Advertisers and media agencies can use the new Move measurement system to book out-of-home advertising campaigns after five years of development, delays and anticipation. B&T spoke to industry leaders about the outdoor advertising sell in the good old days, prior to MOVE, and what the new system should deliver.
The Outdoor Media Association and MOVE’s three shareholders—oOh!media, JCDecaux, and QMS—officially flicked the switch on the latest iteration of Move today, with the official transition due to kick in next week.
That means that media agencies licensed to use MOVE can begin booking campaigns through more than 60 out of home media owners throughout Australia, and next week (16 March) to become accredited before the new measurement system becomes the industry standard in planning, buying and reporting out-of-home campaigns.
Industry leaders, including QMS’s John O’Neil, oOh!Media’s Robbie Dery, former JCDecaux boss Steve O’Connor, iProspect’s Marcelle Hoyek and UM’s Brittany Crowley, tell B&T the ‘game-changing’ new measurement system provides advertisers with greater granularity, confidence and investment opportunities in outdoor.
OMA members predict it could deliver a 6-9 per cent of growth, and elevate OOH’s total share of ad spend from 16 per cent to more than 20 per cent in the coming years (more on that below).
For the first time, measurement will cover Australia’s 150,000 OOH advertising sites, including every format from roadside billboards to transports, airports, shopping centres, office towers, gyms, cafes, medical centres and place based advertising.
It measures 21 regional areas for the first time, in addition to the five major metropolitan areas, reaching 97 per cent of people aged 14 and older each week (via 4.9 billion impressions). Seasonality trends are baked in.
The new measurement standard has shifted from ‘opportunity to see’ to ‘realistic opportunity to see’, which takes into account viewability based on format’s size, location, orientation and environment. For example if a tree is partially blocking a roadside billboard, that is now taken into account, setting a higher viewability benchmark than previous versions of MOVE.
The data can be sliced and diced across day parts and layered with 400 billion rows of data, including the Australian Bureau of Statistics, public transport and tourism data, creating more than 180 demographics.
Part of the data set comes from 5,000 people who have been tagged with trackers to measure their movements, whether they are going to the shops, gyms and medical centres.
The new MOVE was developed in partnership with Ipsos, Veitch Lister Consulting (VLC) and Howatson+Company, and in collaboration with the Media Federation of Australia, which took part in 12,000 hours of delivery group meetings.
Outdoor Media Association and MOVE CEO, Elizabeth McIntyre, said MOVE places Australia “so far ahead of the rest of the world” not just in terms of the tech, but also industry collaboration.
“MOVE is a powerful example of what our industry can achieve when they come together,” she added. “The strength of OOH as a channel continues to grow, and now with MOVE it has the best-in-class standard for planning and measurement.”
The evolution of MOVE
MOVE (Measurement of Outdoor Visibility and Exposure) first launched in 2010 to provide a unified measurement system of static billboards and formats prior to the digital panels era.
MOVE 1.5 in 2022, which provided digital reach and frequency metrics, more viewability accuracy and factors such as share of time.
Former JCDecaux boss Steve O’Connor points out that after the launch of Move 1.0, investment in out-of-home doubled in a few years.
“At the end of the day, it’s probably been the key driver for the growth of outdoor for the last 20 years,” he said. “Individual companies were doing different things when it came to measurement, including Roam for the billboard format that was primarily based on traffic count modelling. Some of the individual measurement methods were pretty ropey.”
QMS CEO John O’Neil, who has worked in outdoor advertising for more than 30 years, said that prior to MOVE, out of home was largely bought on “gut feel”.
“It’s always been a great reach medium in the environment, but was always a tough sell,” he said. “We needed to get in and dance around and highlight how dominant the locations were, looking at data like traffic counts, which in most instances were a little out of date.”
Out of home was largely sold as a “continuity provider” in addition to TV to add more frequency and brand presence on the back of a large TV advertising campaign.
O’Neill said that MOVE not only provides advertisers with robust measurement, transparency and confidence, it allows the outdoor advertising sector to provide solutions.
“Rather than us being the medium that was thought of after the main planning process was done, this enables us to be part of the overall planning and solution process all the way through the funnel, which is critical,” he said.
“We’re fortunate enough to be involved in the early discussions with agencies, rather than talking about an allocated sort of outdoor budget.”
On the new MOVE, O’Neill said: “It’s like we’ve just invented ice cream. I really believe the sky’s the limit for this category, and I think continue to work hard on education. We’ll continue to focus on the benefits of what the industry can provide around the solutions for clients.”
Prior to the inaugural MOVE, outdoor advertising captured about 3 per cent of advertising spend, while today it accounts for around 16 per cent.
“We’re hoping that we can grow it to 20 per cent of the total ad spend in the next couple of years,” O’Neil said.
“We’re certainly in a position where we believe we can take significant share from other media, and demand a greater hearing at the table.”
O’Connor agrees, adding: “I think outdoor can expect a very considerable period of time with double-digit growth at a time advertising spend is not going to grow at a double-digit pace. I suspect those mediums that are in that structurally challenged, such as television and radio, will be even further structurally challenged and outdoor will be a beneficiary of that.
“Outdoor now provides advertisers with a broadcast opportunity, and with the granularity of measurement in MOVE, it’s also much more targeted to the benefits of programmatic trading. Ut’s now a medium that services both the top and the bottom of the funnel, not just one or the other.”
A boost for regional Australia
oOh!Media’s chief commercial operating officer Robbie Derry told B&T that the new MOVE will be a huge shot in the arm to regional outdoor advertising.
“There’s now a unified measurement across all of the industry. Now that allows a buyer trying to evaluate where is the best way to find my audiences, where is the best location, what is the right format, what is the right environment, they can do that under one consistent and unified measurement system,” he said.
“We think regional under indexed from the investment for the audiences that it reaches. MOVE over the years has shown when you provide good data in a transparent consistent way and there is a level of confidence, the investment follows.
“In an environment and in a marketplace where audiences are fragmenting and it’s hard to reach large scale audiences quickly and cost efficiently. This is a huge opportunity for out of time,” he added.
Media agency leaders and buyers believe the new MOVE system should encourage further investment into OOH.
“The inclusion of national coverage including regional areas and standardised place-based and indoor measurement create consistency as well as greater opportunities for investment in OOH,” iProspect national managing director Marcelle Hoyek said.
She points out that the additional granularity of hourly, seasonal and contextual movement data through dynamic modelling provides media planners with more granular and accurate data.
The inclusion of mobility and behavioural data also provides a more nuanced understanding of audiences.
“Ultimately, this allows for better optimisation, smarter investments and more proven use cases for OOH as a transparent, data-driven media channel,” she said.
“In a world where every media dollar needs to be measurable and have true business impact, these innovations in how we plan, evaluate and trade OOH are needed more than ever.”
UM’s national head of investment and Outdoor Futures Council member Brittany Crowley said that better measurement will ultimately drive better investment decisions for clients.
“MOVE doesn’t just validate the role out-of-home is already playing – it expands what’s investable,” she said.
“Environments that were previously harder to justify now have the data behind them, and that naturally creates more optionality when we’re allocating finite budgets.
“For a lot of our clients, regional audiences are commercially critical, but historically under-measured. Having consistent, comparable data across 20-plus regional markets means we can now properly integrate those audiences into national strategies, rather than treating them as an add-on or a separate buy.”
Media owners and agencies that have not yet registered for MOVE must do so urgently ahead of the live date, with new campaigns not able to be booked on MOVE 1.5 after 16 March.
