Out of Home Media has grown by 12.9% in 2014 as against the projected 7% in India. Digital OoH is gaining prominence and while that is happening, advertisers are clueless on how to effectively measure it. Here’s an insight on measuring DOOH & determining the ROI for your client.
Digital Out of Home Advertising (DOoH) is the 21st Century’s Creative Medium that has revolutionised the advertising and communication field. It is a dynamic way of reaching to the customers while they are on the go. It includes digital place-based networks as well as digital billboards. DOoH networks feature independent screens, jukeboxes and kiosks etc. (Also Read: Digital OoH : Taking Media Planning To A Whole New Level)
Although we are aware of the potential of Digital signages, there is always a lingering question that scares media planners as well as client servicing executives – “What is the expected ROI on this?” Traditional OOH is very difficult to measure and unless a strong Call to Action is not present in the creative, it is close to impossible to track the effectiveness of the campaign. You can surely get a general idea but specific numbers cannot be tracked.
Nielsen, Northpoint’s PGP Market Research Course Partner, understood this and designed the metrics that helps to measure OoH. It is one of its kind in India and Nielsen, being the market leader in their vertical, have promised to better this. Let’s take a look at some of the parameters of this metrics. They are:
Opportunity To See (OTS)
Opportunity to See is the probability of a potential customer seeing an ad being displayed on a Digital OoH display. Mathematically, it is the number of exposures divided by the number of customers exposed to. So if a display is seen 10 times by 5 customers, the OTS is 2. Ideally, an OTS of 3 or more is targeted while planning a strategy.
OTS depends on three primary factors:
# The presence of the potential or targeted customer in the display area
# The customer noticing the advertisement
# The customer getting sufficient Dwell Time to read the advertisement
Naturally, to make your OoH ad measurable, you must place it in a crowded area, make it large and attractive enough to be noticed and place it on points where people can stop and read it, like traffic signals.
Dwell Time
Dwell Time is the amount of time, in minutes, that a person is expected to spend at the location consisting of the advertising vehicle. Higher Dwell Time means the potential customer has more time to notice and read your advertisement and absorb the information. This obviously means you have to select locations strategically. As mentioned above, a traffic signal or a bus stop are ideal locations which are crowded as well as where people stop for 5, 10 or even 15 minutes. Moving on to more innovative places, bar-top digital displays can give you Dwell Time up to an hour! The same is true with restaurants, college campuses and other urban locations.
TAB Out of Home Ratings
Traffic Audit Bureau for Media Measurement is a non-profit organisation which monitors out of home media consumption. It is generally used for digital and traditional billboard ad placement. The greatest advantage of TAB is that is reliable and accepted world-wide. It has been recognised as the official agency measuring OoH efficiency. It gives you a thorough analysis of your ad’s performance. This helps you revisit and improve your strategies as well as lay down a proper, statistical analysis of your work.
Impressions
Impressions is the number of times an ad is displayed on an ad vehicle in a specific time frame. The frequency of your ad has to be in sync with the frequency of movement at the particular point – like the duration of a traffic signal. The purpose of Impressions is also to expose the same potential customer to the same ad again and again. This stresses the point and helps people to remember the brand. Impressions is an extremely reliable way of measuring OoH.
Recall
Recall is one of the most important qualities that assess the creative impact of an ad. It is the ability of a person to recall the ad after he/she has seen it some time back. The creativity, expanse and scale of your advertisement are tested by this factor. So it is imperative that this Recall is considered right from the conceptualization of the ad. OoH has the highest recall value – 47% after 1 month. It remains up to you how to exploit this space and this advantage.
All said and done, who will measure this? Are people aware of such metrics with these parameters? The simple answer to this is ‘Not many are aware of this’. Indian OOH firms need to discover talent that knows how to measure the efficacy of Digital OoH. This is exactly where Northpoint’s OoHA Certification Program comes into the picture.
Northpoint aims to educate people about Out of House Advertising so that they can enter the advertising industry with great confidence and put their skills to use.