Top 14 Statistics for Outdoor Advertising In London

21st January, 2009

As you would expect, we are always keeping an eye out for the best possible media for our clients and I was interested to receive some information from one of our key outdoor media providers which I thought I should share:

Increasing journeys and length
• Passenger journeys on the Tube have increased year on year from 1.04bn to 1.1bn, an increase of 5.4%. (TfL)
• According to latest Department of Transport data the average bus in the UK travels 4.4% more than in 2007.
• The average total time spent travelling in any weekday is 1hr 24mins, in London this figure rises to 1hr 56 mins, increases of 3% and 5% respectively. (Touchpoints1 &2)

Engagement
• According to TGI more people are seeing Outdoor advertising than ever before with a 3% year on year increase in the number of people seeing advertising in the past week (43.2m).
• This increase is primarily driven by transport media with an increase of 9.5% in people noticing bus advertising (30.3m) and 6.9% more people noticing advertising at rail stations (8.1m). A massive 15.4% more Londoners noticed Tube advertising in the last week (3m).
(TGI 2008 v 2007)

Welcomed
• 87% of commuters welcome Tube advertising as it provides a welcome distraction during their journey (The London Commuter)
• 79% of consumers welcome Bus advertising. (Consumers on the Move)

High-end Audience
• 77% of Tube travellers are ABC1 - considerably higher than the audience of TV, radio or roadside
• 66% of the London Bus audience are ABC1.
• 67% of people noticing advertising in rail stations are ABC1.
(TGI 2008)

Acted on
• 79% of commuters have been somewhere, bought something or looked something up as a direct result of Tube advertising (NFO)
• 80% of people have responded to a bus ad. (The Road to Enlightenment)

Dwell Time
The Tube is a high dwell environment – with people waiting on average for 3 minutes on the platform. Sites such as Underground 48 Sheets have an ad recall rate that is 6 times higher than low dwell environments (Total Recall)

Inner London Dominance
• 4 out of every 5 tube journeys starts or ends in Zone 1 (Postar, TfL)

Sometimes it pays to take your marketing messages beyond your usual media comfort zone. Outdoor advertising need not only be for the national brands but a well placed ad in the right location can do wonders for smaller businesses too.

Jason Edge