This December, research company Ipsos announced the launch of its Out-of-Home (OOH) media measurement service in the region, banking on its experience in measuring this type of media in major advanced markets across the globe to provide media and advertisers with a holistic overview of how OOH Advertising Assets Locations are performing in terms of traffic, visibility, impacts, interactions, and positioning.

In addition to Ipsos’ Media Measurement Services, the OOH Measurement will be offered in multiple markets in 2021, starting with the UAE, KSA, Kuwait, Qatar, and Morocco, and will then be rolled out to other countries.

Why is Ipsos launching this initiative in KSA now?

OOH is still a big media, not affected by digital transformation; on the contrary, it is coping with the digital transformation, with many billboards now going digital. The fact is that we are launching in many countries, mainly in KSA and the UAE. According to our contacts in agencies, advertisers, and suppliers, there is a big need for data, since this media is not measured. Everybody agrees on its importance and is willing to keep on using it, and even spend more money on it, but they cannot keep on spending blindly, without any measurement data. They are looking to know about the ROI for every campaign, the reach, the traffic, who the people who saw their ads are. And leveraging on our big global experience at Ipsos, since we are the OOH measurement currency in many countries globally like the UK, France and other important countries, we decided to bring this service to our region.

Can you elaborate on the technologies used? 

There are many components to this measurement, but it has five major components:

• An Inventory Management System: we are the only company having most of the locations on digital maps in the UAE, KSA, and other countries, because we are already doing regular monitoring for those billboards.
• A Traffic Intensity Modelling: this is based on gathering data from different sources, local and global, SDK data, satellite images, local data, etc., that we use to measure traffic intensity.
• A Travel Habits Survey: that is the most important point, done exclusively at Ipsos. We select a panel of people that is representative of the population; we install an application on their smartphone that will allow us to measure the way they commute minute by minute, and we match it on digital maps with the existing billboard location that we already have to calculate the real OTS and the reach and frequency.
• The Visibility Adjustment: that also a unique system that we have at Ipsos, which can calculate the visibility range of every single location. The visibility range is a very important factor in all the measurement calculation, because it differs from one location to another, depending on the route, the obstruction, the intersection, etc.
• The Inventory Delivery System: all this data is delivered through a powerful system that can be installed on the client’s side to get the results, plan the campaigns, and manage their inventory.

What are the benefits of this methodology? 

It is the most accurate methodology. It is totally passive and instead of being based only on modelling or assumptions, it is a mix of both, including measuring the transportation of real people. It will allow advertisers to measure the reach and frequency of their campaigns and will allow suppliers to evaluate the location of each of their billboards.

What issues are you expecting to face? 

Well, we have done many projects like this before for specific clients in the region. Now, we are syndicating it and leveraging on our global experience. So, I don’t think we will face major issues. We are the only company equipped to do such big projects. What we need is for stakeholders to take ownership and participate in this big initiative that will benefit the whole industry.

Other players, such as Streach for example, are already active in this field in KSA. How will you address this competition? 

We welcome any competition, as we have always done.