Digital Signage News: AdAge looks at metrics for the out-of-home video industry
This article originally was posted on November 26, 2007 at Digital Signage News.
By Phil Contrino
Ad Age has put together a nice article on the attempt to come up with metrics for the out-of-home video industry. One sentence in particular sums the whole situation up nicely as far as I’m concerned: “Double-digit growth means it’s time for organized metrics — no easy feat for a market that includes everything from elevators to urinals.” In short, everything always comes back to the fact that potential is there, but the concrete definitions are not.
It’s important for everyone in this industry to scrutinize measurement techniques developed by companies that have a financial stake in the results. While organizations such as Ideacast and SeeSaw Networks are pushing things along by advancing research into metrics, whatever results they reach can never be seen as completely unbiased and can be therefore be attacked by rival advertising venues. The best way to solve the metrics issue is for an independent and well trusted research group to come along and take control.
Also at issue right now is that most sponsored studies tend to come off too optimistically, and can stir up some doubts for outsiders (think about the OTX study released in October). An independent group would be more able to head off some of those concerns, as would some additional research conducted by more ‘traditional’ media companies. People that are involved in an industry, no matter what it is, are going to inevitably carry with them certain biases, so it often takes outsiders to paint a more realistic picture. Just as it can be jolting for researchers to under-estimate a market’s potential, it’s also important for them to not over-estimate the market, or else there will be lots of problems when we don’t live up to the expectation.
So I guess I’ll throw a question out to our readers…How long (years, months, etc.) before we’ll be able to better measure the reach of out-of-home advertising?
