The Out-of-Home Advertising Association of America (OAAA), this morning released a comprehensive guide for capturing mobile advertising identity data to effectively evaluate which consumers are exposed to digital out-of-home (DOOH) media. The OAAA said the guide, “OAAA DOOH Exposure Methodology Standardization Guidelines and Best Practices," was developed with "top member industry leaders" and hat it is intended to serve as an industry-wide measurement standard.

The framework focuses primarily on the retargeting and attribution use cases of DOOH exposure data, and delineates best practices for various DOOH advertising inventory formats.

Key methodology topics addressed include:

• Required input variables from venue data
• Required input variables from movement data
• Required input variables from ad play data
• Latitude/longitude precision, distance and average dwell time values by venue type
• Output variables by use case

Companies contributing to the guidelines included Vistar Media, Foursquare, Adsquare, Clear Channel Outdoor, JCDecaux, Lamar Advertising, Lightbox, Veraset, Verizon Media, Volta, Adelphic, AdQuick, Geopath, GSTV, MFour, The Trade Desk and Ubimo/Quotient.

Marketers appear to have less value for many of the most commonly used traditional and digital media than consumers do, according to a new study that simultaneously surveyed separate panels of brand marketers and consumers.

The study, which was fielded in February by customer data platform BlueVenn, found a poll of 2,000 U.S. consumers put much greater stock in all media -- especially email, Facebook, in-store, mobile apps, TV, phones, newspapers, SMS, radio and TikTok, than marketers do in terms of how effective they are in engaging consumers with brands.

The only media where consumers and marketers are near parity are YouTube and LinkedIn. And the only one where brand marketers actually place greater value than consumers is direct mail.

"The discord between consumers and marketers has left businesses struggling to adapt," Upland BlueVenn Vice President-Marketing Anthony Botibl writes in the introduction to the aptly titled "Digital Divide: The Discord Between Marketers’ Actions and Consumers’ Behaviors" report.

"Many have resorted to simply doing more of the same; sending more emails, displaying more ads, running more discounts. And yet, consumer expectations are high, and many brands are missing out on sales by delivering experiences that consumers either don’t want or don’t see."

Not surprisingly, given the notable disconnect, one third of the consumers said they don't feel brands understand their needs (see below).

Though Nielsen One -- Nielsen Holdings’ efforts of a single currency for linear TV and streaming/digital video -- looks to be ready for next year’s upfront market, some elements will be used by marketers this year.

Speaking during its first-quarter earnings call on Thursday, David Kenny, CEO of Nielsen Holdings said: “It’s 2022 before you get to the point it's going to be a full and simple currency.”

“In terms of rating upfront contracts, that may be 2022 versus 2021. However, components are getting the U.S. right now in Q1 and certainly in May, as people kind of make commitments for the next year.”

He added: “They're clearly using the new generation of digital ad ratings. And that, being on the Nielsen ID, does allow some reconciliation.”

In the second half of the year, more components will be added, including mobile, and for national TV “sub-minute” data.

Kenny addressed a question regarding growth of audience measurement revenue.

“Audience Measurement was as important or more important as they were working through COVID-19 ... Having the audience measurement connect to the outcomes measurement from a shared Nielsen ID, getting to the single platform, has really generated a lot of energy for the subscriptions we'll see on the buying side of the ad market,” he says.

For the most recent quarter, Nielsen revenues were up 2.5% to $863 million. During the period, Nielsen’s $2.4 billion sale of its Global Connect marketing-data business to Advent International closed. Proceeds will be used to pay off debt.

The company now primarily divides its business into "audience measurement” and “outcomes/content.”

Net income from continuing operations increased 89% to $106 million for the quarter. It projects total 2021 net income to rise to $350 million to $380 million -- up from $203 million in 2020.

One week into Apple's enforcement of its app tracking transparency (ATT) framework, only a fraction (13%) of developers have actually implemented it within their apps, according an analysis of app developers that have implemented the tracking opt-in prompts so far.

Noting that only about 8% of iPhone users have actually upgraded to Apple's iOS 14.5 operating system so far, the report notes, however, "there's no urgency to it."

The analysis, which looked at data covering 950 apps that have implemented ATT since March 12, and especially during the first week of Apple's enforcement (April 26 to May 2), suggests that much of the industry's angst over the change may be a little overblown.

You can access AppsFlyer's interactive dashboard analyzing the data for yourself here, but the bottom line is that about a third (36% globally and 29% in the U.S.) of iOS 14.5 users have already opted into tracking.

Not surprisingly, the opt-in rate varies by type of app -- from a low of 22% for social media apps to a high of 56% for photography apps -- and there does appear to be some differential for the U.S vs. worldwide consumer opt-in behavior, but overall, it's not the end of the identity tracking world as we know it. At least, so far.

Despite its maturity, the U.S. market saw another year of strong mobile app growth last year — even managing to outperform some regions with rapidly developing economies, global app marketing analytics platform Adjust notes in its second Mobile App Growth Report.

The report, designed to help mobile marketers identify the relative opportunities in international markets, is based on Adjust data from 25,000 apps released on the App and Google Play Stores in 2019 and 2020 combined, across nearly 250 countries and 12 industry verticals.

The company uses its own Growth Score, calculated by dividing total app installs per month by number of monthly active users (MAU) for each vertical and country in the Adjust dataset, to show the rate of growth from installs relative to the MAU base. The more users who install in relation to the MAU, the higher the score — although high scores are sometimes driven by high churn, rather than more users.

Looking at verticals, in the U.S. — as in markets across the world — gaming led the growth last year, as the pandemic’s stay-at-home dynamics heightened demand for entertaining distractions, adding momentum to the already-booming industry. 

And with families compelled to educate their kids at home, it’s no surprise that educational apps were also found to have seen  strong growth. 

The chart above shows the strongest growth verticals in the U.S.

For comparison, here's a chart showing the verticals that saw the most growth worldwide. Adjust notes that on a global basis, every mobile vertical analyzed saw growth, demonstrating “the extraordinary resilience of the app economy.” 

As for overall app growth rates within various regions, here’s a map that supplies a visual summary:

As you can see, APAC, MENA and Latin America saw the strongest growth, and India was the fastest-growing of all. The Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand are also flagged as important areas of marketing opportunity. 

Facebook helped support the report, but no Facebook data was used in the analysis, according to Adjust.