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On target: APN Outdoor takes aim with Calibre measurement system

What is the Calibre measurement system? Why did you choose this name for the initiative?

Calibre is an Audience Measurement System for out-of-home media. The Calibre platform encompassed three key components that inform its outputs: 1) reach and frequency measures;
2) rich behavioural and demographic audience insights; and 3) a customised planning dashboard that will allow planners to identify optimal sites for their campaigns.

The name Calibre was chosen as it reflects the level of accuracy our data delivers and is also reflective of our AMS being one of the most innovative and accurate globally.

What does your new initiative do that previous measurement systems didn’t do? What is the main point of difference of the new system?

Firstly, in New Zealand, there has been no singular audience measurement system available to the out-of-home market. We have launched Calibre with the aim of uniting the out-of-home industry.

Additionally, Calibre has both a media partner and agency interface so agencies can access the platform, plan campaigns and export proposals directly. Calibre has been designed with the consumer journey in mind. 

How does the system work? What data does it rely on?

Calibre works by supplementing traffic data with a vast universe of aggregated, anonymised people movement data to calculate Audience Reach and Frequency at site and campaign level. This Audience is enriched by established segmentation tools, modeled purchasing behaviour and demographic characteristics. All told there are more than one billion data points in the Calibre audience measurement system.

Calibre was built by the data scientists at Reachmedia in conjunction with ourselves and our team in Australia who were instrumental in the development of Move, the industry measure in Australia. We included a number of our competitors in the development phase as well as agency partners to ensure what we were building and the methodology adopted was validated. 

That sounds expensive. Why did you decide to invest in this technology at this stage?

APN Outdoor has made a very substantial investment into the development of Calibre. We are in the business of selling audiences, audiences that are reached via our physical assets. Digital and social has redefined the benchmark of audience knowledge and insights so we needed a system that would allow us to compete at that level.

We looked at the systems used globally and picked the best elements of each, developing a system we believe is un-paralleled. We are pulling in over a billion data points from multiple sources into Calibre at the present time. 

How will insights be delivered to your clients (do you have a digital dashboard)?

Agency planners will have the option of utilising an Optimisation tool in the initial phases of planning their campaign, whereby they can select from a range of demographic and behavioural audiences, to generate a site list which best targets this audience. Alternatively, a simple site list upload or an interactive map can be used to pick sites.

A report will then be generated showcasing the standard media metrics, reach, frequency, contacts and CPM, as well as rich audience insights, reach curves and audience location heat maps.

As Calibre continues to develop, additional data sources can be added to provide more insight at a category, expenditure and brand level. We forecast advertisers will look at overlaying their own enterprise data on the Calibre platform, and the system certainly has the capability for them to do so.

We’ve noticed that you are making the system available to other outdoor media companies? Why are you doing this? Is there an element of sharing your secrets in this?

Very good question. For the OOH media industry in New Zealand to grow we need to be able to provide our clients true accountability and prove ROI. To effectively do this as an ‘industry’ there needs to be a singular audience measurement system as opposed to each company having their own and confusing the market. We are the only mainstream media that does not have a unified measurement solution, and we believe we need to move towards standardised planning and buying for OOH.

Some of our competitors currently have their own version of an AMS. Our approach has been to take a leadership position to drive the industry forward as a whole with the intent to unite the OOH players. Our clients, the agencies, have been calling for this for many years. Sometimes you just need someone to step up and make the move.

How do you see Calibre evolving in the coming years?

Calibre has been designed to constantly evolve and this will be dictated to by the ongoing development of data depth available from our partners. Deeper insights and audience understanding is the key driver.

To develop this layered system, APN Outdoor partnered with Snakk Media, Experian, Marketview and Qrious in addition to Reachmedia. 

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