88% see outdoor ads in run-up to shopping
Research from the Outdoor Media Centre has found that in the run-up to shopping, 88% see outdoor ads, and 72% of shoppers can be swayed towards a product by outdoor advertising.
The research, commissioned through Helen Harrison Associates, looks as the 30 minutes before shopping as the ‘last window of influence’ for advertisers to place brand messages in front of consumers.
Shoppers answered questions about their mode of transport to the shopping venue, their shopping behaviours, and their likelihood to be influenced by advertising.
Using showcards, interviewers probed which media each shopper had been exposed to in the 30 minutes leading up to the start of their shopping experience. 40% of shoppers recalled seeing an outdoor advertisement. 8% of shoppers had heard a radio ad, 4% each had seen a TV or internet ad, 3% a newspaper ad and 2% a magazine ad. Of all the 274 respondents who said they had seen or heard an advertisement in the half hour preceding shopping, 88% had seen outdoor advertising.
Respondents were then asked whether seeing an outdoor ad for a brand in the run-up to shopping would be likely to make them more interested in finding out about the brand or buying it. 72% said they could be influenced in that way, indicating the importance of a recent advertising message as a means of nudging shoppers towards a purchase. Only 17% of shoppers stuck religiously to a pre-determined shopping list.
Mike Baker, CEO of the Outdoor Media Centre, said: “This is pretty definitive evidence that you can still influence shoppers as they head for the stores. There is indeed a last window of influence.
“We are not talking about point of sale advertising here, but the whole customer journey to the store itself, which begins the moment shoppers leave their homes or offices.”