Agency challenges delays in launch of outdoor measurement tool Move
A senior agency figure has questioned whether delays in the launch of the outdoor industry’s long-awaited Move measurement system might be because the figures are “being massaged”.
According to Bruce Mundell, exchange director of Mindshare Sydney, outdoor’s share of the advertising pie has been shrinking because of delays in launching the currency. Writing in the print edition of AdNews, he said:
“It is getting cut from communication plans because we don’t have some form of measurement to back up our recommendations.”
He added: “I remember four years ago my excitement as an out of home planner / buyer when I was told the big five – APN, Eye, Ooh Media, AdShel and JC Decaux – were investing in Move.. They announced a 2008 start date, which just happens to be 17 months ago. Why aren’t the big five investors upset about this?”
He questioned why the companies have had the data for four months without media agencies or clients being involved. He said: “Are the big five going to release this tool if the results do not paint a very good picture of the industry and their products? How can you prove your results are not tampered with when your investors have had them for four months without any comment? I would hate to think those figures are being massaged.”
His comments drew a firm response from Helen Willoughby, CEO of the Outdoor Media Association who insisted the process was one of ironing out the teething problems that would occur in the launch of any new system as complex as Move. She told Mumbrella: “I reject any suggestion that operators are sitting on information. We’ve been briefing media agencies and through the MFA keeping them up to date. This has nothing to do with questioning inconvenient results – it is about things that do not make sense.”
She said that the review was focused on eliminating glitches where data did not make logical sense, such as showing a zero audience in a particular spot. She said: ‘We’re going through a very sensible and thorough review to do a logic check. We will then go back to the builders of the system with that.”
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Bruce clearly is after PR, because this is so wrong its laughable. Helen sums the process up. I’ve been in the industry 30 years, have championed audience measurement for 15 years including spending my own money,and find it offensive and naive to read such crap.
How many of the other media have had the MFA, nvolved in tender construction, review and selection and than actively on the working party through the complex development process? Therefore is Bruce really saying his own industry body (the MFA) is useless,and we (and I) know that is not fact.
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Sorry to ‘rant and rail’ about audience measurement again, but these conspiracy theories are getting beyond the pale!
Yes, MOVE is delayed. No, not because the operators don’t like the numbers and are sitting on this. And yes, because we’ve found errors.
Please let’s not forget that we are building a “hybrid” OOH measurement system the likes of which have never been seen anywhere in the world. What is a hybrid? It comes from the realisation that you simply cannot design a large enough sample to sample all OOH formats – roadside, commute, retail, airport etc and then get robust data for all 50,000+ of the signs. What we DO have is a plethora of robust “quantum” data – how many people fly from each airport every year, how many people through a shopping mall, how many people commute a day, how many cars use the major roads each day. What the hybrid system does is takes that “top-level” quantum and breaks it down to a street, thoroughfare and corridor level using probabilistic methods (from bespoke surveys). Think of it like, knowing how many people get off the train and estimating how many people go left and how many people go right when they leave the platform. Now perform that calculation millions of times for all the street corners, shopping malls, airports, commuter stations, bus stops and so on.
What the system ALSO does is apply a probability that someone actually saw the site. This is done using SImon Cooper’s widely acclaimed Visibility Index system from POSTAR, coupled with Daniel Cuende’s ESOMAR awarded cone of visibility model.
What the latter means is that for all 50,000+ sites we need to know the EXACT location of each site – and no, GPS is not accurate enough. We also need to know the exact dimensions of each sign, it’s elevation, whether it is illuminated, it’s offset from the kerb (for roadside), and it’s eccentricity (the direction on a compass compared to the direction of the traffic flow).
It was the first few things that slowed us down, and the latter two that are providing problems now. If i may explain with an example. If the eccenticity of a sign puts it parallel to the traffic flow it will get an audience of zero as you only see the edge of the sign rather than the face. When we – yes WE, that includes the MFA – inspected the data there were too many signs with a zero audience, several hundred in fact. They all have to be fixed before we can launch the system, (we also had a few server problems that we missed that distorted the Melbourne data) meaning that we have to re-process everything (a very long task).
While I find the delay extremely disappointing as well, what I find more disapponting is these conspiracy theories in the press. To say that media agencies and clients haven’t been involved is just plain WRONG! Maybe you should have checked with your CEO, or your representative on the MFA Research Sub-Committee, or asked afew questions around the traps – I’m sure my name as the MFA representatve (prior to when MOVE was a twinkle in the eye of the OMA) would have popped up, and I could have filled you in on any or all of the details personally. What would you have preferred – that unchecked data be released to media agencies and clients? What on earth purpose would that serve? It’s called beta-test data for a reason.
Again, apologies for the rant, but the facts need to be explained.
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MOVE could be the most exciting thing to happen to the future of Australian Outdoor – It’s fair to say though that unless you’re sitting within the inner sanctum of OOH cathedrals, no-one has been told on a regular basis as to what’s happening with the coming of the Messiah… MOVE.
At the risk of “weighing in” unnecessarily – I think that the comments that Bruce Mundell has made seem to be seriously edited. This is a guy that is passionate about outdoor, and has perhaps been taken out of context.
Everyone I speak to is in love with the though of MOVE, we just want to hear more about it.
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Hi Adam, I understand the need to hear more about MOVE. The OMA has done presentations to stake holders and media agencies, but I again reiterate we HAVE to check all the data – both as 50,000+ individual sites, and also as sites in conjunction (i.e. campaign levels) before we can release. We’re finding un-envisaged issues including with “cloud processing” (i.e. access the system through a browser via a Userid/Password). These things happen when ou break new ground. The OMA has shown patience, and I think the media buying world needs to show patience.
Clearly our timing estimates back in 2006 didn’t take into account such issues and have turned out to be optimistic (I’ll put my hand up as part of the group that thought mid 2009 would be achieved). The OOH industry wants and needs MOVE out there to hit the planning cycles as soon as possible. However, I think credit is due that some cobbled-up version has NOT been released just to say a deadline has been met, but we’re sticking to delivering the whole audited system.
While I can’t speak for the OMA, I’m sure that once all parties are happy with the site and campaign data (which will be different from existing norms of course) then I am sure there will be a LOT of noise from them. Until then, it will be heads down and bums up doing that hard yards rather than being out there ‘talking-it-up’ until the time is right.
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John, from my perspective, it’s great to see such depth of information flowing, thank you.
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Blah Blah Blah – when are we going on the next junket?
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Wow “Anonymous”. I wish I shared your courage to use your real name, and your ability to summon up a cogent argument. Thankfully I don’t.
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The complexity of this system is both its greatest advantage, and its heaviest burden. While John has explained from a technical perspective how this delays the results being released, I think it could also explain the communications problem here.
The media industry don’t feel effectively communicated to? The MFA executive committee are regularly updated as to the status of the project, and the issues it faces. How many of you could say that, if you’d heard John’s explanation above, you could return to your agency and summarise that for those who didn’t hear it first hand? Many I suspect are just grateful that John understands it so fully and is representing our best interests, and find it too dry or difficult a subject to even comprehend, let alone pass on.
I for one feel completely at ease that, with John Grono so heavily involved from beginning to end, there will be nothing doubtful about this data – technically or ethically.
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