OMA unveils revamped Move metrics suite
The Outdoor Media Association has unveiled its new Move measurement system (styled “MOVE”) after years in development. The system models a synthetic audience of over two million Australians and their daily movements in order to predict the visibility and engagement of outdoor advertising in the real world.
The new system, formerly called Move 2.0, was described as “a complex undertaking” by OMA CEO Elizabeth McIntyre at the OMA conference in Sydney.
Elizabeth McIntyre at the OMA conference
“Move has been a complex undertaking,” McIntyre said. “We are united as an industry. We are everywhere. We are always on. And we are the only medium that is growing in double digits.”
Despite the unveiling, the new Move is not yet live. Later in the conference, OMA chair Charles Parry-Okeden said the system would be operational for planning in 2026 but he would not commit to timing for trading.
In a detailed briefing prior to the conference, the OMA said that Move covers more than 180,000 outdoor ad sites nationwide. The genesis of the system was a 5000-person mobility study in 2022, where real Australians carried trackers over 14 days, generating around 280,000 trips.
That sample was the empirical basis for the 2.2 million-strong synthetic population, whose virtual movements are calibrated and corrected against independent data sources.
“Move data reveals that out of home members collectively reach 97% of Australians weekly. That’s 95 million trips across metropolitan and regional areas every day,” McIntyre said. “ Move is a world class audience measurement system.”
The new Move is a replacement for the industry’s existing Move 1.5, itself an iteration of Move 1.0. The original was launched in 2010 at the cost of $10 million. The new system, which is operational but not yet deployed, was developed from 2021 at a direct cost of around $20 million.
In the briefing, the OMA said that because the trackers contained barometers and gyroscopes as well as GPS, people could be followed inside shopping malls and covered areas. This gives the model the ability to predict behaviour and engagement with retail and mall sites.
Aside from better granularity, the new Move system improves on the old with tracking in 21 regional areas, and the incorporation of seasonal and time-of-day data. Each synthetic person in the model has characteristics — age, gender, income etc. — and a diverse range of activities.
Other facts about the new system compared to Move 1.5:
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Shift from six to 57 trip purposes.
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Moves from a single average week to hourly audience data over 365 days, available in weekly increments.
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Over 1 million points of interest and 8,500 individually measured locations.
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Now includes international and interstate visitors, not just metro travellers.
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7 million road links modelled; all of Australia, not just metro.
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Hourly attribution over the 180,000+ sites.
While international tourists are modelled arriving and departing in the new Move — they enter the virtual population — their “within-stay” movements are not yet being registered.
Perhaps (and just perhaps) it hasn’t gone live because the numbers it’s spitting out don’t match what the sign operators want?
Maybe they’ll have this “fixed” by the time they have their 3rd launch!
I can hardly wait to hear how the uninspiring CEO of the OMA word salads the actual live launch sometime in the not too distant future.
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And sales pitches will still be… Hey… It’s summer… People are outside more! We call them… the Outsiders. Have a look at all these beautiful billboards. Big ones, small ones. Look how many people will see it!
Want to go for lunch? I can tell you more about how big our billboards are and a great new measurement study suggesting that in winter, people aren’t not-as-not outside as you think! Brill.
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Still no date for release though.
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June 2 was the day for it to go live only a month ago
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