Men Have Highest Exposure to Outdoor Ads: Study

Nielsen Outdoor has come out with a rating system to determine exposure to outdoor ads and has found that men have the highest exposure to the medium.

The study found that exposure to outdoor advertising peaked ruing the morning commute at 8 a.m. and again during the evening commute at 5 p.m. Of all demographic groups, men ages 35-54 have the highest exposure to outdoor ads, with an average of 54 exposures per day. Among women, 18 to 34 year olds led the group with 39 exposures per day.

The results, confined to the Chicago market, also showed that the average adult is exposed to 40 outdoor ad messages each day, substantial below the number of messages seen by electronic media. Nielsen said that means less clutter and more opportunity for consumers to see and absorb advertising messages.

"By establishing a new audience measurement for the outdoor advertising marketplace, media planners will now be able to buy outdoor sites with the same confidence as TV, radio and prints, and the outdoor industry will be able to compete as an equal player for its share of advertising spend," said Lorraine Hadfield, managing director for Nielsen Outdoor, in a statement.

In most countries, outdoor accounts for less than 5% of total ad spend, with only about $18 billion committed each year worldwide, compared with $120 billion for TV, Nielsen Outdoor said.

The measure the exposure, Nielsen Outdoor, a unit of VNU, used portable Global Positioning System devices, carried by 850 random recruits to track travel patterns across a nine-day period throughout the Chicago market.

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