• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, October 16, 2007

Like the medium it services, the Out-of-Home Video Advertising Bureau is taking on new members, signaling the ever-expanding diversity of place-based video. The four new members--including IdeaCast, Access 360 Media, Medical Media Television and ProLink Network--distribute video programming and advertising in venues ranging from health clubs and doctor's offices to golf courses.

They also bring OVAB's members to 16 companies distributing video advertising screens from gas station pumps to elevators in high-rise office buildings.

The growing diversity of its members, meanwhile, introduces a potential challenge for OVAB--which has made the standardization of digital video advertising units, research and metrics a core mission for the fledgling advertising bureau.

In an effort to avoid the kind of pitfalls reminiscent of the early Internet advertising marketplace--where advertising formats and standards were as plentiful as there were Web sites to sell them--OVAB recently formed an ad agency advisory board to help define standards and establish guidelines for evaluating advertising buys across a multitude of out-of-home video environments.

To date, the board has recruited members from Carat, Hill-Holliday, OMD, Starcom, Universal McCann, and Zenith, as well as consultants Sequent Partners.