New Outdoor Audience Measure for Australia

In Australia, the Outdoor Media Association (OMA) is testing a new audience measurement system called MOVE, which calculates people's 'likelihood-to-see' an outdoor ad campaign (LTS), rather than counting all potential viewers who pass by.

OMA says MOVE (Measurement of Outdoor Visibility and Exposure) will be the first industry-wide, cross-format planning tool that will be directly available to media agencies. It will cover all the main formats including roadside, airports, shopping centres and railway stations.

Last September, outdoor research specialist Simon Cooper was appointed to lead a three-month extension of the project. Cooper is known as the architect of the POSTAR outdoor media planning system in the UK, which introduced the concept of adjusting total potential audiences to probable audiences based on the attributes of the outdoor formats being viewed.

The MOVE visibility models designed for Australia also take into account further studies conducted for Ireland, Sweden and Finland, in particular the non-urban aspects of poster visibility and larger formats.

CEO Helen Willoughby explained that MOVE was still being built by the Australian consortium, VIEW Measurement; whose main contractor is the Brisbane-based transport planners, Veitch Lister Consulting (VLC).

She added that the combination of Cooper's experience and VLC brought together 'the highest level' of expertise in the two areas most needed to develop an audience measurement system for outdoor media.

'VLC was chosen for its vast knowledge of Australian travel behavior - necessary for measuring total audiences, while Mr Cooper concentrates on the visibility adjustment factors necessary to develop the LTS results,' she added.

Willoughby said the industry is actively preparing for delivery of the MOVE system and the association will soon embark on a major education campaign around LTS measurement.

The OMA is the industry body which represents most of Australia's outdoor media display companies and production facilities, and some media display asset owners.

Web site: www.oma.org.au .