Coming, a major overhaul of OOH ratings

TAB president Kym Frank

A long-anticipated overhaul of the out of home ratings system is finally underway.

On Friday, the board of directors for the Traffic Audit Bureau for Media Measurement approved a plan to upgrade the TAB OOH Ratings, which are used as currency for media buys.

The system will begin a testing phase soon.

It’s called Operation M.O.R.E., which stands for Measurement Optimization and Ratings Enhancement. And more is what media buyers and planners have been clamoring for from TAB—more demographic data, more detailed information on who sees which ads when, and more places to be measured.

TAB president Kym Frank, who has spent her first six months on the job readying this plan, says the new ratings will deliver much of that.

Over the past few years, great strides have been made in how to use data collected from smartphones and connected cars to pinpoint audience location.

TAB will employ this big data in its measurement system. The aim is to present a more fluid look at how OOH advertising is consumed, taking into account dayparts and seasons and deeper demographic information, instead of just saying how many people saw a particular billboard.

TAB’s new ratings will cover additional formats, too. Since the ratings first launched five years ago, digital and transit ads have been added to the measurement.

TAB says it will also offer pre- and post-campaign analysis to advertisers to measure how effective their campaigns are.

The committee for Operation M.O.R.E. will narrow down the data providers and research partners who will participate in the test phase.

Tags: big data, kym frank, new ooh ratings, ooh ratings, ooh ratings overhaul, tab