Kinetic Explores Moods, Attentiveness Of Digital OOH Subway Audience

February 24, 2012 by Dave Haynes

The big UK OOH planning group Kinetic Worldwide has put out some research that explored the perceived mood and attentiveness to advertising of people using the underground rail system in Glasgow, Scotland.

Quoting Kinetic, the research found that “while contact numbers were highest during peak commuting hours, panels were more effective throughout the day as people engaged with the advertising for longer periods of time. Ticket hall locations provided the highest contact opportunities, as opposed to on platforms, as these face the flow of commuters and deliver an impactful experience to audiences in the combination of news content and advertising on the digital screens.”

The Glasgow Subway has an audience with a generally happy mindset, with city centre users displaying a particularly positive expression at weekends. As expected, quieter periods saw the highest mood scores. While fewer people directly engaged with cross-track advertising, these panels had more ‘alert’ audiences, with a skew towards women and older generations. The digital cross-track panels are situated at one end of the platform only.

The Partick rail/subway interchange saw females most attentive, while city centre location Buchanan Street had a younger audience with more men engaged, particularly on weekdays. When compared to Kinetic’s previous face-tracking research, the digital panels on the Glasgow Subway deliver a broader demographic and with commuters willing to engage, particularly at ticket hall locations, where the digital signage clearly stood out.

Nick Mawditt, Director of Insight and Marketing at Kinetic: “This latest example of face-tracking research in communications environments shows that Subway users are generally very attentive to the panels. Interchange ticket hall panels are particularly effective, demonstrating that people remain attentive whilst moving through these environments. The news content on these panels helps keep them relevant.

“We know much more about behaviour and impact in this and other transport and shopping environments, enabling us to plan communication in the right way according to the message and the communication objectives.

Mungo Knott, Insight Director at Primesight: “At Primesight we are focused on helping clients understand how effectively we can communicate their messages. This important study into the impact of our Primevision digital screens in the Glasgow Metro demonstrates impact, attention and emotion metrics across the diverse range of audiences reached. It proves the power of communication with a single panel delivering up to 580 contacts per hour, with individuals looking up to 6 times and consuming in a mainly happy and positive state of mind, making this a powerful communication platform.”

I’m not sure what disposition has to do with receptiveness to ads, but I also don’t spend my days thinking about  that stuff. Being mostly Scottish and having been to Glasgow several times and used the Strathclyde Partnership for Transport’s circular, teeny-car’d subway loop, the suggestion that Glaswegian commuters are, on balance, blinding rays of sunshine is kinda funny. Very cool city, but there’s no shortage of cranky people.

Primesight has put in quite a bit of digital there, using signagelive as the platform and Key Systems for ad management.

photo credit: Martin Deutsch via photopin cc

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