March 8th Release Notes and Updates
A message from Geopath

As previously announced, the initial rollout of the 2021 Annual Forecast will be completed by March 8th, 2021. However, in order to give our members time to implement these metrics into their systems, the 2021 release will become the official currency of the OOH industry on March 22nd, 2021. On that date, the 2021 metrics should be used by all members for planning and transactional purposes.

In preparation for this significant milestone, we wanted to share some important notes on the upcoming release as well as a few reminders.

Important Updates for the March 8th Release 

2021 Core Audience Measures 

On March 8th, core audiences (persons 0+, 5+, 18+, and 21+) for roadside media (including street furniture), and place-based media (excluding transit station media) will be available in both the API and the Explore Module of the Insights Suite. Users of the Insights Suite will now be able to toggle between 2020 and 2021 data.

Note, the 2021 transit forecast (scheduled fleet and station media) will be released pending committee review.

Reach/Frequency
As announced previously, Geopath has been working to update its methods of calculating reach and frequency to reflect the significant  changes in travel patterns resulting from the pandemic.

On March 8th, unit level reach and frequency will be available in the API, and the Insights Suite Explore Module for 2021 core audiences (persons 0+, 5+, 18+, and 21+)

Package level reach and frequency will also be available in the API, and in the new Workspace Module Beta on March 8th for plans using 2021 core audiences.

These improvements will resolve the previously mentioned issue of overstated audience reach for campaigns that have a large number of high TRP units or that are longer than 4 weeks. In addition, this update allows the expansion of R&F reporting capabilities to 52 weeks.

Impression Variation Dashboard 2.0 
The Impression Variation Dashboard 2.0 will also be available in the Insights Suite Reports Module by March 22nd.

As noted previously, the 2021 Impression Variation Dashboard will differ from the 2020 version. For 2021, the dashboard will analyze a week of observed activity versus the expected monthly average. This will provide a more precise view of forecasted versus observed delivery because the variation is relative to the expected seasonality of the audience delivery of OOH media types in a market.

Please note, that given the changes in how the impression variations are derived for 2021, these reports should only be used to understand variations against the 2021 forecast.

Mobility Dashboard 
The Mobility Dashboard will also be updated on March 8th. The dashboard will now include mobility data from 2019, 2020 and the most current 2021 data available, which will provide members with a more holistic view of how travel has changed over time.

Inventory Updates 
Given the significant number of updates in this release, there will not be an inventory update on March 8th. The next update to inventory will occur on March 22nd. At that time, we will provide a list of all the new Geopath IDs that have been added in the release, or that have changes to either their status or impressions.

Additional Support 

We will post these release notes to our blog, and update them next week with any additional information.

Webinars 
Additionally, we will be conducting two webinars to help our members understand the changes and learn how to access the new data and features. Click the links below to register.

Understanding Geopath’s Updated Reach and Frequency | March 12th @ 2:00PM ET 

Accessing 2021 Data in the Insights Suite | March 15th @ 2:00PM ET 

Video Tutorials 
The Learning Lab and geekOUT Library will also be updated on March 8th with tutorials on how to access the 2021 data in the Insights Suite, as well as how to use the new Workspace module.

Other Important Updates & Reminders 

As a reminder, we recently announced that members should no longer be using the bus exterior measures available in OOH Plan and ADS for transactions.

Our legacy systems (ADS and OOH Plan) have remained available to our members during this period to allow access to this historical data for non-transactional purposes only. At this time, however, we will no longer be supporting these legacy tools. Both ADS and OOH Plan will be decommissioned on April 1st, 2021.

We recommend that users of these tools transition to the Insights Suite. If you would like training, please reach out to us at [email protected]. We would be happy to set up a custom training with your team. Training materials are also available in our geekOUT Library as well as the Learning Lab, our self-directed online training platform. Click here for more information on the Learning Lab and the training tools available to all our members.

Similarly, our inventory submission tool, TABview Online, will also be decommissioned on April 1st, 2021. Members can continue to submit inventory directly to our analysts using our inventory submission sheet.

Contact Us! 

We hope this helps to answer many of the questions our members may have related to the upcoming release. Moving forward we will continue to send out release notes to help our members when there are major changes that may impact inventory or our tools.

Please feel free to reach out to us on [email protected] with any additional questions.