New program to evaluate inventory quality for all networks in the programmatic marketplace
Vistar Media, the world’s leading marketplace for programmatic digital out-of-home (DOOH), today announced the launch of Vistar Verify, a new program that establishes a set of measurable quality standards for digital out-of-home inventory.
As the DOOH ecosystem expands, so does the complexity of inventory selection. Vistar Verify provides advertisers with clear, objective criteria for assessing the quality of digital out-of-home screens across the Vistar marketplace. This program enables buyers to invest with confidence while encouraging media owners to uphold and exceed high standards.
What is Vistar Verify?
Vistar Verify is a new verification program that introduces a shared definition of quality for DOOH inventory, supported by both automated and manual validation processes. Designed in consultation with media owners, buyers, agencies and platform partners, the program ensures that all inventory in the Vistar ecosystem meets a consistent and transparent benchmark.
Through Vistar Verify, every screen is evaluated against key quality criteria, helping buyers make informed decisions and focus investment on premium, high-performing inventory.
Why quality matters in DOOH inventory measurement
When it comes to out-of-home media, the concept of “quality” can take on a lot of meanings. Vistar has consulted with clients and partners across the OOH ecosystem, incorporating input from brands, agencies, demand-side platforms and media owners to develop a set of criteria that can be used to assess the quality of an OOH media asset:
- Environment: The quality of environment in which a screen is located, including both the location itself and the target audience present in the location
- Presentation: The quality and effectiveness of the presentation in terms of the physical display itself and the on-screen experience
- Signals: The reliability and accuracy of data (“signals”) describing the inventory
How Vistar Verify works
Through the Vistar Verify program, Vistar launched a verification process to benchmark all Vistar inventory against each criterion to ensure that all inventory in the marketplace meets the highest standards. Audited media owners also complete a detailed RFI covering all aspects of a media owner’s environment, processes, data usage, integrations and more.
Additionally, an automated inventory check runs a script against a list of OOH venues, checking the location (latitude/longitude) against the Google Places API, to verify the accuracy of the venue type - for example, identifying a grocery store at or within 50m of the location of a venue listed in the “grocery store” category.
Why this matters for DOOH advertising
“As the programmatic OOH space has grown, the supply landscape has become saturated, and all screens are not bringing equivalent inventory quality to the table,” said Wade Rifkin, EVP and GM, Programmatic, Clear Channel Outdoor. “Vistar’s ‘Verify’ solution is illuminating for brands, helping them demarcate and focus investment within premium and impactful contexts for their campaigns. We’re excited to see powerful audience targeting and DSP decisioning marry up even more with high-quality programmatic DOOH environments like our roadside and airports inventory through the use of Vistar Verify.”
Verified media owners (as of May 31)
The Vistar Verify program is already active across a wide network of media owners. Verified participants include:
Captivate, Clear Channel Outdoor, GroceryTV, GSTV, Intersection, Lamar, Lightbox, Octopus (T-Mobile Advertising Solutions), OUTFRONT, Starlite, TVM, Volta, Zoom Media
This list will continue to grow as more networks participate in the verification process.
What’s next for media buyers and media owners
Over the next few months, Vistar will be rolling out tools for buyers making it easier to browse, plan against, and target inventory based on verification status. Additionally, this framework provides media owners with actionable insights into how they can continue to improve the quality of their networks and drive value for advertisers.
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