The Easter Bank Holiday weekend would most likely have had you spending time with family, a bit of DIY and perhaps even getting the BBQ out for the first time. It’s what we do this time of year as our leisure time becomes more valuable. The roads were busy and the trains – with four lines out of London unceremoniously shut – traditionally crowded because people want to use them.
A new data initiative between Talon and Amscreen tells us we are 20% more active and mobile on Bank Holiday getaway days alone. Proprietary data is becoming more crucial in complementing existing media measurement outputs and we’re seeing this play out increasingly in our Out of Home planning. Route, smartphone data and wider access to media owner data 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, ONS 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 founded on the integration of data and technology from its in-built OptimEyes camera technology. Talon has partnered with Amscreen and seized the opportunity to interrogate and unlock thousands of data points to quantify people’s behaviours around key events and moments. We have analysed horse racing, football, rugby and cricket events; festivals around the UK; and longer events, including the Tour de France, Commonwealth Games and Wimbledon tennis. The data reflects in-store audiences but those who are very much on the move and out and about. Like many other sources, 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 but an interesting counter to the perception that Out of Home is all about commuter volumes).
Behaviour is changing and there is clearly an active and mobile audience presence in the middle of the day. 83% of all screens showed an uplift in interactions during any Bank Holiday. Audiences were up 10% across the whole Easter weekend but as much as 24% last Thursday – a nation doing the groundwork for a proper weekend off. This is a timely 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. And we’re not just stranded in motorway tailbacks. In a similar vein, summer audiences are notably higher, as they are for one-off sporting events (+21% for cup finals and a whopping +40% for the Epsom Derby) in those locations, at music festival locations on Thursdays, Fridays and Mondays (+12%), and 6-7% increases for prolonged events like Wimbledon. This means there are real opportunities to use broadcast and digital OOH to reach audiences by location around events and seasonal moments.
Out of Home clients embraced the opportunity around the Easter Weekend; Google (sending dynamic messaging around weather and leisure-based ideas around Old Street), Historic Royal Palaces attracting additional visitors to Hampton Court or Virgin Trains East Coast attracting visitors to one of the few open lines out of London 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. And with the sun shining this week, no doubt you will be out enjoying yourself and spending some money; so will your brands’ audiences.