Market Summary - Outdoor

At a Glance

Hot Topics

2010 – year for recovery?
IPM are forecasting that revenue will be up by 5% in 2010. Following a sharp decline in Quarters 1, 2 & 3 last year, revenue fell by only 5% in Q4 with some periods being almost sold out. Early indicators suggest that Q1 2010 will be stronger with cars and financials especially making a comeback.

The growth of digital
Following an understandable slow down in investment in 2009, we expect media owners to pick up where they left off in 2008. Digital formats are now commonplace in transit and mall environments in particular, and can be bought by day part and for shorter posting cycles. This makes Outdoor a much more flexible medium, and in a position to compete with the shorter lead times of press and TV.

Media Owners

Following the announcement that Titan were selling their roadside estate to Primesight in September last year, the rest of the business was taken over by JC Decaux in January 2010. The deal gives JC Decaux control of the majority of rail media, and increases their shopping mall inventory.

What is it?

How does it work?

How do we plan Outdoor?
At ipm we use POSTAR to target 32 different audience groups, and we use Optimum, our bespoke planning tool, to plan the right panel weights and distribution to reach your audience in the most cost efficient way. We also have Censys, the most sophisticated mapping tool of its kind, which enables us to map audiences using Mosaic and TGI data, and to buy sites in proximity to particular locations.

How do we buy Outdoor?
As with our planning, each campaign is bespoke and bought to strict targeting and distribution criteria. To ensure that we extract the best value we have three tools: WOW helps us monitor market trends, what quality is available to us, and what a client’s competitors have been buying. Tracker tracks rates and enables us to forecast and predict trends based on previous years’ expenditure. Market Monitor provides live market availability. Add the expert knowledge of our buyers and you have a system that tells us the optimum time to buy where price meets quality.
We also employ a field force whose job it is to buy regional campaigns, reinforce the buying of national campaigns with their own regional expertise, and to survey new and existing sites. The field act as our eyes and ears on all things outdoor.

How is Outdoor measured ?
Outdoor is measured using POSTAR. POSTAR measures the audience characteristics of each panel and provides a netted down OTS across 32 different audience groups. POSTAR II is due for release in 2010, and will give better audience data, and include new environments such as malls and transport. POSTAR provides a quantitative measure by giving a VAC panel score in the form of eyeball contacts per week and campaign.

Key Features & Benefits

Key Audience Strengths