Toronto, Canada — June 16, 2026. Vertical Impression (VI), the company behind the largest real-world, creative-level attention dataset in out-of-home (OOH) advertising, and Adelaide, the global standard for attention-based media quality, today announced a partnership that brings out-of-home attention data into an omnichannel media-quality standard.

Vertical Impression, the creator of the largest real-world attention dataset in out-of-home advertising built over the past decade from more than 9,000 elevator screens across North America, will be integrating its federally funded technology into Adelaide AU, the leader in attention-based media quality measurement. VI's technology will be woven into Adelaide's AU platform, the first omnichannel media quality metric that increases transparency for media buyers.

"In most media, an impression doesn't mean anyone looked," said Nicolette Leonardis, President & Co-Founder, Vertical Impression. "We built Vertical Impression to measure the moment a real person actually does: attention, frame by frame, no bots and no skips. Now that signal lives inside Adelaide's standard, because being seen was never the point. Being remembered is."

Through this partnership, VI will supply Adelaide with its attention dataset to calibrate and continuously improve AU's measurement of OOH placement quality. By adding these robust vision-based attention signals alongside Adelaide's existing eye-tracking, exposure and outcome signals, the partnership will strengthen OOH measurement broadly.

"Out of home is a valuable part of the media mix, but its quality has been notoriously hard to quantify and compare," said Marc Guldimann, CEO & Co-founder, Adelaide. "Vertical Impression has built the technology to capture OOH attention data at scale, and bringing that data into our AU model will help advertisers measure OOH with the same confidence and rigor they expect across other channels. That means a clearer view of OOH's contribution to outcomes and better-informed media investment decisions."

VI has spent more than a decade securely collecting granular attention data across elevator and lobby environments at scale. Its measurement platform captures attention at millisecond precision, frame by frame, using a 2.5-second threshold that research has shown to predict brand recall and downstream purchase behaviour. Tied to specific placements, formats, and time windows, the dataset offers a direct view into what captures attention in OOH environments. VI grounds its measurement in real-world attention signals, a direct view of attention rather than an inferred one, and VI's AI and vision intelligence platform measures attention by analyzing facial reference points in fractions of a second using edge computing.

Complementing this is Adelaide's AU metric, an omnichannel media quality score that predicts a placement's likelihood of capturing attention and driving outcomes. Built on attention research, exposure signals, and full-funnel outcome data, AU gives advertisers a consistent 0 to 100 score to evaluate media quality across channels, from digital and TV to OOH and digital out-of-home (DOOH). Adelaide's AU methodology was independently validated by MediaSense in 2025 and found to be transparent, reproducible, and reliably correlated with campaign performance across multiple KPIs and channels.

The announcement comes as OOH investment continues to grow. According to the Out of Home Advertising Association of America (OAAA), U.S. OOH revenue reached a record $9.46 billion in 2025, extending the industry's growth to 19 consecutive quarters, with DOOH up 10.5% year over year. As brands increase OOH spend, the need for consistent, comparable measurement has become more urgent. This partnership helps bring OOH into the same cross-channel quality framework advertisers already use to assess digital, TV, and other channels.

Through this partnership, advertisers will now be able to measure and activate AU across VI inventory, from setting minimum AU thresholds during planning to transacting on guaranteed attention deals and incorporating VI screens into cross-channel campaigns. For brands already using AU, the partnership extends the same measurement playbook to OOH without requiring new tools, frameworks, or processes.

In addition to this announcement, Vertical Impression's AI and vision intelligence platform recently received federal government backing supporting its global expansion. The Adelaide partnership advances that mandate by bringing VI's attention dataset into a global cross-channel measurement framework.

Adelaide and Vertical Impression will debut the partnership at DPAA Canada on June 17, with AU measurement expansion across VI's network throughout 2026.

Additional Quotes:

"Attention is becoming the common language of modern media measurement, and this partnership helps bring out-of-home into that ecosystem in a way the industry hasn't seen before. We've spent years building AVA to understand attention inside real physical environments at scale. Integrating that intelligence into AU creates a bridge between the physical and digital media worlds, and gives advertisers a far more comparable way to evaluate quality, outcomes, and performance across channels."
— Fouad El-Masri, Co-Founder & CEO, Vertical Impression

"Behind every data point is a person, and behind every impression, a choice. The future of media won't belong to those who automate the fastest. It will belong to those who understand that technology can capture attention, but only humans can hold it."
— Christine Saunders, CEO, Dentsu Canada's Media Practice, from "Ask Not What AI Can Do For You," Media in Canada (January 2026). Reprinted with permission.

"Attention is increasingly central to how advertisers evaluate media, and OOH is well positioned to compete in that conversation. Initiatives that explore incorporating real-world OOH data into cross-channel measurement models reflect the ongoing evolution of the industry. COMMB welcomes efforts that expand the evidence base for OOH and looks forward to following the development of this work."
— Lindsey Talbot, President, COMMB

"The digitization of OOH has brought great opportunities for global brands. Attention-based currency, cross-channel credibility, and the delivery of real outcomes in real life offer powerful demonstrations of the DOOH medium's power. It's only fitting that news of this partnership debuts at the Canada DPAA Summit!"
— Barry Frey, President & CEO, DPAA

"Unifying premium DOOH with omnichannel video is the next frontier for modern media strategies, especially as smartphone distractions make consumer attention harder to earn than ever. By bringing first-party physical-world data into Adelaide's attention standard, Vertical Impression is establishing a more cohesive, accountable model that moves beyond mere impressions to measure what actually drives consumer impact in a cluttered market."
— Nick Bennett, Vice President, Business Development, Broadsign

"As streaming and CTV move to the center of every media plan, advertisers need one consistent way to measure attention across every screen. Creating a shared language across digital and physical environments is critical to delivering the transparency and accountability that will move the industry forward."
— Jim Wilson, CEO, Madhive

About Adelaide
Adelaide is the leader in attention-based media quality measurement. Our mission is to bring increased transparency and fairness to advertising by supplying the market with a precise, omnichannel media quality metric connected to business outcomes. Adweek has called Adelaide's AU "the attention economy's most widely recognised metric." Proven to predict full-funnel outcomes more accurately than any existing metric, AU helps the world's largest brands make smarter investment decisions, activate attention data programmatically, and drive better performance. Adelaide is named after the global epicentre of evidence-based marketing in southern Australia and is headquartered in New York City. For more information, visit adelaidemetrics.com.

About Vertical Impression
Vertical Impression operates the largest real-world attention dataset in out-of-home advertising, built from more than 9,000 elevator screens across Canada, the United States, and Puerto Rico, spanning residential, commercial office, hospital, retail, hospitality, and campus environments. With government-backed growth ahead, every screen is a live signal of real human attention. VI's proprietary platform delivers campaign-level, privacy-safe attention analytics at millisecond precision across elevator and lobby environments: physical spaces where every signal is human, dwell times are high, and there's no algorithmic curation, no skip button, and no bot traffic. Vertical Impression is headquartered in Edmonton, Alberta. Learn more at verticalimpression.com.

MEDIA CONTACT — VERTICAL IMPRESSION
Nicolette Leonardis, President & Co-Founder
nleonardis@verticalimpression.com

MEDIA CONTACT — ADELAIDE
Kaitlin Nizolek, VP, Marketing
kaitlin@adelaidemetrics.com

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