Setting the standards for NZ’s Out of Home

The New Zealand Out of Home industry is finally getting a set of standards to make it easier to compare campaigns and gain real insight. We speak to the experts about what this change means for the industry, whether it will stimulate growth, and what the future holds from when it comes into play.

The Out of Home Media Association of Aotearoa and supporting Out of Home (OOH) vendors are collaborating on a New Zealand standards proposal set to be released in Q4.

This work will set guidelines around verification, standardise which of the metrics identified should be included in a common Digital/OOH IO and agree common definitions and descriptions for D/OOH terms.

Jack Plowright, LUMO Digital Outdoor GM – Programmatic says the first topic to tackle is verification. 

“It is important that expectations are set around what constitutes ‘campaign delivery’ at the point of the IO approval. That the campaign deliverables are agreed between buyers and sellers, and platforms like OIS verify whether those are achieved or not.”

As campaigns are measured differently amongst the third-party verification (3PV) platforms, agreeing within the industry on those measures will help to establish sound verification practice in our market he says.

The standardisation will also mean that the definitions of terminologies will be agreed upon and published in a New Zealand D/OOH Standards document, following industry agreeance on the deliverables from the Verification workstream.

“Buyers should expect to see DOOH metrics like ad plays per booking period, share of voice/share of time per screen, lats and longs, pixel dimensions etc. on the IOs they sign,” Plowright says.

As the first DOOH player to integrate 3PV DOOH verification in New Zealand, LUMO have been vocal about the importance of verification since 2019

“We acknowledge that clear ways of working are best established early and done so collaboratively. Other markets have taken years to agree on Verification standards – a time we are certainly keen to beat.”

Plowright says it is important to LUMO that it integrates with the necessary 3PV platforms that buyers use.

“So far we have completed onboarding with seedooh, veridooh and OIS. We welcome any additional platforms buyer wish to use.”

He says LUMO will continue to monitor and test 3PV solutions, ensure verification technologies are understood, limitations are made clear and the team are educating buyers about the OOH standards introduced.

Having pioneered third-party verification for the Out of Home industry a decade ago, Founder and CEO of third-party verification platform OIS, Justin Singh, personally attests to the importance of standardisation and how this can support scaling and adoption of industry best practises.

For third-party verification to be effectively deployed he says obvious areas considered for standardisation include campaign delivery metrics, such as screens, plays and share of time delivered, and creating an industry campaign delivery ‘common currency’.

“It’s proven that third-party verification is a ‘growth driver’ for the industry, and as DOOH and Classic campaigns are bought, sold and executed in more complex ways, it’s important that the industry sets a high benchmark for campaign delivery, so advertisers can audit what they bought against what was received.”

This is a difficult concept to scale however he says because of a lack of industry standards in New Zealand, despite demand from advertisers.

“In recent times, there have been a number of standardisation projects initiated across the globe, the closest to New Zealand being Australia, one of the most innovative and largest out-of-home markets. Standardisation of campaign delivery reporting has been a hot topic.”

The standardisation of technology is also particularly important to the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at OIS.

“Our platform is reliant on integrations with other industry stakeholder technologies, and it can sometimes be difficult to align with all of the different types and legacies that exist,” Singh says.

“A recent example of this is when OIS launched our world-first third-party tracking pixel for Programmatic Out-Of-Home, we were required to deploy different technical approaches due to the different technologies currently employed by demand-side platforms (DSP’s) and supply-side platforms (SSPs).”

However with all the benefits that standardisation brings, Singh says the industry would do well to pay heed to the consequences of the adopting local versus global standards.

“A couple more watch outs for the verification sector would be the adoption of local versus global standards, a huge consideration for globally focused AdTech platforms such as OIS, and ‘over’ standardising, as standardisation should never commoditise or block innovation, new approaches or the adoption of more advanced technologies.”

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