SPR+ will soon measure all Swiss poster sites

Since the end of 2006, APG|SGA subsidiary SPR+ has been providing the outdoor advertising market with visibility-weighted contact and reach values for F200, F12, and F24 billboards on roads - across all providers. This street study is based on the routes taken by 10,000 people throughout Switzerland in the twelve largest conurbations during a week, recorded using GPS devices. Based on this data and modeling, the performance values in the 43 remaining agglomerations were then determined. In 2009, the station study was added, which also shows the media performance for the billboards in 392 stations, i.e., where the GPS devices cannot record routes due to lack of reception (see WW 34/09 or www.werbewoche.ch/zeitung/ sprstation-study-shows-the-reality-aware-cautiously).

Poster still presents itself weaker than it is

However, one problem always remained: In the agglos, only test persons were used who also lived there (e.g. Berner in Bern). In addition, only those distances covered in the residential agglos were of interest; the distances outside the agglos were not representative enough. In other words: the approximately 55,000 Swiss poster sites actually achieve higher performance values; SPR+ currently only represents the "guaranteed minimum".

But now SPR+ has developed a model that can also be used to calculate performance data for areas in the countryside and, for agglo areas, the contacts of transit passengers and commuters. The model is called MobNat (Mobility Post-Survey and National Model), was tested in 2010 in Eastern Switzerland with a pilot study and methodologically approved by the Research Advisory Council of SPR+ in March. In addition to APG|SGA and Clear Channel Switzerland (CCS), this committee also includes scientists, advertisers and media agencies. MobNat is now being implemented - in 2014, it should then provide complete contact and reach data for all street and station spaces in Switzerland.

One million road segments

MobNat works in a similar way to the station study: Whereas a route model was created for each station, showing all the possible turns (nodes) and route segments, this is now being done for the whole of Switzerland. "In total, you come up with just under a million road segments," says SPR+ managing director Felix Mende. As in the train stations, frequency counts are now necessary at a few selected locations. However, while SPR+ had these carried out in the stations themselves, MobNat uses around 4,000 public frequency measurements from the federal government, cantons and municipalities. This also includes automated counts at traffic lights or radar installations, which provide figures throughout the year. However, since they do not record pedestrians, SPR+ itself has to carry out a similar number of manual frequency measurements. According to Mende, however, four times ten minutes per location, at different times and on different days, is sufficient for this.

Highly complex data mix

However, it is not possible to distinguish between the counted persons according to place of residence, gender or age. That's why the frequencies have to be linked with data from the census and the microcensus study. For the latter, a total of 63,000 people were asked in 2010 about the distances and destinations they had traveled the previous day. All of this information is finally combined with GPS data from the SPR+ agglomeration studies in a sophisticated process developed by the German Fraunhofer Institute. Even if this mix of data from different sources is hardly comprehensible for laypersons: In this way, the weekly routes traveled are determined for virtually every person living in Switzerland. Because it is also known where the individual billboards are located, it is possible to deduce which person comes into contact with which billboard and how often. From this, in turn, the media performance of any given poster site can be calculated.

Combinable with mobile data

"MobNat is designed in such a way that changes in traffic routing or the number of billboards can be incorporated at any time," says Mende. Even if digital posters are introduced one day, for example showing different subjects during rush hour than during the day, the company is prepared. "We could then, for example, obtain anonymized, but second-by-second location data from mobile communications or navigation devices and feed it in, if that would be useful," says Mende.

Markus Knöpfli

Clear Channel joins in again

According to Felix Mende, the MobNat project costs "a mid-single-digit million amount. CCS, which withdrew from joint poster research with competitor Affichage in 2005, has also recently started to contribute to these costs again. The agreement between SPR+ and CCS was also made possible by a change in leadership at Affichage and CCS in 2010. However, CCS will continue to pay nothing to SPR+ research to date. (mk)

Felix Mende, Managing Director Swiss Poster Research Plus AG.