Cooke Leaves Retirement for OOH Research Challenge

Research veteran Barbara Cooke has come out of retirement to take up the post of interim Executive Director of Out of Home Media South Africa (OHMSA); tasked with overseeing research designed to drive a change in the perception of OOH across the country.

Cooke, who has been involved in marketing research since 1958, retired last year from TGI South Africa, a firm she co-founded with Tim Bester in 2002.

Before this, she and her husband Tim set up Marketing & Media Research Brokers, prior to which she served as General Manager of Research and Marketing at Nasionale Pers Publishing's National Magazines. Earlier in her career, she worked as Director of Research and Planning at J. Walter Thompson, following nearly 20 years with Unilever.

In her new role, one of her priorities is to find a permanent replacement for Les Holley, whose shoes she fills and who left the organisation on Tuesday to join Continental Outdoor. She will also manage the association's day-to-day activities.

However, Cooke says her biggest challenge is to move OOH from being seen as a 'Cinderella' vehicle, to that of a mainstream medium - 'one not to be left off the schedules'.

Cooke believes that the main problem in the OOH industry sector has been the lack of research to prove OOH's effectiveness.

'Frankly, retirement didn't suit me very well,' explains Cooke. 'The clincher was the opportunity to be at the start of a new era for OOH media in terms of development and research methodology, which will for the first time, give media planners an effective reach and frequency planning tool.'

'The South African Advertising Research Foundation (SAARF) offering is less than exciting' she adds, 'and the few questions that are included in the AMPS questionnaire do not provide an opportunity for media planners to evaluate the medium's effectiveness in delivering audience against that of TV, print or radio'.

Web site: www.ohmsa.co.za .