OMC’s ROAD data paints healthy picture for Out of Home industry

For the first time ever, the Outdoor Measurement Council (OMC) launched its latest iteration of ROAD data virtually, covering the 2016/17/18 fused data results after interviewing a total of 45 466 respondents over the three-year period.

Trish Guilford, General Manager of the OMC, said that the OMC and partners, Ask Afrika, Kuper Research, Cuende Infometrics and Telmar had an interesting time leading up to the launch. “OOH continues to be a medium with robust, usable data that definitely assists the industry in providing clients with world class research and justifications for proposals,” she said.

“In total, this three-year fusion resulted in more than 13.4 billion impressions made up of 80% reach of All Adults with an average frequency of 621. Since our last release we have also grown our members to 22. The added growth has meant more trip analysis for more panels.  We now have over 6 800 panels on the Quantum system of which just over 6 500 are visible and available for agencies and clients to plan against.”

Methodology highlights of the research were presented by Lauren Shapiro, Managing Partner of Kuper Research who emphasised that OOH research is more fluid than other media types and that each release of the travel survey will represent a different sample with different travel patterns.

“Due to Covid-19, we have not been in field with our Travel Survey questionnaire.  Ask Afrika did complete just a portion of our interviews during February and the first half of March and therefore will have to complete the wave of 2020 data at the beginning of 2021 if all goes well and we don’t encounter the projected second wave of the virus.  We will reassess the situation again in 2021 and are therefore looking at alternative ways to deal with interviewing respondents” Lauren said.

With the move to change over from static billboards to digital plans, Lelanie Butler, Acting Sales and Marketing Director at JCDecaux shared the algorithm which the OMC has adopted to evaluate DOOH audiences.  The OMC launched this algorithm to the industry in April. Lelanie reminded the audience that the old way of taking the audience and dividing it by the number of ads in the loop is incorrect.  She shared the variables and information that is needed to be taken into account in order to get more accurate audience figures.

During the launch, international guest speaker Kym Frank, President of GEOpath, the Out of Home measurement, joint industry council equivalent from the United States of America stressed that the OOH industry globally has taken strain. She said that even though advertisers were concerned at the lack of travel around the States, data showed that people were still moving around quite a lot. She also said that the advent of Covid has placed increasing importance on available research globally, with advertisers demanding more data and more recency.

Trish adds: “The OMC is striving to close the gap in our research releases despite now being able to work on the 2016/17/18 data that is more up to date than what the industry has had until now. Therefore, our next release is planned for mid-2021 and will be the fused data covering 2017/18/19, with the consistent 45 000 sample size.

There is so much more information to share! What has come through the research, especially after speaking with our overseas counterparts, is that the world is a small place and it is heartening to know that the challenges we face are not that different to the rest of the world. DOOH, coupled with programmatic buying, is becoming a prominent advertising platform, globally and here in South Africa.

We continue to strive for the highest quality ROAD research, giving our members, media agencies and clients the most realistic audiences and data possible in order to effectively and efficiently plan OOH,” says Trish.

The full recorded presentation will be available online soon at www.omcsa.org.za for those who missed the online launch.