoor media buys.

In fact, Jarvis argues a "less is more strategy" for the medium. Even thought the VAIs will reflects a smaller audience (those people who are actually likely to see the ads), they will be both more targeted and more accountable than current traffic-based methods. How is that more? Because the greater confidence that advertisers have in the metric, and the greater ability to integrate it into the audience metrics of other media in the plan, ultimately will boost outdoor advertising spending.

"VAI adjustments have already paid dividends for sellers with Out-of-Home gaining share against other media in some countries," Jarvis said in Geneva this week, noting, "For example, the share of ad spend going to outdoor in the UK has increased from less than 5 percent in 1990 to 8 percent in 2001 as a result of several key factors." By 2005, Jarvis said outdoor ad spending is expected to rise to a 10 percent share of the UK ad marketplace.

He wouldn't venture on the impact VAIs might have on the $5 billion U.S. outdoor ad marketplace, but we can infer it might be similar to the UK experience.