News

The  World Out of Home Organization Congress in London, formally launched Version 2.0 of its Global OOH Audience Measurement Guidelines — the most substantial update to the medium’s measurement framework since the original WOO guidelines were published at Congress in 2022.

The WOO Guidelines 2.0 now draws on the expertise of measurement bodies spanning twenty-eight territories — more than double the participation seen in the first edition. The new edition runs to over 160 pages and includes 20 individual measurement bodies with case studies on their approaches to creating audience metrics.

Updates to the Approach and Principles sections, revised Measurement Requirements and refreshed OOH Definitions have all been included. The guidelines include newly contributing markets, markets that have rebuilt their measurement systems from the ground up since 2022, and others that have substantially rebuilt systems that were already well established.

What has changed

Much has changed since WOO Guidelines 1.0 four years ago. AM4DOOH, described in the first edition as a recent research project, is now an adopted international standard in operational use across multiple markets. The Impression Multiplier has moved from a theoretical concept requiring guidance to a live commercial instrument, with standardised protocols being developed by measurement bodies. Contemporising — the practice of moderating audience models to reflect current behaviour — has grown from a single approach developed during the pandemic into three distinct methodologies suited to different market needs.

The relationship between mobile location data and OOH measurement has shifted just as fundamentally. Where the first edition treated SDK and telco data as a supplementary source to fill gaps in government counts, several markets now treat continuously collected passive mobility data as their primary input, tracking tens or hundreds of millions of devices daily.

India’s RoadStar, for example, now measures 300,000 sites across 2,300 cities from a single continuous data stream, while Portugal and the GCC contribute examples of continuous panel data and observed device-level exposure respectively.

Alongside this, synthetic population modelling — variously known as activity-based, agent-based or virtual population modelling — has moved from the margins into the mainstream.

Gideon Adey, Measurement Gurooh, World Out of Home Organization, says:

“It is amazing how much has developed over just four years in the world of OOH audience measurement. Adoption of the core principles of governance and transparency has spread widely, while the techniques to deliver credible audience data have developed.

“With the launch of MOVE in Australia this year we see a new north star (or southern cross) in terms of the granularity required for behavioural planning and DOOH trading, while the rise of post campaign measured audiences may be just the beginning of a global shift in the way that OOH can be traded in the future.

“Appreciation must be given to the contributing nations, who have given their time and knowledge for the greater good of Global OOH --- thank you for making these Guidelines possible.”

 WOO President Tom Goddard says:

"One of the most valuable and unique things a strong trade association can do is get the whole industry together, working for everyone's benefit.

"It wouldn't have been possible for one company, however large, to have marshalled the resources Gideon and his team have here to create this groundbreaking and much-needed measurement structure.

"In any relationship it's important that both sides give as well as take and this major piece of work might be seen as WOO's gift to the global Out of Home industry. We should make the most of it."

Click here to access the Global OOH Audience Measurement Guidelines