2025 OOH Media Conference Geopath Speech
A full transcript from Interim President Rob Peterson's Speech at the 2025 Conference.
Thank you, Ali and Dan, for that great introduction. I also want to thank Anna and the OAAA for hosting this awesome conference and for inviting me to speak about Geopath and some of my findings, actions and future activities.
As Ali and Dan did such a great intro, you are no longer looking at me and wondering, “Who is this guy?” I will say, when I first started this engagement, I was wondering “What is this industry?” Sure, I was aware of the large Ads on the side of the road that kept me company on those long road trips. Having been here now more than 9 months, my viewing of those familiar roadside signs has gone from “What is that ad?” to “Whose board is that?” and “are they a member and have they paid their dues!”
A little bit more about me. I am a Managing Director at The Wyse Group. We are a strategic advisory firm retained by the Geopath Board last summer during a period of leadership transition. Amongst other areas, we focus on special situations such as this one with Geopath. Initially, we were brought on to analyze the organization’s financial performance, craft ways to survive through 2024 and identify areas of improvements into 2025. We started our process by speaking with many members and assessing Geopath’s strengths and weaknesses and, quite plainly, need in the industry. We then found opportunities to implement financial and operational improvements and identified ways to rebuild Geopath’s credibility through more transparency, better member support and efficient operational delivery. Ultimately, to help Geopath to re-establish itself as the independent reliable source for standardized audience measurement in Out of Home advertising.
In November of 2024 the Board reaffirmed its support for Geopath by passing the 2025 budget and its’ need to continue as an industry body and mainstay in national Out of Home measurement. As I mentioned earlier, part of our process was interviewing a variety of interested parties. Those include vendors, agencies, advertisers and operators. The interesting thing I found is everyone mentioned the need for Geopath in the marketplace. To be honest, I found it surprising. Did they consider other options on the table? Absolutely. Did discussions occur to weigh those options? Absolutely. For an industry body which supplies an independent currency for a multi-billion-dollar group of companies to trade on a daily basis, the choices were difficult, but I believe made mindfully to ensure all interested parties were heard. The decision was made…to continue forward, but not the same as before. Rather make smart adjustments financially, operationally and structurally. Be better.
Over the last several months, we have comprehensively reviewed all aspects of the finances, operations, vendor contracts, technology, and our membership structure. As an independent Board advisor, I bring no baggage or preconceived notions of a situation and what should be done. We look at all facets of the organization with honesty and transparency to identify areas in need of improvement. We then outline a plan and execute on those necessary changes.
It is important to restate Geopath are an Industry body. They do not and cannot represent only one side. Their ability to support all members equally is what makes them unique but also puts them in a difficult situation. It is tough to keep everyone happy. If you try, you will be torn against priorities and, financially unstable. Resetting those priorities is something I worked very hard with the team on in the first few months. Together, we looked at the outcomes to solve and went about refining the solution to deliver, including an updated road network and a new and improved reach and frequency model that better accounts for real-world factors all while modernizing the underlying technology stack.
More importantly, the team, the Board and I all agreed that rebuilding Geopath credibility was critical to any future success. It was decided to do that through transparency and delivery. To address some concerns in place based, Geopath have engaged a third party to analyze the numbers independently, and validate, or invalidate them. That work is expected to be completed in the third quarter.
Another pillar to rebuilding credibility centers around delivery. The next release planned for June 2nd started way back in October of 2024. The ability to hit that date, while simultaneously implementing all those other changes I mentioned like modernization of the tech platforms, road network and reach / frequency updates is critical. The Geopath team know it and have been working their view shed tails off to get it done and get it right. You may not agree 100% with the output, but the measurement will be accurate, defensible and transparent. That is what is important.
In addition to the technology reboot, credibility comes by taking steps to minimize the opportunity for this situation to recur in the future. The Board has instituted tighter controls around the financials. The collection of membership dues, expenses and contracts were all reviewed and assessed from a process and negotiation perspective. Good financial stewardship and member support on the dues side provide the opportunity to keep Geopath on firm footing with the ability to further transform and improve the experience for members.
Being on firm financial footing is important. Data is expensive and the price is not getting cheaper. You all know and understand the critical role data plays in audience measurement. Access to high-quality mobility data is what enables Geopath to measure and validate any piece of Out of Home inventory, from a digital roadside billboard along the Mass Pike to a bus shelter in Framingham. Data is what powers the complex algorithms used to help agencies, brands, and buyers access a digestible and accurate metric for each Out of Home asset, enabling it to be bought and sold. For Geopath, and for the industry to capitalize on its promise and growth opportunity, access to quality measurement data is a non-negotiable imperative.
For the past nine months, working in tandem with the Board, there has been a significant investment of time and resources reviewing Geopath’s current universe of data partners, exploring the market for new and modernized data sources and technologies, and developing new validation processes to ensure accuracy. That process isn’t complete and Geopath are looking for partners who can bring innovative ideas and solutions to the membership so Geopath doesn’t have to be the innovator, rather an aggregator, consolidator and platform of choice. Transparent and Credible.
I’m sure you are surprised and impressed by now with all my out-of-home lingo. Yes, I may have learned a few things regarding Out-of-Home measurement, quite frankly, more than I expected. On a daily basis Geopath aggregates and combines millions of data points pulled from multiple sources, feeding them all through algorithms they’ve created to yield something useful and digestible for their members using data that may not always be intended for Out of Home measurement.
To give you more perspective, billions of trips taken every month across the entire US and Geopath identifies which of the more than 8 billion origins those trips can be tied to. Simultaneously, which of the 1.2 million road segments each trip traverses. Then, identify which of the road segments pass by one of the 600,000 audited spots of roadside inventory in the database.
As I stand before you, I am confident in stating the mobility and traffic datasets Geopath use today are the best available at scale. It is not just targeting a select market or segment of the market, it is addressing every member’s asset for OOH measurement on a national scale. Has anyone been to Riverton Wyoming? Population 10,000. If you drive down East Main St, you will note a piece of inventory one of our members operates. They are proud to say it is Geopath measured.
The 2025 annual release, featuring the new and improved reach and frequency model, is powered by these high-quality, accurate, and trusted datasets and is now available for preview by members. As I stated earlier, the release date is June 2nd and we will make that commitment. Delivery to rebuild credibility.
Now allow me to stretch my limits on measurement a little bit more and tell you what has changed in the release and why.
First, the recency of the foundational datasets was refreshed. Why? Because it was from 2018! That was a “no brainer” and had to happen. Do you think anything changed since 2018? I can think of a few and it starts with my hairline and moves to my waistline.
Second, new industry standard roadway definitions from OpenStreetMaps were adopted. Why? So when new roadside signage is put up for audit and measurement, we know the road it’s on! Makes sense right?
Third, regarding methodology, the place-based measurement has been improved to apply adaptive analytics. Adaptive analytics will improve the hourly visitation estimates and more granular dwell time statistics. Why? Improving the accuracy of visitation measurements across places while building improved consistency among similar place types in comparable geographies improves the overall measurement being delivered. Improved accuracy, improved consistency equals improved credibility.
Finally, improvement to the predictive roadside reach/frequency. Why? To ensure output consistency when changing inputs and training the model. This improves overall precision.
To say it in Crayon, as the Geopath team have learned to do for me…the model and associated measurement have improved dramatically and been updated substantially with transparency in mind.
Technology evolves and new adtech innovations and data technologies, including those powered by AI, continue to emerge at an incredibly fast pace. With a stabilized financial position and reduced technical debt, Geopath is in a much better position today to pivot to new data technologies to ensure the continued delivery of reliable and credible measurement for the industry. In spite of all the progress the Geopath team has made, and the new release being almost complete, the need for a more contemporary approach to measurement, with data more easily integrated into planning & measurement platforms and moving towards being able to better understand not just planning data but delivered audiences is necessary. The INDUSTRY must spearhead that by continuing to evolve and Geopath is available to support and help to enable that evolution. This includes working closely with the MRC and the OAAA to ensure our members’ thoughts and suggestions are represented as the industry works towards a set of collective standards.
As a neutral tripartite member association, Geopath must continue to act with the best interests of all Out of Home stakeholders in mind. Independent and unbiased. Credible and Transparent. This seems to have been the mission from Day 1 more than 90 years ago and remains the mission today.
There’s no question of the trying times Geopath faced. Responsibility is shared for past mistakes. With a supportive and engaged Board and hard-working team of Out-of-Home experts, the transition to a new President will bring the next level of accountability and transparency required for Geopath to rebuild its credibility as the industry measurement leader.
I want to thank all of you for the support you have shown the team. Now more than ever there must be a united front for the benefit of the industry. I am confident the difficult decisions made, and changes undertaken over the past nine months will instill a renewed level of trust and reaffirm Geopath as the measurement leader today and well into the future for the Out of Home industry.
Thank you.