{"id":110492,"date":"2026-07-05T19:04:06","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T19:04:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/a-common-currency-for-ooh-why-oaams-unified-measurement-initiative-is-the-move-malaysias-ooh-industry-has-been-waiting-for\/"},"modified":"2026-07-05T19:04:06","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T19:04:06","slug":"a-common-currency-for-ooh-why-oaams-unified-measurement-initiative-is-the-move-malaysias-ooh-industry-has-been-waiting-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/a-common-currency-for-ooh-why-oaams-unified-measurement-initiative-is-the-move-malaysias-ooh-industry-has-been-waiting-for\/","title":{"rendered":"A Common Currency for OOH: Why OAAM's Unified Measurement Initiative Is the Move Malaysia's OOH Industry Has Been Waiting For"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Kuala Lumpur, MALAYSIA, July 05, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — There is a conversation that happens in almost every media planning meeting across Malaysia. The client’s agency presents a carefully modelled media mix \u2014 television, digital, social \u2014 with audience reach figures, frequency curves, cost per thousand benchmarks, and attribution data stretching across slides. Then Out-of-Home<\/strong> comes up. And the room goes quiet in a different way. Not quiet with respect, but quiet with uncertainty. ‘How do we verify this?’ someone asks. ‘How do we compare it to the other channels?’<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A Common Currency for OOH | Sky Blue Media Malaysia | Dato’ Manikandamurthy Velayoudam<\/p>\n

I have sat in enough of those rooms as a media owner, as an investor in OOH assets in both Malaysia and the UAE<\/strong> to know that this is not a question about the value of OOH. Billboards work, DOOH screens work. The medium has proven itself commercially over decades. The question is always about measurement. And for too long, our industry’s answer has been fragmented, proprietary, and inconsistent.<\/p>\n

That is why I want to go on record in full support of OAAM’s Unified Measurement Initiative<\/strong>, the framework developed in partnership with global technology provider AllUnite, announced under the banner ‘Sailing Toward Standardisation: How Unified Measurement Can Transform Malaysia’s DOOH<\/a> Industry.’ This is not a minor administrative update. It is, in my view, one of the most strategically significant moves the Malaysian OOH industry has made in years.<\/p>\n

A common measurement currency is not just good governance. It is the price of admission to modern media planning.<\/p>\n

The Fragmentation Problem<\/strong><\/p>\n

Let me be direct about the problem we have been living with. Today, different media owners and I include ourselves at Sky Blue Media<\/a> supply audience and impression data according to their own methodologies. Some use pedestrian traffic counts. Some use vehicle pass data. Some rely on panel surveys. Some extrapolate from third-party mobility datasets. The result is that when an agency tries to evaluate an OOH plan spanning multiple vendors, they are essentially comparing apples, mangoes, and durians all described as ‘fruit.’<\/p>\n

Clients and agencies are sophisticated. They know this. And so they apply a discount not just to the rates they are willing to pay, but to the weight they assign OOH in their overall media strategy.<\/strong> The medium is undervalued not because it underperforms, but because it cannot be held to the same standard of proof as a Google impression or a META reach figure. That is a structural disadvantage we have inflicted upon ourselves.<\/p>\n

What a Common Currency Actually Changes<\/strong><\/p>\n

The concept of a ‘common currency<\/strong>‘ in media measurement is well established in mature markets. Australia’s MOVE (Measurement of Outdoor Visibility and Exposure) system which OAAM<\/a> has drawn lessons from, including direct input from OMA Australia, QMS, Scentre Group, and Val Morgan Outdoor demonstrates what is possible<\/strong>. When every media owner in a market submits their inventory to the same measurement standard, something transformative happens: the category itself becomes plannable.<\/p>\n

Plannable in the precise sense that programmatic and digital are plannable. An agency can model reach and frequency across an entire OOH campaign across multiple vendors, formats, and geographies with confidence that the numbers are built on a consistent foundation. They can present that model to a client with the same conviction they bring to a digital media plan. And they can come back post-campaign with verified delivery data.<\/p>\n

For media owners, this is not a concession; it is an upgrade. When I can demonstrate to a regional advertiser or a multinational brand that my DOOH screens in Kuala Lumpur or Johor Bahru<\/strong> have been measured against the same standard as every other screen in the market, I am no longer selling a product based on trust alone. I am selling a verified asset. That changes the conversation entirely.<\/p>\n

When measurement becomes standardised, media owners stop competing on claims and start competing on genuine audience value.<\/p>\n

The Lessons from Markets That Got This Right<\/strong><\/p>\n

Australia is instructive, but it is not the only reference point. The UK’s Route measurement system, operated jointly by the major OOH players, established a similarly rigorous framework that underpins trading across the British market. In the United States, the Geopath audience measurement platform serves a comparable function, with continuous improvements to methodology as location data matures.<\/p>\n

In each case, the journey toward standardisation was not without friction. Media owners who had benefited from the opacity of the old system. Those who could claim large, unverifiable audiences initially resisted. But the market moved anyway. Advertisers and agencies demanded it. And the media owners who embraced the common currency early found themselves with a competitive advantage, not a disadvantage, because their inventory became easier to plan, buy, and justify.<\/p>\n

Malaysia’s OOH industry<\/strong> is at precisely that inflection point. OAAM’s decision to partner with AllUnite, a global technology provider with experience building measurement infrastructure for DOOH markets, signals that this is not another committee report. It is an implementation roadmap with commercial partners and a governance structure. That is the difference between aspiration and execution.<\/p>\n

Why Every Media Owner Should Participate<\/strong><\/p>\n

I want to address my fellow media owners directly, because there will be some who see this initiative through a narrow lens of short term competitive risk. The concern is understandable: if my inventory gets measured and my numbers do not match what I have been claiming, that is uncomfortable. If a competitor’s screens turn out to deliver stronger audiences in certain corridors, that becomes visible.<\/p>\n

But this thinking mistakes short-term discomfort for long-term risk. The real long-term risk is remaining unmeasured in a world where every other medium is measured. Digital advertising’s dominance in Malaysia and globally is built substantially on its measurability. Every ringgit that flows from an OOH budget to a digital platform because the client cannot compare the two is a ringgit our industry has ceded by choice.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Participating in OAAM’s Unified Measurement Initiative<\/strong> is not simply about compliance or industry citizenship, though both matter. It is about commercial self-interest. A media owner whose inventory is part of the common currency can be included in programmatic DOOH buying platforms, can be evaluated in cross-channel planning tools, and can compete for budgets that are currently invisible to them. A media owner who sits outside the standard is, over time, effectively invisible to an increasingly automated buying ecosystem.<\/p>\n

The OOH owner who refuses standardised measurement today is making the same mistake as the television broadcaster who dismissed digital ratings in 2010.<\/p>\n

What This Means for Clients and Agencies<\/strong><\/p>\n

From the advertiser and agency side, the implications are equally significant. Brand marketers and their agencies in Malaysia deserve the ability to evaluate OOH<\/strong> not as a faith-based medium, but as a data-driven one. The Unified Measurement Initiative, once fully implemented, will make it possible to model OOH reach against digital,<\/strong> to understand audience overlap and incremental coverage, and to attribute campaign outcomes with the same rigour applied to other media.<\/p>\n

This is particularly important for categories where OOH<\/strong> plays a documented role in driving in-market consideration, including automotive, FMCG,<\/strong> financial services, QSR. These advertisers have historically maintained OOH as a portion of their mix, but often struggle to justify maintaining or growing that portion to CFOs who think in terms of performance marketing metrics. A common measurement currency gives the entire supply chain creative, media, and marketing leadership a shared language to have that conversation.<\/p>\n

A Note on the Broader Context<\/strong><\/p>\n

Malaysia’s advertising market is growing<\/strong>, and DOOH<\/strong> is one of the faster growing segments within it. The programmatic DOOH<\/strong> ecosystem is maturing; DSPs, SSPs, and data clean rooms are connecting the OOH world to the broader digital advertising infrastructure. But programmatic DOOH requires standardised audience data to function at scale. Without it, programmatic pipes connect to inventory that cannot be properly valued, and the automation that is supposed to make OOH more efficient actually introduces more uncertainty.<\/p>\n

OAAM’s initiative arrives at exactly the right moment to underpin this digital transformation with measurement integrity. It positions Malaysia’s OOH industry to participate fully in the programmatic future, rather than remaining a peripheral participant watching the automation wave wash over other media channels.<\/p>\n

My Position<\/p>\n

SkyBlue Group<\/a> operates across seven markets: Malaysia, UAE, United States, South Korea, India, Turkey, and Nigeria. Within that footprint, SkyBlue Media runs Out-of-Home and DOOH advertising assets in Malaysia<\/a> and UAE<\/a>, SkyBlue Cinematix<\/a> operates film Brand Integrators and content distribution across multiple territories, and our broader media interests span content, mobility, and entertainment. It is a vantage point that lets me observe how measurement maturity or the lack of it shapes the OOH industry’s commercial standing in each of those markets. And across all of them, the conversation with clients and agencies circles back to the same questions: Can you prove the audience? Can you compare this to digital? Can we include this in a cross-channel model? Our ability to answer those questions confidently and consistently is a direct function of the measurement infrastructure our respective industries build.<\/p>\n

I have seen what transparent, standardised measurement does to the quality of commercial relationships in the UAE market, where measurement frameworks have matured alongside the rapid growth of DOOH. Deals are done faster. Budgets are easier to justify. The conversation shifts from ‘trust me’ to ‘here is the data.’ I want that for Malaysia.<\/p>\n

OAAM, under the leadership of its President Mary Koh Mei Yoke<\/strong> and in partnership with Perion and AllUnite<\/strong>, has taken the initiative to build something the Malaysian OOH industry has needed for a long time. The right response from every media owner, every agency, and every brand marketer with OOH in their mix is simple: show up, participate, and support it.<\/p>\n

The era of every media owner inventing their own measurement story has to end. A common currency accepted by all, governed transparently, and built on robust technology is how we elevate OOH from a medium that is tolerated in media plans to one that is trusted in boardrooms.<\/p>\n

That is an industry worth building.<\/strong><\/p>\n

About Dato’ Manikandamurthy Velayoudam<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dato’ Manikandamurthy Velayoudam<\/a> is the Chairman of Sky Blue Group<\/a>, a multi-vertical media and entertainment conglomerate with operations across the USA, South Korea, Malaysia, India, UAE, Turkey, and Nigeria. The Group’s verticals include Sky Blue Media<\/a> (Out-of-Home and Digital Out-of-Home advertising in<\/strong> Malaysia<\/a> and the UAE<\/a>), Sky Blue Cinematix<\/a> (Film Brand Integrators), and investments across media, mobility, and entertainment. The views expressed are the author’s own.<\/p>\n

About Sky Blue Media Malaysia<\/strong><\/p>\n

SkyBlue Media is a premier out-of-home (OOH) and digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising company delivering high-impact, tech-driven outdoor marketing solutions across high-traffic zones in Malaysia. Blending creativity with “Advertising Intelligence,” the company provides scalable digital screens, billboards, options designed to optimize brand visibility and maximize local audience engagement.<\/p>\n

Press Inquiries<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dato Manikandamurthy Velayoudam
mani@skybluegroup.com
+60 11 6100 6100
https:\/\/www.skybluemedia.my\/<\/a>
SkyBlue Media Sdn. Bhd.,
2A-23A-1, Plaza Sentral Phase 2,
Jalan Stesen Sentral 5, Kuala Lumpur Sentral,
50470, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia <\/p>\n

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