Geopath: Separating Fact from Fiction
A note from Interim President Rob Peterson.

The Wyse Group was engaged in August of 2024 to oversee Geopath during a challenging period in their history. First, as a Board Advisor and now, as Interim President. We were enlisted to collaborate with the senior leadership, manage day-to-day operations, review and modify contracts, execute on the 2024 and 2025 budget, and enable the Geopath team to maintain its focus on the 2025 dataset and refresh.  Stepping into the organization, my role, for all intents and purposes, is to swiftly engage and engross myself with the team, understand the inner workings and provide recommendations on changes and adjustments along with a plan to execute. Since that time, we have made significant improvements on financial sustainability and operational efficiencies, and I want to share my perspective with the industry on the Geopath direction forward.

In the past few weeks, there have been opinions stated, comments printed, and thought pieces published about Geopath by parties outside of its daily workings, leveraging outdated information. Constructive criticism is valid and always encouraged. It bears reiterating, Geopath (previously TAB) is a not-for-profit service organization which is funded and governed by the industry. Most major decisions Geopath has made in its 90+ year history have been voted on and approved by Geopath’s board, made up of all constituents in the OOH industry: Advertisers, Agencies and Media Owners.

The Geopath organization consists of a passionate, hard-working team fewer than 20 supporting an industry of thousands of individuals, hundreds of corporations generating billions in advertising spend each year. I’ve had the benefit and pleasure of speaking with many members over the past 8 months and the perception being pushed is far different from those of who rely on the tools and resources of Geopath on a regular basis.

Have mistakes been made? Yes.

Is there acknowledgement by the current Board and Executive Committee of these mistakes and a willingness to move forward as a team? Absolutely.

Geopath’s core mission is straightforward, yet extremely complex in its execution:
provide a transparent, objective, and accurate measurement to the out-of-home industry. They do this through incredibly large amounts of nationwide traffic data, set through very complex algorithms and measurement tools to bring about an easily understandable metric which can be validated for a single board in the middle of Nebraska, a transit shelter at shopping center in Texas or an ad unit in a mall in Virginia.

The input datasets used in Geopath’s latest audience measurement are, in their view, the best mobility datasets available at scale, pulling together multiple datasets to support a nationwide OOH inventory footprint, and allow both media buyers and media sellers to identify often-overlooked inventory that can deliver on their clients’ media plans. Further to the mission, Geopath has tightened or reworked vendor agreements and subscriptions, emphasized membership dues collections, added operational and financial controls, addressed technology debt, put forward a short-term road map and closely reviewed budgeting and expenditures to ensure efficiencies are gained.  These past nine months, we have been executing on all fronts, and the board has been supporting and overseeing Geopath’s transition each step of the way.

The industry will continue to evolve with new players, competitors and market entrants, bringing new ideas and additional value. Geopath welcomes those entrants as partners and friends who will drive the delivery of metrics and new technology to a greater level.  The fact is buyers and advertisers in the industry demand it. Growth in the OOH industry must be the collective purpose.

Having existed for 90+ years, Geopath’s role remains true to its core: provide objective measurement and an unbiased reliable currency to enable large and small agencies and operators to benefit.  It is the entire industry’s job to continue, as the active stewards I have been fortunate to work with these past 8 months, to support and fund the mission.

-Robert Peterson