Val Morgan and The Guardian are the winners of the 2021 IAB Australia MeasureUp Awards.
Val Morgan was awarded Best Advertising Effectiveness for its ‘Hourly Outdoor Unified Reach (HOUR) Model’ which was developed with the sole aim of finding a new way to model audience reach with hourly granularity for its programmatic digital OOH buyers.
The Guardian on the other hand won the Best Cultural, Societal or Consumer Behaviour award for its ‘The Power of Purpose’ research providing consumer insights supporting brands with purpose-driven campaigns to boost growth and retain customers.
The IAB Australia MeasureUp Awards were established in 2020 to recognize and celebrate great Australian trade media research and to encourage further investment and rigorous thinking to lift the overall quality of media research in the market.
The winners, who presented their research at a live announcement during the 5th Annual MeasureUp conference, were selected by the members of the MFA Interactive Committee.
MFA Interactive Committee insights on the winners
Sian Whitnall, Chief Digital Officer at OMD Australia and Chair of the MFA Interactive Committee had some interesting sights on the metrics behind choosing an award winner.
“Measurement and research from media owners provide agencies with important insights to inform their buying decisions. In a year that has been incredibly challenging it has been wonderful to review and celebrate impressive research from such a strong field of entries.
“The winners demonstrated original thinking, filling a knowledge gap, and providing new insights that were relevant and actionable for the whole market.”
“Along with depth and clarity of insights, their research findings have had a tremendous impact on the changing behavioral patterns, influencing marketing or advertising practice or decisions for their advertising clients and business.”
Natalie Stanbury, Research Director at IAB Australia had these insights on the award winners.
“Within a strong field of entries, Val Morgan stood out to the judges in the ad effectiveness category as being extremely applicable to a current measurement gap in the industry.”
“It clearly defined the market challenge and effectively used data and data science to provide a greater level of media accountability which merits this award as the best in this category.”
“The Guardian’s quality in-depth cultural and societal research has demonstrated their connection with readers, understanding of their values and leveraged that connection to inform and benefit clients and advertisers in the long run.”
“This robust research has application opportunities from business strategy to media choices and creative development which in turn has helped the involved parties strategize.”
Val Morgan-Hourly Outdoor Unified Reach Model
Val Morgan identified an immediate necessity for audience measurement to provide marketers and agencies the confidence of accurate reach-based real-time trading across all of Val Morgan’s Australian inventory in metro and regional areas.
Using a privacy compliant, real-time, camera vision-based measurement solution integrated into VMO screens enabled it to create a unique first-party audience data asset.
This data on real-world person-to-screen interactions forms the key input into advanced data science modeling to accurately predict and measure audiences of each VMO screen and provide audience metrics at a per-spot-play, per-screen and per-hour level.
Paul Butler, Managing Director, Val Morgan Outdoor made these remarks.
“We’re incredibly proud to win Best Advertising Effectiveness Research in IAB’s MeasureUp awards. The HOUR Model underpins our market-leading approach to programmatic audience metrics and is a reflection of our commitment to drive innovation in the outdoor sector.”
Braden Clarke, Programmatic Director, Val Morgan Outdoor had these insights.
“The culmination of 18 months of rigorous development, testing and validation, The HOUR Model sets a new standard for granular audience modeling in the programmatic outdoor space, providing all parties with confidence when it comes to reaching real-time trading.”
“The HOUR Model is largely regarded as the leading impression multiplier methodology in outdoor locally and demonstrates VMO’s pioneering approach to digital outdoor.”
“This is a big win for Programmatic Outdoor modeling and a sign of its rapid acceleration into the mainstream of media activation with agencies effectively reaching a target audience.”
The Guardian Australia – The Power of Purpose
The Guardian’s compelling research provides marketers a deep understanding of the cultural context in which brands operate, what purpose means to consumers, how it makes good business sense, and why media plays an important role in the delivery of purposeful brands.
The five pillars of purpose identified in the research, centered on being progressive, trustworthy, impactful, authentic, and empowering, have been useful for marketers in grasping the purpose of social duty and the impact of positive brand messaging.
It clearly showed, brand purpose increasingly matters to many consumers, to the point that purpose and social responsibility have moved to a ‘must-have’ or expected consideration.
And by unpacking the distinctive elements of purposeful brands, the Guardian has provided guidance to build uplift in their authenticity and credibility.
Adam Axiak, The Guardian Australia Head of Audience, had these insights.
“It’s been a privilege helping businesses understand the mindset of a consumer as being purpose-driven this past year. It’s a simple yet robust message that not only influences key business decisions but flows on to reflect decisions in our own personal lives.”
“I’m humbly grateful that The Guardian Australia has been recognized for our hard work on this grounding narrative within the industry over the past year.”
