Using Bluetooth to Measure Audience Reach of Outdoor Ads

Summary

Good news for out-of-home advertisers: A method using Bluetooth technology measures important details that up until recently were available only for television advertising. With it, market researchers can estimate the frequency of exposure and level of unduplicated reach for outdoor advertising, while media buyers and campaign managers can examine their targeted audiences more thoroughly.

Specifically, with this method practitioners can:

• Compare locations for outdoor and ambient advertising (placing ads on unusual items or places) more objectively, based on measured rates of duplication.
• Decide how long an ad should be run at the same site, based on the measured efficiency of each spot.

The study has far-reaching implications, according to the research team:

• “Bluetooth data collection can be used to approximate the total reach of an outdoor advertisement and could be extended to be measured across multiple sites to determine the reach for a whole campaign. This allows for a noninvasive, anonymous, and real-time data-collection approach.”
• “An advertiser now can determine the average number of exposures for each respondent and the proportion of repeated exposures for a particular advertisement over a period of time. Practitioners can make informed decisions about the optimum duration of a campaign.”

Previously, practitioners have had to rely on their own managerial judgment to do these types of assessments, rather than on empirical data. “Even if all spots are not measured in the way,” the authors wrote, “a sample of passersby, such as that provided by this method, can be used to improve or augment existing measures.”