NIELSEN TO RATE BILLBOARDS' BIGGEST HITS GPS DEVICES TO TRACK EYEBALLS NEAR ADS.

Byline: RACHEL URANGA Staff Writer

Nielsen Media Research will begin rating Southern California billboards like TV shows this fall.

The company began rolling out its national effort this month in Los Angeles -- the capital of billboard saturation -- handing out hundreds of Npods, 7-ounce Global Positioning System devices about the size of cell phones that track Nielsen volunteers' every move.

``Outdoor advertising has been undervalued and underestimated for so long,'' said Lorraine Hadfield, director of international audience measurements for Nielsen.

In the sprawling city of Los Angeles -- where it's all about location, location, location -- the ratings will provide an insider peek into which advertisements get the most eyeballs by tracking a sample group's movements through a seven-county area.

With television no longer able to attract a mass audience and the billboard industry attracting $5.8 billion, according to the Outdoor Advertising Association of America, Nielsen is betting that advertisers will pay top dollar for that information. But they are not the only ones.

The New York-based Traffic Audit Bureau for Media Measurement Inc. in April said they too will roll out their own tracking system.

In Los Angeles, where the city placed a ban on erecting new billboards in 2002, the ratings system is likely to boost the value of the sky-bound advertisements. Many of the companies -- some already political players in the city -- are already seeing an increase in demand, with companies reserving space months ahead of time, experts say.

And that could be driven further with some advertisers already paying upward of $100,000 for prime spots like those along Sunset Boulevard.

``The scary part about it is that they will be following the kids everywhere. But from a marketing perspective it makes perfect sense. You want to know where kids are going, how you can watch them better,'' said Sanjay Sood, assistant professor of marketing at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Up until recently, the Traffic Audit Bureau had only measured how heavy the traffic was around billboards but could not break it down by demographics, including age and primary language, as Nielsen intends to do.

Previously now, advertisers unfamiliar with the market could be persuaded to sell high-end perfumes along the truck-heavy Long Beach Freeway, where they were unlikely to find their market.

Though no billboard companies have yet signed up for the service, Nielsen representatives said on Wednesday they have just brokered a deal with two undisclosed New York advertising companies. Preliminary results will be released this fall.

CBS Outdoor, a division of New York-based CBS corporation, said it opted out of the service after reviewing the company's pilot program in Chicago.

``It hasn't had any impact on the Chicago market and I don't know what will be different in the L.A. market,'' said Jodi Sensese, head of marketing for the Outdoor Division.

The Nielsen tracking devices, which are being handed out to 1,100 volunteers for 10 days, will log every bus shelter within 200 feet and billboards within 1,000 feet that a volunteer passes. It will also reveal the speed at which volunteers are passing the billboards.

rachel.uranga(at)dailynews.com

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