Outdoor ASIA - July 2018

32 August 2018

MEDIA MATTERS

‘Continuous innovation a must for

relevancy of common currency’

Dave Roberts, Chairman, Out of Home Measurement Council, South Africa and

CEO, Primedia Outdoor shares his perspectives on what it takes to develop a common

currency for audience measurement metrics, in an interview to Rajiv Raghunath.

Edited excerpts:

As Chairman of the Out of Home Measurement

Council, South Africa, you have spearheaded a vitally

important initiative for the OOH industry. What are

the key landmarks that you have surpassed in this

journey toward establishing a common OOH currency

in South Africa?

With more than 7,500 panels measured, the currency

has solidified the professionalism and relevance of

the OOH industry in South Africa. Having successfully

introduced the currency in 2016, we now have a

credible, consistent trading currency for buying and

selling of out of home media. As our medium and the

landscape evolves, we are also cognisant that we need

to continuously innovate to ensure we build a relevant

measurement offering to the industry. In response, for

example, from this year we are also rolling out bi-annual

satellite modelling updates, of which we just released

our first update, ensuring that the measurement

remains current and accurately reflects audiences.

In developing the measurement metrics, how did

you go about getting the support of all OOH industry

stakeholders for the initiative, more particularly to

fund the project?

One of our major challenges was around funding support

from all the media players. Financial contributions

towards industry platforms and associations have

consistently been problematic within the South African

landscape due to legacy issues which has resulted in

low levels of trust amongst industry players. In response

to future proofing out of home, the four biggest players

pulled forces to get the currency off the ground, similar

to other global markets where the initial funding was

dependent on a few contributions from either media

owners or agencies. Now that we have successfully

launched an OOH currency in South Africa, getting more

South African OOH players on board with the research

is a top priority for the OMC. As part of our drive to

encourage participation, we have implemented a tiered

discounting model to accommodate smaller media

owners.

How open are the smaller OOH firms in extending

their support to the project?

As clients, especially multi-nationals, are demanding

more accountability from media owners to produce

measurement and campaign results to demonstrate ROI,

we are seeing an increasing number of briefs stipulating

that sites included in the ROAD measurement will be