Posterscope's thought on Route, the OOH industry's new ground-breaking audience measurement system.

1. Route:
Route means that we now have unprecedented
understanding of journey patterns and how people
move around when out-of-home. By its very
nature, the medium is “always on”, so has the
The Right potential to reach anyone at any time. The new
data also allows us to build campaigns around
any combination of audiences, including those not
Direction traditionally receptive to OOH advertising.
We have accumulated a
for OOH
wealth of data about OOH
campaigns but, historically, it
has been outside of the
measurement system. Now,
from targeting main shopper
Guardian reader to new
technology innovators Route
lets us plan the right OOH campaign.
At Tuesday’s launch of Route, out-of-home’s
brand new audience measurement system, As Steve Hatch, MD of MEC, highlighted, the
Richard Silman of Ipsos MediaCT (who led the most interesting nuggets are the “unknown
research team) talked about geeks. unknowns”… and Route is chock-full of them.
Take businessmen aged 35-55 being targeted
Geeks, he reminded us, will inherit the earth. But with a digital campaign. Your natural instinct might
before they do that they will take over the ad tell you that the morning / evening commute is the
business. And they’re starting with Route… most efficient time to reach them, and Route
confirms that. What you may not have known is
Route has finally arrived after 4 years in the that the next most efficient daypart is weekends 4-
making. The survey has a total database of 19 7pm. Route tells us this.
billion GPS records, which are matched to over 3
million Navteq road links and over 100,000
roadside poster frames.
A staggering 160 million data records have been
collected and applied to the new framework –
making it the world’s biggest ever GPS survey,
and offering a level of detail with the potential to
transform the entire OOH planning and trading
ecosystem.
This big data will allow us to define our audiences
like never before, leap-frogging other media
measurements and propelling us on our own
journey of re-defining OOH.
For us, as the underwriters of Route, this access
This is most definitely revolution, not evolution.
to respondent level, granular data is particularly
exciting, especially for those of you in the planning
As Glen Wilson suggested on launch day, with
community, in that it presents an opportunity to
Route we have been given a Ferrari… and we
‘remix’ it with other data sources be they
should drive it like we stole it.
proprietary, client generated, external or open
source. As a result, you will start to see more
innovative approaches to planning driven by new
tools to do this with.
Posterscope – Pioneering Out of Home

2. Want to know whether POS at the supermarket
will deliver incremental cover on a roadside
schedule targeting SkySports-viewing White Van
Man? Route lets us work that out.
Which brings us back to the geeks… The game-changer with this application is that for
the first time ever the start point is audience rather
As a Route stakeholder, we are hugely excited than inventory. This means that we can now
about getting “under the bonnet”, using the raw confidently maximise the delivery of target
data to unlock further insight from the sheer audience metrics on each and every campaign,
volume of information available, and combining it whether they be standard measures such as
with our own data, learnings and assets. reach, frequency and impact or key planning
considerations such as geographic distribution,
As a result we have developed a proximity to retailers, creative constraints or even
unique proprietary planning tool, with desired consumer behaviours.
Route data at its core, which enables
Currently in the testing phase,
us to combine that granular
we have seen significant
respondent data with infinite other
increases in reach and impact
data in order to create plans more
delivery when comparing like-for-
reflective of our planning craft,
like campaign weights;
intelligence and strategic approach.
exceptionally positive learnings
Those data fusing permutations are genuinely made possible by 18 months of
endless as what we have developed is an intensive development work supported by £1m of
application that will ultimately be evolved by the investment, and access to respondent-level data
end user. Campaigns can be built around as underwriters of Route.
standard social demographics, geographically,
Route is an opportunity for all of us to develop our
based on retail location data but also mobile,
businesses and to become infinitely more adept at
location-based search information, sales profiles
answering client needs. It advances the OOH
and advertiser-specific assets.
medium significantly, while connecting firmly to
cross-media tools such as IPA Touchpoints. With
this, Route will be as future-proof a research
vehicle on OOH as can be, to stand alongside
other media metrics and be the sole input for
industry cross media planning and analysis
systems.
Route marks a new chapter for OOH – and we’re
looking forward to writing the rest of the story.
If you’d like any more information please contact
the team at Posterscope.
Posterscope – Pioneering Out of Home