MANILA, PHILIPPINES — Initiative Philippines, the culturally-driven media agency within IPG Mediabrands, in partnership with its regional Culture, Insights, and Analytics (CIA) team of Initiative RHQ, launched a bespoke OOH study to measure its impact and effectiveness, an in-market research endeavor that aims to improve accountability in the way local outdoor advertising is measured.
In today’s era of OOH digitization, marked by the rise of programmatic OOH capabilities and innovative platforms such as 3D LEDs, methods for tracking impact and effectiveness seemed to be lagging, as the focus remained predominantly on metrics such as foot traffic, impressions, and audience engagement.
With the rise of Out-of-Home (OOH) costs comes the necessity to harmonize inventories with clients’ budget constraints which has further amplified the call for greater accountability. This underscores the pivotal role of OOH as a vital component of the total channel mix.
The OOH Impact Study is a quantitative approach to measure the effectiveness of OOH ads across key considerations: format, location, and creative elements. To make this study possible, Initiative Philippines partnered with Milieu Insight and Summit Media to launch geo-targeted surveys, which include A/B testing, to audiences who are within the vicinity of the outdoor property.
Through the study, audiences are surveyed with questions designed to gather valuable insights, which in turn inform improved geographical and audience optimizations and more efficient budget allocations.
“Through strong collaboration with our APAC Culture Insights and Analytics team, we were able to create a groundbreaking measurement study that makes the OOH industry accountable. We have done three test cases for the Philippines and we’re excited to roll this out across the Asia Pacific,” said Melody Laogan, Managing Partner at Initiative Philippines.
As an example, the latest consumer branding campaign of digital banking app Maya featuring multihyphenate celebrity Liza Hope Soberano used a mix of static and LED formats. The campaign was able to generate 38% ad recall for its outdoor buys as well as a significant lift across Maya’s brand health metrics amongst those who saw the outdoor ads versus those who just saw the digital placements. Initiative and Maya were also able to gain insights into audience perception of the brand messaging of “My Money, My Bank, My Way,” as well as the specific benefits to drum up in order to attract more consumers to the brand.
“Over the years, advertisers have become so focused on digital ‘performance’ marketing measurability that we often overlook the value, effectiveness, and contributions of existing media such as OOH. We’re thrilled to be one of the first to be able to quantify the brand lift impact that excellent OOH work can deliver, as also validated by the results from similar studies done from other digital platforms,” said Francis de Guzman, Head of Media at Maya.
