Audience Metrics

Background and Executive Summary

CODACAN’s early initiatives included two highly successful ‘Round Table’ forums whereby they engaged a representative cross section of senior media buying and planning executives.
The primary message to the Place Based DOOH network operators at both forums was clear –
“Continue to pursue greater standardization to make it easier to plan/buy digital out of home. Short term, the industry should develop a standard rate card to enable comparisons among vehicles, and should seek advertiser input to the rate card prior to executing it (to ensure data is meaningful to planners). Over the longer term, the industry should develop standard ratings measurement.”

CHMN addressed this issue by developing recommended Place Based DOOH Audience Metrics Guidelines. The proposed formulas address the fundamentals of traditional media planning (reach and frequency) while also tackling the uniquely nuanced challenges in measuring audiences exposed to Place Based DOOH venues, namely dwell time and loop length.

These Guidelines act as an acknowledgment by CHMN’s network operators that these initial basic metrics are essential to the media buying and planning process.

That said, while many networks may not be able to immediately verify their unduplicated weekly reach through credible third party research, each network is committed to the notion (minimally) of providing estimates that address the intent of the Guidelines.

In these cases, estimates are based on patient flow statistics provided by medical waiting room site management. In turn, waiting room hours combined with total hours of attending physicians are loaded into the Supply Side Platform and vetted thoroughly for credibility based on 15+ years’ experience in the Medical Placed Based DOOH.

Basic Premise

Media Plans are defined in terms of ‘reach’ and ‘effective frequency’ and while advertisers are generally interested in the overall reach/frequency of any given network or media property, they are specifically interested in the R/F of their individual ads and/or messages.

1. Unduplicated weekly reach for each Place Based DOOH network or individual Outdoor Digital

Video Billboard While CHMN acknowledges the financial challenges that some network operators face in attempting to provide verifiable unduplicated weekly reach numbers, we recommend nonetheless that each network begin with reasonably defensible estimates that address this fundamental premise. Each network will be judged by the buying and planning community based on its own individual merits and arguments

In traditional broadcast, the media leap of faith has been (until lately at least) that the measured audience tuned to any given TV program or radio broadcast could be reasonably ascribed to the ads running within that program or broadcast. These programs and broadcasts are DOOH’s equivalent of ‘dwell time’.

Multiple DOOH screens within the same venue and carrying identical content do not add unduplicated reach nor do they add impressions to a specific message by contributing to frequency, rather, they contribute to aggregate dwell time.

The basic premise is that an ad spot must run 1 x per average dwell time in order to have the opportunity to be exposed to 100% of a network’s declared unduplicated audience

While the Hypothetical Template captures DOOH audiences aggregated across each network’s multiple markets, the same metrics and formulas can be applied to specific designated markets thereby allowing for the development of individual network weekly GRP’s per ad campaign

It is acknowledged that each network will display some unique frequency distribution patterns within its own audience profile. For example, in the case of an office tower elevator DOOH network – tenants are exposed to the network multiple times weekly, while the majority of visitors (who still contribute to measurable unduplicated reach) may only be exposed to the network twice in any given week.

In instances where the dwell time is longer than the loop length, the maximum attributable frequency during each unique opportunity to view is ‘1 X’

While it is acknowledged that OTV does not equal ‘engagement’, we feel that DOOH should focus on the basic metrics that are fundamental to achieving line item status on media plans, namely credible R/F metrics for sponsors’ ads

Aggregation of dwell time becomes critical to networks in instances such as Office Tower Elevators, where each individual instance of dwell time is substantially shorter than the loop length

Multiple screens with identical content within a defined venue do not add frequency. Rather, cumulatively they contribute to the overall dwell time during each unique opportunity to view within the defined venue