Quantifying the impact of mall digital OOH

Dylan Mouratsing, global insight manager at Kinetic, on new research focusing on digital out of home media and how it can benefit advertisers.

The past two years in particular have seen us look increasingly closely at digital out of home media, with a view to quantifying how it differs from traditional OOH.  This new knowledge benefits our advertisers through creative guidelines as to what works and for who, as well as what kind of engagement we can expect to occur.

In 2009, we led an innovative eye-tracking project to quantify the benefits of digital outdoor media.  We looked at a rail station digital screen alongside an equivalent paper site, using cameras to detect eyes-on attention. In combination with footfall data, we were able to establish coverage and engagement times, as well as discover the impact different kinds of animation makes.  We kept a close eye on this avenue of research, as development was fast.

In January and February 2010 we worked in partnership with the Fraunhofer Institut and Clear Channel Outdoor to update the method.  We placed a camera on a shopping mall screen, which was able to recognise the whole face rather than just eyes.  We selected Westfield Tunbridge Wells as it was a typical modern shopping environment.

For the first time, this offered age, gender and expression mood estimates.  In total, we gathered 21 days of data.  We were particularly interested in the interplay between these factors:

• Footfall and contacts
• Animation
• Demographics
• Mood (expression)
• Engagement

The first notable finding was that ad contacts were correlated to footfall, indicating there was a general predisposition to see the panel, contrasting to the 2009 rail study.  People’s relaxed mindsets at the weekend led them to be more disposed to advertising in both environments, but the busiest rush hour periods in the rail station led to shorter exposure duration.  In shopping malls, the busiest periods led to longer contact duration as people were in “leisure mode” and were open to distractions.  This proved how crucial mindset can be to planning digital out of home campaigns.

Weekend contact duration per shopper was three times that of during the week, indicating that mindset appears to dictate media consumption behaviour as well as initial contacts.  However, even during the week average contact duration was well above the POSTAR definition of a conscious engagement (a quarter of a second or above).  Overall, we recorded around one million seconds of ad exposure per week, or around 16,000 minutes.

Demographic Differences

We noticed 16-24s looked for the longest times, at an average of 2.4 seconds per individual contact, while over 45s looked half as long, for only around 1.2 seconds on average.

Dividing people by gender, we saw similar duration patterns overall, with a couple of exceptions.  On Thursdays, for example, women’s average contact duration was some 45% higher than men, while men looked for 35% longer than women on Saturdays.  This, perhaps, is explained by women treating late Thursday shopping as relaxing ‘me-time’, while men in the mall on Saturday might be more easily distracted and less task-oriented.

The Animation Effect

Across a range of advertisers (in financial services, perfumes and FMCG), animated copy captured up to +24% uplift over their static counterparts. Looking back to findings from our rail study, we found animation of basic digital copy increased attention by 28%, similar to our best mall uplift, albeit from a lower base.  We consistently see that after a degree of animation, additional movement had no additional impact upon attention and can actually impact performance negatively.

Interestingly, there appeared to be a relationship between age and animation engagement – over-55s tended to be a lot more likely to look at static copy in terms of glances we counted, being -17% less likely to look at animated copy than static.

Animation does not appear to significantly affect contacts throughout the week, but on Saturday high-motion ads worked better than static advertising.  Interestingly, this is reversed on Sunday, perhaps reflecting the pace of shopping trips over the weekend leading to shoppers being less alert to high motion.

Positive Mindset

We also uncovered some interesting facts based on mood expression – the detection software able to identify anyone looking at the panel with a happy, sad, impassive or alert face.

Overall, people appeared to be happiest when the mall was quieter, and less happy during peak periods.  And, perhaps as one would expect, women were more likely than men to display a happy expression while shopping in the mall.

Splitting this mood data by different artwork gave us a ‘ranking’ based on overall positivity.  We found that appealing imagery and ‘positive’ colours evoked more positive reaction than less appealing imagery or colours with ‘negative’ meaning.  For example, bright photos of food led to more positive reactions than images of someone doing grocery shopping.  Warm or inviting colours such as purple and green brought out more contented expressions than colours associated with warning or danger, such as red and orange.

Key Takeouts

1. Varying weekend and weekday copy appears to be critical in this type of environment, as is targetting low and high footfall times.  The length of time shoppers looked at advertising was markedly higher at the weekend compared to during the week, by a factor of three, so there appears to be an opportunity to tell a more detailed story about brands advertisers at the weekend.  Weekday copy should therefore be briefer and more impactful.
2. Demographically, men look for longer on Monday and Saturday, women on Wednesday and Thursday.  Men were slightly more engaged by animated copy than women.  Younger people look for up to twice as long as older shoppers, and youths appear more likely to look at animated ads.
3. Limited animation appears to be more engaging than full video, and the best treatment gained up to +24% contacts versus its static equivalent. Even a scrolling transition between advertisements provided a few percentage points increase.

What’s Next

We are keen to apply this innovative technology to more out of home environments, and also contrast the British consumer with those in other countries.