Ipsos Gets Expanded UK Outdoor Industry Contract

In the UK, outdoor advertising audience research body Route has commissioned Ipsos Connect UK to undertake an expanded and renewed six-year research project, providing data to the outdoor industry until 2023. The new contract, funded by an injection of £20m, begins on 1st April 2017.

The current underwriters of Route include specialist media agencies Kinetic, Mediacom Outdoor, Posterscope and Rapport; and media owners Clear Channel Outdoor, Exterion Media, JCDecaux, Primesight and Talon Outdoor. Route produces audience estimates for out-of-home advertising, telling subscribers how many people see an ad campaign, as well as how often they do so. The audience can be broken down into many segments including age, class, lifestyle and shopping habits, and the resulting information is used as the currency for planning, trading and evaluating advertising investment.

So far, £18m has been invested in fieldwork. Over the six-year period, data will be collected from 43,200 people, each of whom will carry a bespoke multi-sensory tracking travel meter for fourteen days to reveal how people move in all public spaces. The new research project will include an increased sample of 7,200 per annum (currently 4,300); new standardised mapping for indoor venues; more data about each individual ad that is shown in a public space; and increased information about seasonal variance. Initial data from the expanded research will be available in Route 26, which will be released in Q1 of 2018.

Liz Landy, CEO of Ipsos Connect, says the new research is the largest ever GPS travel-survey in the UK. Route MD James Whitmore (pictured) adds: 'The increase in funding allows us to expand the research and keep pace with what is a vibrant and fast changing medium. We are delighted to be able to extend the precision with which we measure 'open sky' environments to incorporate indoor spaces such as the London Underground, shopping centres, railway stations, domestic airports and so on'.

Web sites: www.route.org.uk and www.ipsos.com .