Delay for Australian Outdoor Launch

In Australia, the Outdoor Media Association (OMA) has postponed the launch of its audience measurement system MOVE until next February. Its original plan was to roll out the system this year.

MOVE (Measurement of Outdoor Visibility and Exposure) will calculate people's 'likelihood-to-see' (LTS) an outdoor ad campaign rather than counting all potential viewers who pass by. OMA says that this will be the first industry-wide, cross-format planning tool that will cover all the main formats including roadside, airports, shopping centres and railway stations.

The decision to postpone the launch has been made because audience data for Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth is not likely to be ready until January, although Sydney data is ready to be rolled out immediately.

MOVE Chairman Steve O'Connor explained: 'There was robust debate by the members of the MOVE Board as to whether or not to release the system this year. In the end, the Board resolved that it was in the industry's best interests to launch all markets and all formats at the same time.'

MOVE CEO Helen Willoughby said that original timeframe was also extended to involve Simon Cooper, who designed the UK's POSTAR outdoor audience measurement system, as well as to address issues following the review of the Sydney data.

'MOVE is very different from other media measurement, as it provides 60,000 individual faces carrying unique characteristics that impact the target audiences in different ways depending on variables such as the time of day, the speed of the traffic, and their exact geographic location,' said Willoughby.

The system will be launched in all five markets, commencing with a Sydney event on 23 February 2010.

Web site: www.oma.org.au .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.