More than half of OVAB members complete metrics guidelines work; but what did they find out?

October 28, 2009 by Dave Haynes

OVAB had its annual summit in NYC this morning and the first word out of it is that a year after its audience metric guidelines were released, 11 member organizations have gone through the process of getting audience research done based on those parameters.
“This announcement marks a significant shift as a large group of networks made the investment to move beyond traffic measures as their media currency to data based on audience impressions. Their data will give advertising decision makers the information they need to compare them with other traditional forms like television, the Internet and print,” said Suzanne La Forgia, President of OVAB. “OVAB companies are releasing their data to their key agency and advertising partners now and will continue to over the next several months. We look forward to more announcements like this as more research studies are completed.” 

“Third party audience research is key to us evaluating place-based digital and video advertising networks,” says Ryan Laul, Managing Director, Posterscope – Hyperspace and member of OVAB’s Agency Advisory Board. “Networks that provide us audience data make our jobs of incorporating this medium into our overall strategies easier and will give clients more confidence to grow their investments.”
Presumably, it took 11 months to read and re-read the guidelines doc to figure it out (joking, but that thing is hard going) and then a month to get the field work done. Those who were in:
 
    * Access 360 Media
    * Adspace Digital Mall Network
    * Buzztime
    * Captivate Network
    * CBS Outernet
    * Channel M
    * indoorDirect
    * Premier Retail Networks
    * RMG
    * Target Channel Red
    * Zoom Media & Marketing
 
That’s more than half the membership and given there are a few vendor members like BroadSign and EnQii who don’t have networks to measure, it’s a strong take-up.
 
What would be interesting is to learn how the changes in metrics impacted the way these companies define their audience and how it impacted things like CPM. The worry at least some networks would have about getting better measurement is that more precise measurement is going to see their real audience numbers drop like a rock. The flip side of the argument is guys like Laul weren’t buying because they didn’t believe what they were getting before,and even if the audience is now smaller, it is substantiated.
 
The research results are being distributed to the planning community and OVAB “will conduct educational training seminars and meetings for agencies and advertisers to further educate them on what this move to audience research data means to them.”    
 
For a knuckle-dragger version of the guidelines, try this Dummies version  

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