The past four years have been an exciting journey for us in OOH measurement in the region. Streach today is endorsed by the majority of OOH stakeholders on both demand and supply side. 2,695 planning jobs were created and 1,648 campaigns were measured for more than 576 clients.
Additionally, Streach has been instrumental in supporting Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM) exercises to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the impact of OOH advertising in the marketing mix.
Today, as we look into the future of the research, and in line with our mission to provide a universal and responsible audience measurement system, we are expanding Streach’s methodology to cover all OOH formats, including non-scheduled transit media, in-mall, and destination -based media.
2023 has been a pivotal year in accelerating the measurement and data discussion on OOH, specifically in the UAE, as we have launched a technical committee that includes representatives from media agencies and OOH media owners/suppliers.
The objective was to provide a platform to exchange and discuss potential enhancements to the currency and to set a roadmap for the research going forward.
Campaign Middle East will be hosting its monthly Breakfast Briefing on the Out of Home industry on 10th November at the Grand Plaza Mövenpick, Media City, Dubai. To find out more click here.
The technical committee grew to include 23 members acting in their corporate-representing capacity, and meeting once per month. Six task forces were created based on a priority vote by the members to tackle the following topics:
1. Definition of OOH impressions: to agree on a unified definition of impressions for OOH that would answer the different use cases demanded by the market, such as CPM calculations, impression multiplier for pDOOH, differentiation of ad formats for econometric modelling, among others.
2. Standardisation of ad formats and unique identifiers: to set a framework for the naming and classification of OOH ad formats and to roll out a set of identifiers on all the available inventory for future use in programmatic buying.
3. Place-based media measurement: to support the measurement of indoor environments and destinations such as malls, supermarkets, and metro stations on a single-face level (static and digital) and as part of a wider OOH campaign (roadside + indoor).
4. Scheduled and non-scheduled transit media measurement: to support the measurement of bus shelters, buses, and taxis (digital screens and wrappers).
5. Qualitative metrics: to define and rollout additional OOH-centric qualitative metrics focusing on human perception and attention.
6. Improvements in data visualisation and reporting.
As the work continues, Seventh Decimal and the JIC Technical Committee remain committed to align the industry around a currency that fairly represents OOH across the multitude of environments, and to continue to provide advertisers with the best set of metrics that would be at par with the most measurable media channels.
OOH measurement in our region has come a long way from counting cars to establishing a reliable currency that enables stakeholders to argue their value proposition in an increasingly omnichannel world.
We thank our partners: Al Arabia, Backlite Media, Elevision, Encyclomedia, Group Plus, Hills Advertising, Hypermedia, MPN, Viola Outdoor, MCN, Omnicom Media Group, Publicis Media Groupe for their continuous support and contribution, and we welcome all those that would like to join us on this journey as we shape the future of OOH measurement in the GCC.
By Maud Moawad, CEO of Seventh Decimal
