Primedia Unlimited reveals the effectiveness of Out of Home

This week Primedia Unlimited, in partnership with TNS Research Surveys and GSM Quadrant, released the results of their comprehensive research campaign, revealing fascinating consumer response insights and proof of the effectiveness of Out of Home advertising.

Ken Varejes, CEO of Primedia Unlimited believes that the research gives the out of home industry credible independent findings. “With this research we have clear proof of the efficacy of the medium in the marketplace and can now begin to create a functional currency for out of home,” he says.

In February and March this year, Primedia Unlimited flighted three test messages in and around Sandton City and Menlyn Park Shopping Centre using its washroom platform TLC, shopping centre advertising subsidiary Primall Media and large format outdoor solution Wideopen Platform. To establish a baseline of consumer knowledge prior to the research campaign, 400 people were interviewed at each centre.

For roughly three weeks, in Menlyn Park Shopping Centre Primedia Unlimited flighted the test message “David Beckham’s second names are Robert Joseph” on Primall Media’s indoor billboards with the second test message ‘Brazil is the host of the 2014 FIFA Soccer World Cup’ showcased across TLC’s washroom media.

In Sandton, for the same length of time, Primedia Unlimited flighted the test message ‘Tiger Woods’ real name is Eldrick Woods’ on Wideopen Platform’s large format outdoor billboards within close proximity to Sandton City and the surrounding areas. The World Cup test campaign once again ran in TLC’s washroom media.

The results were impressive. The Wideopen Sandton Tiger Woods campaign delivered 485 000 cognitive consumer uplifts of the message post-campaign. Primall’s Menlyn David Beckham campaign delivered 140 000 cognitive message notings, TLC Sandton’s world cup message was cognitively recalled by 510 000 shoppers and the duplicate campaign in Menlyn garnered 260 000 cognitive message uplifts.

Neil Higgs adds, “These were particularly stringent experiments as they used cognitive messages – whereas most brand advertising also works at a deeper, more emotive level.  This means that the results, good as they are, are still an underestimate of the media’s true potential.”

The results reveal that the use of Primedia’s platforms garnered a 12% improvement in consumer’s cognitive knowledge of David Beckham’s second names, a 12% increase in cognitive recall of Tiger Woods’ real name and a 12% to 16% increase in recall of the 2014 World Cup hosts. Every medium and every message showed strong improvements in knowledge and effectiveness.

Ken continues “The results show scientifically that people absorb, and are able to recall, even an arbitrary message in advertising in shopping malls and their surrounds.”

In terms of advertising cost per thousand figures in terms of actual message uplift (not just opportunities to be seen), the results equate to Wideopen Sandton delivering R451 per thousand, Primall Menlyn R528, TLC R42 on average.

“Our research partners were adamant in explaining that the achieved awareness was spontaneous recall with absolutely no prompting whatsoever,” says Ken. “The above findings provide marketers with both quantitative and qualitative data of the high impact, recall and cost effectiveness of large format hoarding, mall advertising and washroom media platforms.”