The Outdoor Media Association (OMA) has today announced the appointment Ipsos to update its audience measurement system MOVE to boost its capability.

The updated system will deliver a national measured model that covers all formats and environments, including regional locations, with the capability to report on seasonal and monthly variations. In total the system will measure more than 100,000 Out of Home (OOH) locations nationwide.

This development is part of the $10 million investment by the Board of MOVE into updating the MOVE metric. Phase one commenced in July 2019 with a $1.3 million Neuroscience Project Study (NPS) to assess audience engagement with digital and classic OOH across a variety of formats, environments, and travel modes. This qualitative measure will assign an impact value for both classic and digital OOH, showing the effective impact of a campaign. The current quantitative metric used in MOVE, Likelihood To See (OTS), will be replaced by Visibility Adjusted Contacts (VAC).

Also included in the update is new reporting software using a web-based interface to access audience results. Ongoing audience updates will be made frequently and released quarterly.

Two industry veterans have been named as independent Chairs to assist with the project delivery strategy and development of the new system.

Adam Lang will be Chair of the project Development Group, which will oversee the day-to-day development of the new system. Mr Lang has proven success in delivering large-scale technical and complex projects including the successful merger of Fairfax Radio Network and Macquarie Radio Network to form Macquarie Media Ltd in 2015.

Mr Lang was also the Chair of the Commercial Radio Australia Research Committee which oversaw the tender, supplier selection, and implementation process of a new radio audience measurement system.

Michael Porter will be Chair of the project Advisory Group, which will provide feedback to the OMA Board and stakeholders on scope, outcomes, and project progress. Mr Porter has more than 40 years’ experience in advertising and media agencies having held positions at the Managing Director and CEO levels.

His past roles include CEO and Board member of Media Edge, Executive Director of Razor, and Founder and Managing Director of Unity Communications. Mr Porter has a strong background in key stakeholder management and communication, having worked extensively with senior clients, media owners, and agency peers.

Simon Wake CEO Ipsos Australia and New Zealand said “Ipsos is proud to be partnering with the Outdoor media sector in Australia to leverage our world-class IP to deliver sophisticated measurement services to the Australian market to help accelerate the industry’s transition to digital.”

OMA and MOVE General Manager Kylie Green said “Over the last few years, Out of Home’s digital transformation has seen the channel’s remit expand to include localised and contextually relevant messaging that can be delivered en masse and at scale.

“While the dominance of Digital Out of Home is an innovation, updating our audience measurement system goes hand in hand with our channel’s transformation. Providing transparent and tangible proof is imperative for us to prove the channel’s efficacy to our clients.

“I see this not as a revolution but an evolution, which will reset and future proof the currency of the Outdoor industry, as the medium will no doubt be planned and traded in more sophisticated ways which will require greater granularity of audience data,” concluded Green.

This new system is based on two major innovations: precise passive measurement that utilises multi-sensor fusion, as well as big data coming from multiple sources ranging from a large-scale travel survey, mobility data and official traffic and pedestrian counts. This provides an unprecedented opportunity for a step change in audience measurement capabilities.

In conjunction with transport consultancy Veitch Lister Consulting (VLC), the original builders of MOVE, the data will be used to develop an advanced activity-based model that will estimate the travel patterns across the whole of Australia. It will provide accurate and detailed travel behaviour with granularity and seasonal variation with audience averages for all formats in both outdoor and indoor environments.

It is estimated that it will take two years to build and test the new system, with the launch proposed for 2023.