• by Tony Jarvis , Op-Ed Contributor, July 1, 2024

I have always believed that leaning on CPMs not based on the value and/or “attention” to an ad medium is completely, positively mad, especially in programmatic media buys.

Media sellers and buyers who chase cheap CPMs by using bigger numbers based on the opportunity-to-see (OTS) an ad rather than on the significantly more valuable likelihood-to-see (LTS) -- aka "eyes-on" or "ears-on" -- relative to campaign outcomes will significantly undervalue the medium.  

I also believe the recently released Media Rating Council (MRC) out-of-home measurement standards, which raise extensive technical issues with the global out-of-home media research community, could seriously impact the medium, as they are based on hypothetical OTS metrics, at least as they are outlined in phase one of the new standards.

While OTS metrics will provide bigger, but lower value audience estimates, they will fail to serve out-of-home media in earning the share of media budgets that LTS metrics would yield.

Long-established LTS -- sometimes known as “contacts” metrics -- based on the Global OOH Audience Measurement Guidelines (2009 & 2022), which include visibility adjustments, coincidentally are utilized by Geopath in the U.S.  

Two established industry experts -- Motionworks AI Global Chief Experience Officer Kym Frank and Route Research Chief Strategy Officer Euan Mackay -- agree.

Frank, who previously was president of Geopath, and Mackay recently made a strong case that the MRC's new standard will result in out-of-home audience delivery being underweighted on a meaningful “target audience exposure” (eyes-on) basis.

Consequently, they assert the standards will drive lower revenue for out-of-home media suppliers, and will undervalue out-of-home media's contribution to advertising ROI in marketing mix models.

You can read the case they make in a two-part series published on Motionworks' blog.

In part one, “Behind the Numbers – Static Impressions," Frank looks at the potential harmful impact of creating false equivalencies when using the MRC's standards on impressions delivery -- based on OTS rather than LTS -- across out-of-home advertising formats and locations, including the potential for lower out-of-home ad spending.

In part two, “Potential to Affect the Effectiveness of the Medium,” Mackay stresses the quality, value and real contribution to ROI of out-of-home media -- when examined at the LTS level vs. OTS -- as part of any marketing mix model.

As revealed by Mackay in considering the value of the numbers input into MMM, “the potential outcome of the proposed MRC change in (metric) definition is a negative impact on the effectiveness of the medium as a whole. Using larger OTS “audience” numbers as inputs will reduce the efficiency of the medium in the outputs of the evaluations. 

I understand that using OTS, occupancy levels on the lower value billboards and panels could be a potential win for media suppliers who sell them, but it's a concern for media buyers and advertisers.

Twenty years ago, the Traffic Audit Bureau (now Geopath) introduced eyes-on metrics based on 10 years of prior research by OSCAR & Postar in the U.K.  This "real value" metric was instituted because out-of-home media in the U.S. was heavily discounted by the media agencies based on daily effective circulation -- i.e., traffic numbers -- used at the time.  It effectively stopped the discounting.

Embracing eyes-on/LTS metrics put out-of-home media ahead of attention adjustment metrics, ow used extensively by major media agencies.

Frank’s and Mackay’s cautions and insights should be applauded.  Meanwhile, Geopath continues to offer the out-of-home industry a meaningful, relevant, non-discountable planning and trading currency based on Global Guidelines and the “attention economy," while the MRC plays catch-up.