AdSpace says in-mall digital signage works

AdSpace has issued a release featuring the conclusions from several months of research revolving around their digital signage installations in 45 malls across the US. While the link on their site doesn't appear to work yet, Brandweek has a good summary featuring some of the findings. The study surveyed 400 people 13 and above, only at the Westfield Trumbull Shopping Center in Trumbull, Conn. Key findings include:

• 17% of women and 10% of the general mall population made a purchase based on sales items they saw promoted on the digital signage network during their trip to the mall.
• 75% of women noticed the screen while 52% of women ages 18-54 look at it.
• 36% of respondents recalled seeing an ad for Nintendo, while 23% recalled seeing an ad for Gold Toe socks.
• An average of 56% of respondents said they were more likely to go to malls with the Adscreen Mall Network because of the screen content.

It would appear that the type of product doesn't seem to have a large impact on recall. Low-cost, impulse buy products like socks have a good recall rate, even though we very infrequently see outside advertisements for Gold Toe. Nintendo, on the other hand, had an appreciably higher recall rate, but they're a darling brand right now, with significant cross-media advertising campaigns and frequent mention in everything from the New York Times to the Wall Street Journal.

Also, we don't have a lot of information about the methodology used to actually determine whether somebody made a purchase solely as the result of seeing an ad, versus somebody who may have already been primed to purchase and was encouraged by the ad. Since the results came from only one mall, it's safe to say that cross-mall promotion split tests were out of the question, and the Brandweek article seems to indicate that intra-mall split tests weren't used either, with the researchers instead trusting shopper interviews for their information.

While I'm always happy to see companies publishing numbers, AdSpace's modus operandi is obviously to sell ads, so self-supplied metrics about the power of their network are always suspect. That's not to say that I think AdSpace is lying -- in fact, I think mall-based advertising can be quite powerful when used properly -- but without some additional context, and more importantly without properly executed controlled experiments to build real credibility into the metrics, I don't think outside companies can safely draw conclusions of any sort based on the supplied information.

Maybe next time :)

Tags: digital signage, mall advertising, out-of-home advertising, AdSpace