Easter sun shines light on hot outdoor sector

Unlocking Insights: Active Bank Holiday Audiences Revealed

The Easter bank holiday weekend would most likely have had you spending time with family, a bit of DIY and perhaps even getting the barbecue out for the first time. It’s what we do this time of year as our leisure time becomes more valuable. The roads are busy and the trains traditionally crowded. A new data initiative between Talon and Amscreen tells us that we are 20 per cent more active and mobile on bank holiday getaway days.

Proprietary data is becoming more crucial in complementing existing media measurement outputs and this is increasingly playing out in our out-of-home planning. The measurement system Route, smartphone data and wider access to media owner information are all providing more dynamic inputs linking contacts, behaviour and even sales.

Applying measurable and attributable contact data to planning can improve our insights and sit alongside the likes of Route, TGI, TouchPoints, Office for National Statistics and other proprietary data to help quantify the value we can get from reaching on-the-move audiences at the right times.

In 2014, Amscreen launched its Audience Assured Advertising approach using its in-built OptimEyes camera technology. Talon has partnered with Amscreen to unlock thousands of data points to quantify people’s behaviours around key events.

We have analysed horse-racing, football, rugby and cricket events; UK festivals; and longer events including the Tour de France, the Commonwealth Games and the Wimbledon tournament.

The data reflects an audience that is very much out and about. It tells us that audiences grow towards the end of the week as we spend and do more. Audiences also peak between 11am and 1pm for in-store engagements – an interesting counter to the perception that OOH is all about commuter volumes. There is clearly an active and mobile audience presence in the middle of the day.

Eighty-three per cent of all screens showed an uplift in interactions during any bank holiday.

Audiences were up 10 per cent across the Easter weekend but as much as 24 per cent on the Thursday preceding it – a nation doing the groundwork for a proper weekend off. This is a reminder of the value of these periods, where behaviour shifts reflect a more positive mood. We mobilise as a nation and getaway-day numbers are significant and consistent.

Similarly, summer audiences are notably higher. For sporting events, audiences are up 21-plus per cent for cup finals and 40-plus per cent for the Epsom Derby. They are up 12-plus per cent at music festival locations on Thursdays, Fridays and Mondays, and 6-7 per cent for longer events such as Wimbledon.

This means there are real opportunities to use broadcast and digital OOH to reach audiences by location.

OOH clients embraced the opportunity around the Easter weekend. Whether it is Google sending dynamic messaging with weather news and leisure ideas around Old Street, Historic Royal Palaces inviting visitors to Hampton Court or Virgin Trains East Coast attracting people to get out of London, they all targeted those incremental seasonal audiences.

Not all data does the job we want, but lifting the bonnet on some great solutions out there can extract and quantify value for advertisers seeking more relevant and context-led ideas around location and time of year.

If you missed out at Easter, other bank holidays are available. With the sunshine over the past week, no doubt you will be out enjoying yourself and spending some money. So will your brands’ audiences.