OOH Measurement Gets Precise: Inside Move's Five-Year Overhaul

Australia's out-of-home advertising measurement platform Move went live on March 9, 2026, delivering hour-by-hour audience data across approximately 180,000 outdoor advertising sites nationwide. Full mandatory adoption across the industry follows on March 16, 2026.

The launch marks the completion of a five-year development program backed by a US$20 million investment from 63 Outdoor Media Association (OMA) member companies and agencies.

What Move Actually Does

Move tracks who sees outdoor ads, and when. The platform builds a synthetic audience model of 2.2 million Australians, calibrated against tracking data from 5,000 people monitored over two weeks across more than 280,000 different routes.

The result is Visibility Adjusted Contact (VAC) data, which measures the estimated number of people who actually see a specific outdoor ad at a specific hour. This replaces the legacy MOVE 1.5 system, which offered far less precise audience information.

Elizabeth McIntyre, CEO of the OMA, led the multi-year project. The platform was originally conceived as "Move 2.0" before being simplified in name and scope. Move now reaches 97% of Australians weekly across metropolitan and regional markets.

Why This Matters for Asia-Pacific Media Buyers

The Australian launch arrives as the Asia-Pacific digital out-of-home (DOOH) market accelerates sharply. The regional market is valued at US$11.8 billion in 2025 and projected to reach US$30.5 billion by 2034, growing at a 10.61% annual rate. Global outdoor advertising spend reached US$49.8 billion in 2025, with Asia-Pacific identified as the leading regional contributor.

Why Australia's New OOH Measurement System Matters for APAC Brands

Australia's new Move system sets a unified OOH measurement standard. Asian markets still lack comparable standards, creating a competitive gap for regional media buyers.

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Despite this scale, no equivalent standardized measurement framework exists across Asian markets. China operates approximately 700,000 OOH screens but relies on fragmented location data without a unified industry measurement standard. Japan's NTT Docomo uses 5G network data to estimate pedestrian density for programmatic outdoor buying. Singapore and South Korea are deploying augmented reality kiosks in transit hubs, generating their own engagement data.

Each market is building its own measurement approach in isolation. Cross-market planning and ROI comparison remain difficult for regional media buyers managing budgets across multiple countries.

The Measurement Gap Holding Back OOH Investment

Over 70% of urban advertisers in Asia-Pacific prioritize programmatic outdoor advertising solutions to improve campaign efficiency, according to Accenture research. Programmatic buying requires reliable audience data to function effectively. Without it, outdoor advertising competes at a disadvantage against digital channels where impression-level measurement is standard.

Billboards currently account for 45.96% of Asia-Pacific DOOH spending in 2025. Transit screen advertising is growing at an 11.67% annual rate, driven by 5G integration and real-time data capabilities. Both formats require the kind of audience verification that Move now provides in Australia.

Australia as a Regional Reference Point

Move has no confirmed expansion plans into Asian markets as of early 2026. The platform remains exclusively Australian. However, the OMA's framework is being positioned as a potential global benchmark for how an industry coalition can collectively fund and build standardized measurement infrastructure.

The project involved 63 industry participants, a US$20 million budget, and five years of development. That coalition model, rather than the technology alone, may be the more instructive lesson for markets in Southeast Asia, Northeast Asia, and South Asia seeking to close their own measurement gaps.

The mandatory industry transition to Move as the sole planning standard takes effect March 16, 2026.