This week saw genuinely important progress for Out-of-Home measurement. Route is working with the OOH trade body Outsmart to develop a new platform that will allow more accessible and much better data for use in Marketing Mix Modelling.
This is particularly encouraging because it is the implementation of a key recommendation Entropy made as part of an industry project a few years ago.
At Entropy we like a knotty measurement problem. Out-of-Home (OOH) measurement was exactly that when we started working on it.
When we began working with the UK industry in 2021, Marketing Mix Modelling (MMM) was barely part of the conversation in OOH.
We pitched a project to help the industry rebuild after Covid, with a focus on evolving how advertisers measure OOH to maximise its effectiveness. As part of that work, we conducted one of the most extensive surveys the OOH industry has seen, speaking to MMM providers (independent and agency), media owners, specialists and advertisers.
One finding stood out clearly.
Poor data was the single biggest barrier to effective OOH measurement. 62% of MMM practitioners cited a lack of granularity and context as a core issue.
In response, we set a clear challenge to the industry. If OOH wanted to be properly represented in MMM alongside other major media channels, it needed to make higher-quality, more accessible data available to advertisers.
The integration of playout data into the Route platform is an implementation of that recommendation. Route provides the industry’s audience measurement for OOH, while playout data captures what actually ran in the real world, showing when and where ads were delivered rather than what was originally planned.
Two principles we outlined in our industry project still hold true today:
- When OOH is measured correctly, it is likely to perform better in MMM models
- By measuring OOH correctly, you can optimise plans to further increase effectiveness and efficiency
We deliberately kept our recommendations for advertisers simple and practical. They included:
- Use the right data inputs in your model. We developed a gold standard that has since been adopted by the out of home trade body Outsmart.
- Plan with measurement in mind – ie discuss with your MMM provider setting up your media plan so it is as measurable as possible
- Test your creative – to state the obvious you need your ad to be noticed to have an impact.
This is exactly the kind of challenge we care about at Entropy.
Our purpose is to maximise trust and accountability in marketing. Not to get too high falutin’, but we do that by proving and improving its positive impact for our clients, the industry and the citizen consumer. One of the ways we differ from other consultancies and agencies is that we do this for our clients while also helping to catalyse change across the wider industry.
This is a great piece of progress for OOH, and a good way to end the week.
