By: Susan Conner Glenn Carroll, president of outdoor-advertising consultancy Carroll Media Services (CMS), Alpharetta, GA, isn’t opposed to change. He sees his core services – pre-rides (essentially, driving to locations to assess them) and post-buy audits (monitoring and reporting outdoor placements) – as educational tools for media buyers and important elements that are supplemented by outdoor-advertising measurements, such as the Traffic Audit Bureau (TAB) system.

“Nothing can replace a person in the field, making a buying decision or monitoring the post-buy process, especially with local knowledge of the market. Even with the marketing and proof-of-performance tools provided by current vendors, making a buy or attempting to audit the program’s service aspects, without getting in a car, isn’t ensuring the best results for the advertiser. Outdoor needs to be evaluated and monitored the old-fashioned way.”

With a network of more than 100 field representatives, CMS evaluates, audits and provides proof-of-performance reports on outdoor programs on behalf of such advertisers as Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and General Motors.

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Carroll said, “Clients are looking at all elements that affect their marketing efforts from the media plan to the execution of the contractual terms. They want to see not only if their boards are well-placed and performing well, but they also like input from the field regarding competitive intelligence and to monitor developing trends.” Carroll noted the recent popularity of guerilla marketing, out-of-home video networks and Hispanic campaigns.

For outdoor pre-rides, CMS secures an advertiser’s lists and maps of charted programs and evaluates locations independently. The units are rated using CMS’ Outdoor Advertising Ratings System (OARS), with photographs and other comments on competitive products displayed at the time of the pre-ride, which is usually provided. The report, with detailed recommendations, is then emailed within 24 hours and posted on the CMS secured server.

Once the buy is active, CMS conducts unannounced audits. Each illuminated program is audited in the evening for illumination verification, along with a checklist of such factors as on-time posting, blockage and copy condition. Photographs document problems or simply report proof of performance. As with the pre-ride, CMS’s clients receive their report within 24 hours.

Perhaps a service that Carroll is most proud of developing is OutdoorAdTrak™. Offered through subscription, OutdoorAdTrak monitors various outdoor-advertising creative execution in the top 20 U.S. markets (some international markets are also available).

CMS photographers add current images to the database daily, and each high-resolution JPEG is labeled with the advertiser, market, medium, location description and the photo date. The 36,000 images can be searched by name, category, media type and the photo date. (Selected images from the database appear on www.signweb.com/outdoor.) CMS offers some video clips of electronic outdoor execution on Outdoor AdTrak.

Riding the times

Since outdoor advertising’s early days, riding outdoor locations provided valuable proof of performance to outdoor buyers and sellers. When a plethora of powerful advertising agencies (and branches) existed, culminating in the 1960s, ad-agency representatives would “ride” the inventory to learn the market, secure the best locations and verify service.

Ensuing agency conglomeration cut travel budgets. As a result, outdoor buyers’ training and budgets frequently don’t include ride time. But that’s to CMS’ advantage.

“When I first started riding locations, I realized it wasn’t about just checking off locations from a list. You had to understand your client, learn the market and know what to look for,” Carroll said.

This boils down to knowing, and recommending, good locations that expose an advertiser to consumers who are likely to notice their ad and buy their product or service. Roughly three-fourths of CMS’ field reps have worked in the outdoor industry in some capacity and, therefore, can easily evaluate a good location. However, Carroll has created the OARS rating system, which places a qualitative value on each unit, but in a simple, straightforward way.

For example, 30-sheets are assigned a value starting with zero, which is poor from a “probability to see” viewpoint, which goes up to a four, with assigned, double-digit values that cover other criteria. Bulletins receive an A to F rating, based on the quality of approach.

CMS also reports other quantitative values regarding coverage area, stoplight approaches, righthand read vs. cross-read, interstate placement (if any) and TAB’s daily effective circulation (DEC).

“An A, for example, would be a head-on shot in a curve, while a C would be acceptable, but not necessarily our first choice due to clutter, setback or some impediments that hinder the approach,” Carroll explained.

It’s not uncommon for a client to ask CMS to evaluate its entire inventory, along with proposed upgrades, in more than 100 markets nationwide. That means CMS field representatives will rate, evaluate, photograph and document findings on roughly 1,000 displays. Many units will be located on “scenic” routes off interstates; flight itineraries are required to reach many of them.

“Local knowledge of a market is paramount in making outdoor decision and recommendations for our clients,” Carroll said. “For example, our local rep knows what part of the market to recommend as part of a comprehensive program. Also, for evaluating demographic or site-specific coverage, individuals with local knowledge understand the traffic patterns, neighborhoods and the local inventory.”

Post-buy audits, which generally happen at night to check lighting, are usually timed to coincide with the end of the posting leeway to ensure on-time postings. However, some clients ask CMS to audit at the end of the cycle to determine if the campaign ran its full course.

CMS checks such factors as illumination, adequate visibility, copy condition, competitive lines of sight and proximity to the target demographic. Clients receive electronic reports via email within 24 hours of each audit, and the photos for additional program analysis are posted on the secured server for the clients to download 24/7.

Clients, Carroll has found, have usually selected appropriate sites if a specific demographic is requested. A rep with local knowledge may recommend a change based on market knowledge. Mapping software also helps CMS plot census data if locations are questioned.

“Also, a unit that seemed to be perfectly suitable a few months ago can now be obstructed by a building or trees, or be in the midst of a construction project.”

An enduring benefit

Carroll believes GPS-based metrics can help determine the opportunity for outdoor exposure, driving patterns and some demographic profiling. He’d like to see GPS 99systems use a larger sample set that’s representative of each market to establish accurate forecasting, but finds that no metric can supplant the time-honored pre-ride and post-buy audit.

“One thing these numbers can’t tell a media buyer will be the quality of the signs the motorists are passing and how pronounced the ‘opportunity to see’ is. This is where the pre-ride and post-buy audit are so important.”

Carroll’s clientele ranges from international corporate giants to regional, mid-sized companies. Large companies can afford such expensive advertising real estate as Times Square or Las Vegas, where rates can be from $30,000 to $300,000 monthly.

Outdoor is an important tool, however, for local and regional advertisers that don’t have a Times Square budget. Rotary billboards, for example, at approximately $5,000 a display per month in many non-top-10 markets, could provide a significant gross-ratings-points (GRP) level, primarily because they generate high DEC.

A local or regional advertiser could hand-select these units, along with such traditional outdoor elements as bus shelters, for pinpoint targeting and reach; 30-sheets and transit for mass exposure at a reasonable CPM; and possibly malls for a defined and local audience.

To help a client select a good location, Carroll points them first to locations that are visible enough to afford motorists or pedestrians reasonable opportunities to see with a steady traffic flow past the site.

“In a perfect situation, you might think that both should be provided to the client, but, to strategically cover a market with enough units to achieve a certain GRP level, it’s usually necessary to take some low DEC units with some that are high and average. Otherwise, you’d miss out on some good coverage areas just because the DEC was lower than you would like for a particular unit,” Carroll said.

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