OAAA/AAAA DOOH “Proof of Play” Redux

Filed Under Advertising, Digital Signage, digital ooh, metrics

Both Dave Haynes and Bill Gerba have commented on the OAAA/AAAA DOOH Report Requirements in the past but I wanted to take a brief moment and look at them myself. The original release from the AAAA is here. The reporting post centers on “Digital Billboards” but I think may be able to be scaled out a bit.

I’m amazed sometimes at how people like to reinvent the wheel when a lot of work has already been done in the standards space…sometimes to much deeper levels. Between COMB, POPAI, OVAB and others, there’s lots to choose from.

Many organizations/associations have been trying to come to terms with what a valid POP (Proof of performance) looks like over the last few years.

I’ve written in the past about how POPAI’s standards committee has assembled a full proof of performance standard spec for the industry. It’s a VERY healthy read and spec that goes into a lot of depth.

As was stated by myself and others in the comments, the POPAI spec goes a little too far. You simply cannot store all of that data, nor can you expect every software manufacturer to adopt it as not everyone has all of that info.

That being said, I don’t know if the OAAA/AAAA spec goes far enough. Having flighted a number of campaigns and being a company that has to get into the weeds of this stuff (ADCENTRICITY REQUIRE’s Proof of Performance for all campaigns on all networks) and summarize it effectively to be legible by a buyer, I know from experience that you need more info than is being requested in this spec / “standard”.

The release on the AAAA site also says that:

This precise reporting eliminates the need for photographs, which will no longer be provided by out-of-home media vendors for digital billboard proof of performance

I don’t know if I’d go this far. Even IF you produce this type of report, I kind of think that some form of third party audit organization needs to exist for both sides to get value out of it and to protect the interests of BOTH sides. I know associations like COMB in Canada provide third party auditing services (visually) to really make sure that what people SAY is happening really IS. I’m not sure if the TAB provides the same services in the US. Log files can be altered no matter what business you’re in…TV, Radio or DOOH.

Either way, it looks like people are all moving in the same direction, which is a good thing. I think, as an industry standard, we need to go farther than the OAAA and AAAA has specified but can’t tax ourselves by taking on the full POPAI standards sepc. There’s a happy middle here somewhere…