By Charles R. Taylor | Taylor Ad Notes

A study by RealityMine using USA Touchpoints conducted for the Outdoor Advertising Association of America was just released that shows how effectively the "traditional" OOH medium has adapted to mobile advertising. Back in 2006, my colleague, George Franke from University of Alabama and I published an article in the Journal of Advertising based on a survey we did of businesses. One of the key findings of the study was that OOH advertising was effective at communicating information to consumers both near the time many purchase decisions are made and often near the place that such decisions are made.

Drawing on Erwin Ephron's idea of "recency planning," we theorized that selective perception of messages and concepts from retail gravity theory allows many companies to reach consumers at the right time (i.e.. near the time a purchase decision is made) and in the right place (in geographical proximity to the purchase). The idea is that selective perception allow consumers to look for and retrieve relevant messages, while placing the message strategically aids in delivering it in the right place.

The RealityMine study, "OOH & Today's Mobile Consumer", shows convincingly how today's OOH media have retained their effectiveness in reaching consumers at the right time and place, albeit with that "place" sometimes now being a mobile devise or during internet browsing. Nevertheless, the underlying concepts are the same.

Based on data from USA Touchpoints release 2014.1 including a sample of 1837 panelists who provided responses via smartphone e-diaries collect at half-hour intervals, the study show that OOH achieves very high reach (99%) and is the number two medium in terms of weekly hours per user at 19.6, behind only television - and above computers. Perhaps the most important finding, however, is that it was found that consumers engage in an action response (including purchase, seeking/giving purchase recommendation, purchase decision, online search, and brand-related social media activity) to OOH advertising within a half hour of exposure 22 percent of the time. This is one heck of a "hit rate" for what is often thought to be a traditional medium. That said, it makes sense. The same study showed that OOH reaches 91% of consumers in the hour before shopping mall visits and 43% of consumers in the hour before mobile shopping activity. The numbers are also impressive in the hour before mobile shopping activity (43%), mobile search activity (32%), and mobile social activity (28%). OOH was also found to reaches consumers in the same half-hour as 23% of online mobile activity, higher than any other traditional medium. This is illustrative of OOH continuing to have advantages in terms of both the time (near the time of purchase) it is viewed and the place in which is it viewed (geographically based on in proximity to a smartphone).

In sum, OOH's time and place advantage continue to make it a highly attractive medium in many contexts. The high reach and ability to generate activity are major advantages to advertisers in an environment where it is harder than ever to get a message to stand out.

Click here to download the full study or view the RealityMine press release online.

The original article appeared on Taylor Ad Notes »

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