Publisher’s Note:
Geopath’s Role and Value
Last year, I criticized Geopath with less supporting evidence than I might typically consider in an opinion piece – Word on the Street article on September 4 regarding ‘Two Sets of Rules’. I shared a small plant operator’s concern about Geopath’s neutrality with all OOH operators, large and small. Arguably, our story lacked the full verification we typically vet for such op-ed pieces, as I took the word of the small operator’s claims of impression count differences.
Let’s be clear, OOH Today has always recognized Geopath’s vital role in standardization, which fosters trust and a shared sense of responsibility among industry peers for growth. Recognizing Geopath’s role helps industry peers feel valued and responsible for collective progress.
Often, our role as media and bearers of the truth in OOH is to shed light on where communication can illuminate difficult ideas and guide people toward better thinking.
OOH Today continues to seek the truth, question, and encourage disagreement by acknowledging that all stakeholders share responsibility for our Industry challenges.
At the end of the day, we are all stakeholders. Let’s dedicate 2026 to growing OOH.
Measurement Is Infrastructure, Not a Feature
Measurement is fundamental infrastructure, not just a feature, because it underpins trust, comparability, and valuation in OOH. Supporting this investment can inspire confidence in our industry’s future and foster a sense of shared purpose among stakeholders.
Good measurement creates shared benefits:
- Trust between buyers and sellers
- Comparable metrics
- Capital efficiency
- Category credibility
- Commonly defined currency
TV scaled because of a unified ratings system; digital grew through shared infrastructure, demonstrating how common measurement can drive industry expansion and trust.
Out-of-home is no different. Audience measurement as infrastructure fosters trust and a shared purpose across the industry.
It isn’t a competitive differentiator; it’s table stakes. It’s the plumbing that makes buying, selling, and valuation possible. And infrastructure works best when its externalities are internalized—governed, funded, and stable.
Our friends at Geopath are essential to industry progress because they provide a recognized currency and standards that support all companies, reinforcing their role in establishing industry-wide measurement benchmarks.
Geopath plays an uncomfortable but necessary role:
- One recognized currency
- One set of standards
- One governance structure supporting all sizes of companies working in the industry
Multiple competing currencies don’t create innovation. They create fragmentation, higher costs, and buyer distrust. You don’t want ten definitions of an impression. You want one system that absorbs the cost of standard-setting so everyone else doesn’t have to. Did credibility slip due to multiple external factors, such as COVID and poor management and oversight? Yes, but that seems to have been course-corrected over the past year.
Multiple competing currencies don’t create innovation. They create fragmentation, higher costs, and buyer distrust. You don’t want ten definitions of an impression.
The structure was designed with purposefulness 100+ years ago. Buyers and sellers govern the organization. To consolidate external challenges for the benefit of all participants. Buyers are put in a leadership role to support and direct, not simply accept the decisions of a few at face value. Agencies and advertisers should advise operators on what the market demands, rather than have operators solely dictate outcomes that may not have the interests of all industry participants in mind.
An Investment in Your Own Future
Here’s the part often ignored or dismissed.
In television, Nielsen captures roughly 3% of the value of the media it measures, amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars annually. Participation is mandatory, and this infrastructure is widely accepted. In contrast, Geopath and OOH measurement operate on less than 0.05% of spend, revealing a significant underinvestment that should motivate industry peers to support measurement infrastructure for future growth.
Judging by the financials shared for 2024, Geopath and OOH measurement, by contrast, operate on less than 0.05% of spend*.
Geopath and OOH measurement, by contrast, operate on less than 0.05% of spend.
The gap isn’t just inefficiency; it’s underinvestment that should motivate industry peers to support measurement infrastructure for future growth, emphasizing the importance of collective action and shared responsibility for success.
The Real Choice the Industry Faces
For those who say Geopath is too expensive, outdated, or should go away, it’s worth being clear about the alternatives. Is the industry questioning the thoughts and motives of those advancing these ideas? Investing in outside parties whose objective and outcome may be focused on profit versus performance or self-serving intentions to advance their bottom line and growth, yet putting OOH in an even worse position.
Investing in outside parties whose objective and outcome may be focused on profit versus performance or self-serving intentions to advance their bottom line and growth, yet putting OOH in an even worse position
Infrastructure doesn’t disappear when it’s underfunded. It crumbles or gets acquired. It attracts bigger fish to a small pond, and they start devouring the smaller fish. We already see that occurring. Maybe this is a good thing for some, but those entering the market likely see what we are trying to avoid: the gap between 0.5% investment in OOH* and a television market at 3%, and an opportunity to fill that gap.
Who captures the difference between 0.5% and something closer to 3%:
- A shared, industry-governed institution reinvesting in trust and standards
- Or financial owners optimizing for extraction once control is consolidated
History suggests the market will decide: a 90-year-old industry-focused not-for-profit, or private equity players seeking a return on their investment. The risk isn’t that OOH lacks a future-ready measurement system. The risk is forgetting what has already been built and why.
*Source: Geopath
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