COVID LEADS TO UPLIFT IN MOTORWAY TRAVEL

More than a quarter of people now use UK motorways more often for long distance journeys, new research shows.

The brand new ‘Drive Panel’ research by Admedia, the leading UK Outdoor media owner, found that an additional 28% of people who previously used other modes of transport for long journeys are now choosing to travel by motorway due to Covid-related concerns.

“Having seen a recent surge in Motorway traffic, our advertisers were keen to uncover specifically why this was,” says Phil Daniel, Admedia’s Managing Director Sales and Marketing. “Through our 1,500-person strong independent ‘Drive Panel’ of UK motorists, we were able to investigate consumer confidence surrounding personal mobility and automotive purchasing.”

The Admedia research has been made in direct collaboration with Audi, Citroen and Honda to provide critical insight to leaders in the automotive industry.

When it comes to the car buying process, the research returns a positive picture for the coming months. 75% of those who postponed buying a car for reasons related to Covid are once again looking to buy a vehicle soon.

The research also provides additional focus on automotive topics including decision making, alternative fuel vehicles and online purchase.

Admedia offer advertisers the chance to reach thriving levels of UK motorists thanks to their range of media formats across all of the UK’s Motorway Services Areas.

VISITOR NUMBERS AT MOTORWAY SERVICES OVERTAKE PRE-COVID LEVELS

New data has shown that visitor numbers to UK Motorway Service Areas have now risen above pre-Covid levels.

Admedia, the leading UK Outdoor media owner, with exclusive formats across all of the UK’s Motorway Services Areas (MSAs), has been monitoring thriving motorway traffic levels from a wide range of sources, with credible data pointing to this continuing for the rest of the year and into 2021.

Ian Webber, Admedia’s Head of Automotive Sales believes these increased footfall numbers offer great targeted value to the UK’s automotive industry: “Admedia’s motorway locations have always been able to reach a high proportion of UK’s motorists and these footfall numbers show that we can offer outstanding value in the current market”.

R. Chamberlain, Director, Fiat Commercial Vehicles said: “There is great value to us in knowing the nation’s motorway service stations are thriving at the moment. It’s reassuring to know that both business and leisure travel is showing strong signs of recovery and that personal mobility is seen as a way forward today”

Lee Biggins, founder and CEO of CV-Library, “We recently chose to advertise in Motorway Service Areas because they are essential to the work routines of many UK professionals; particularly SMEs. With most SMEs being based outside of London, the news of increased traffic to Motorway Service Areas is definitely a positive sign that we are slowly heading towards a recovery.”

The data has been taken from a more in depth report on recent Outdoor advertising audiences by leading poster specialist, Kinetic. As part of their ‘Kinetic Journeys’ mobile analysis in conjunction with Adsquare, the report cites Motorway Services as the only environments where visitor footfall has returned to and surpassed the 100% pre-Covid norm. Specifically, traffic there has risen to 108% of pre-Covid levels, while the average UK mobility figure currently stands at 78%.

Admedia plan to combine this insight with results from their upcoming survey of UK motorists, the industry-leading ‘Drive Panel’. With questions investigating current consumer confidence supplemented by manufacturers such as Audi, Citroen and Honda, the responses are set to reveal the current mindset and motivations of UK car buyers. This market-leading research will be released in the coming weeks.

ADMEDIA ANNOUNCES DAX LAUNCH PARTNERSHIP

Admedia, the leading Out Of Home media owner, today announced that it will be a launch partner of DAX, Global’s digital audio advertising product, from February 2020.

This latest move gives advertisers the ability to buy Admedia’s digital outdoor campaigns through demand side platforms (DSP), as they are already able to do with other programmatic media such as audio and video.

Demand side platform (DSP) launch partners include The Trade Desk, Vistar, Mediamath and Hivestack, with more to be announced in the coming months.

This move gives advertisers access to Admedia’s digital outdoor inventory on a programmatic platform, where they can also integrate their programmatic audio and outdoor buying in areas such as geo location targeting.

By joining DAX, Admedia will bring its inventory to a platform that already represents 238 publisher brands within the audio sector, including ITV, Sky and Telegraph Media Group.

Phil Daniel, MD Sales and Marketing, Admedia

“We are thrilled to be a launch partner of DAX. We feel they are in an ideal position to harness the incredible potential of our Motorway Service Area Nexus screens to deliver targeted and relevant audiences in a unique mindset in the most dynamic and efficient way.”

Electrifying the Insurance Market

In the summer of this year, Admedia unveiled its Alternative Fuel Research, a project that provided thought-provoking insights into the electric and hybrid vehicle market. As part of the research process, we used our A3 Washroom Panels at Motorway Services to recruit hundreds of consumers who were willing to give their valued opinions about the alternative fuel models they either owned or were considering.

Subsequently, this pool of respondents has continued to grow and now numbers over 900 people. With this fantastic resource at our fingertips, we were able to create a new panel – the Electric Drive Panel – which sits beside our existing Drive Panel and enables us to explore the specific intricacies of the electric and hybrid car market in much greater detail.

This month was the turn of Insurance for electric vehicles. As a new market, there was very little existing information as to whether it differed substantially from the insurance market for non-electric vehicles. The Electric Drive Panel therefore allowed us to go to our respondents and uncover new insights.

For example, what we found was that there are certain EV-only features that are important to owners when they are buying a policy, such as being offered an electric-only hire car when their own EV is off the road.

We also discovered that EV owners are also more likely to actively shop around for better insurance deals than petrol/diesel owners, and are highly likely to switch providers in the next 12 months.

Finally, a huge 68% of them agree that advertising electric car insurance at Motorway Services is appropriate – Admedia has a wide range of formats at 136 locations with which to connect to the rapidly growing number of EV owners hitting roads around the country.

If you would like more information on the EV Insurance research, or the Electric Drive Panel in general, please enquire here.

Out of Home reports strong growth of +9.8% in the third quarter of 2019.

Outsmart, the trade body for the Out of Home (OOH) industry, has announced that Out of Home revenue reported for the quarter July to September 2019 saw the total market grow by +9.8% year-on-year from £300 million in Q3 2018 to £330 million in Q3 2019.

The report, conducted by PwC, reveals that Digital Out of Home saw growth of +17.1% in Q3, comparable to Q2 (+17.2%) and stronger than Q1 2019 (+11%). Digital’s share of total Q3 revenue was 54%.
Classic Out of Home also saw growth in Q3 (+2.4%), slightly up on Q2 (+2.3%).

New data released by Route shows the continued investment in digital screens is fuelling reach. Digital Out of Home is now seen by 69% of the adult population each week. The reach of Classic Out of Home has little room to grow, with 98% seeing a poster advertisement each week, a number that has been stable for the past few years.

Justin Cochrane, Chair of Outsmart, comments that “These strong results show Out of Home’s mix of digital and classic formats are trusted by advertisers to deliver both efficient planning and massive reach, with fantastic creative opportunities that build brands.”

Visit the Outsmart website to download a detailed breakdown of OOH revenue figures.

Latest Drive Panel reveals insights into the Christmas traveller

We don’t like to talk about the ‘C’ word before we’ve even reached October half-term, but Christmas is only a couple of months away and that means that the roads will be busy – really busy!

The festive period will see leisure travellers in their millions driving to see family and friends, or heading off on a break, all on top of existing commuter and work traffic. Rail companies also schedule engineering works at this time of year, which compounds the issue by forcing huge numbers of people away from trains and into cars.

In fact, Friday 21^st December last year was dubbed ‘Frantic Friday’, as an estimated 59% of UK drivers hit main roads on that day alone!

This means that Motorway Services will be super busy, as 80% of festive motorway travellers will stop at one. To tap into this audience, we used our latest Drive Panel research, drawing from a database of 600 motorists, to take a more detailed look at the behaviour and interests of those on the road at Christmas.

In terms of when they expect to make their main Christmas trip, only 19% of people will head off either on or before the 21^st December this year. Instead, traffic should start to pick up on Sunday 22^nd December, with 59% on the roads between then and Christmas Eve. Frantic Friday this year will arrive after Boxing Day, as a third of our respondents expect to come home on the 27^th.

The research also revealed that the average drive time to a main Christmas break is a lengthy 2hrs 37 minutes. Long drives such as these, over a third of which will be with children, can be nerve-wracking and exhausting, before we add in the extra worry caused by raised traffic levels and driving safely in the wintry conditions. Therefore it’s little wonder that festive drives make 36% of our travellers more stressed.

However, 68% feel more relaxed during a stop at a Motorway Services. While visitors take this opportunity for a washroom break, a stretch of the legs and a bite to eat, they are in a better mindset to take in the advertising at every stage of the journey through the Services.

Firstly, this is an audience that loves entertainment – they stream and download in their droves and go to the cinema more regularly than the average adult. Additionally, 60% carry technology such as Kindles and laptops in their cars on long drives, and 81% say that receiving information and downloads during a long journey would appeal to them and their family – meaning that advertising movies, music, TV and the like at Motorway Services makes great sense.

To this end, Admedia’s network of fifty Nexus digital 48 sheets offer full-motion to show off the latest Christmas movie and TV trailers, a technology that has been used by top entertainment advertisers including Fox and Sky.

Time away from the screen is also important to keep the family entertained. A massive 81% of Christmas travellers at Motorway Services do not have a set list of activities before they head off, while 44% are influenced by advertising when looking for Christmas activity ideas. We’ve worked with leisure and tourism advertisers such as Blue Planet Aquarium, English Heritage and the National Trust using a full range of advertising formats, from Nexus to 6 Sheets and A3 Washroom Panels that offer 100% gender targeting and interactivity thanks to being situated in a high dwell-time, high footfall environment.

Finally, 80% of our Drive Panel respondents who smoke or vape agreed that Motorway Services provide a natural opportunity to take a smoking/vaping break – revealing another audience with time to take in not just our external Nexus and 6 Sheet advertising for a variety of categories, but also the latest vaping products from brands such as Blu, 88Vape and Vype.

To take advantage of the huge increases in traffic over the Christmas period, and for the full research study or further information on our Drive Panel, please contact us here.

The Motorway Services Ad-van-tage

At all times of the year, our country relies on a small army of people working hard to get things built, fixed and delivered.

Spending a lot of time on the road is part and parcel of their jobs, and that’s why a wide variety of vans and trucks can always be seen in the car parks of Motorway Services around Britain. In fact, YouGov tells us that 71% of van owners/drivers use Motorway Services, and they are 25% more likely than the average person to do so.

Therefore, we took the opportunity to use our monthly bespoke Drive Panel research to find out a little more about the van drivers and owners who frequent our Services on a regular basis.

Doing all that mileage can wear a van out, so these folks are often in the market for a replacement. Over a quarter of van drivers we spoke to were considering purchasing a van in the next 12 months, with 92% of those buyers interested in buying a brand new vehicle.

Looking at alternative fuel vans, 56% of our owner/drivers were interested in hybrid and electric vehicles, over a third of whom would be influenced to buy electric if they were offered a scrappage deal on their existing model.

Our research didn’t concentrate solely on van buying, however. We also took the opportunity to ask what van drivers worry about most, and the poor condition of roads was the biggest bugbear, ahead of a lack of parking and having their tools stolen. On the subject of van security, 53% informed us that they would consider upgrading their van alarm, while half of drivers would also consider upgraded deadlocks or slamlocks.

To take their mind off of potholes and parking spaces, van drivers need snacks to keep themselves going! Nearly a quarter of those we surveyed buy snacks at least daily, while 13% of those who visit Motorway Services as part of their job say they snack several times a day.

So they’re looking to update their vans, possibly to alternative fuels, they need extra security for their vehicle and tools, and they love to snack. They also agreed that many other products and services aimed at them, such as van insurance, telematics and trade/building stores, are appropriate to be advertised at Motorway Services.

With that in mind, Admedia offer plenty of advertising solutions to capture this hard-working audience during their long stops at 136 Motorway Services across the country.

Our full-motion Nexus screens with dynamic activation have been used to great effect by many van manufacturers such as Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles and Fiat Professional.

Admedia’s 1,300-strong network of 6 Sheets can be seen at every major pedestrian and vehicular pathway on the journey through the Motorway Services site, while these can be backed up by our unmissable  A3 Washroom Panels that can provide additional information and interactivity in a high dwell-time environment.

As well as display advertising, Admedia also offer experiential options to brands looking to display new models or ranges directly to the most appropriate end user.

For further information about display and experiential van advertising, or the Drive Panel, please contact us here.

Sources: YouGov Profiles /Admedia Drive Panel August

Out of Home continues its rapid growth

In a new report from the Out of Home (OOH) industry trade body Outsmart, the OOH advertising market has grown by a hugely impressive 9.4% in Q2 2019 compared to the same period last year, to a total of £310 million. Additionally, January-June 2019 generated a total revenue of £596 million, up by an excellent 8.2% on the first six months of 2018

Outsmart conducted the report in conjunction with PwC, and it further revealed that Digital Out of Home is also rocketing with a 17.2% increase in Q2 2019 on Q2 2018.

The latest Route data further emphasises the growth of Digital Out of Home, showing that it reaches 68% of all adults every week, a figure that has increased by a massive 36% in the last 12 months. Out of Home, according to Route, now reaches 98% of all adults every week.

As the Chair of Outsmart, Justin Cochrane comments: “These fantastic results demonstrate advertisers trust Out of Home because of its reach, creativity, flexible planning, accountability and effectiveness.”

Admedia has a range of Out of Home advertising formats in Motorway Service Stations across the nation. For example, our Nexus Digital 48 Sheet network exemplifies the qualities of Digital Out of Home, offering dynamic activation, flexible dayparting and full accountability.

For further information on Nexus or any of our other formats, contact us here.

Admedia’s ground-breaking Alternative Fuel Vehicle Research will electrify the EV market

Admedia, the leading provider of advertising solutions across the UK’s Motorway Services network, has released its brand new Alternative Fuel Vehicle research.

The research unearths vital and thought-provoking insights into the UK electric and hybrid vehicle market. An impressive 28% of car and van owners are considering an electric or hybrid model as their next vehicle. Hybrid is perceived as the stepping stone into converting to an Alternative Fuel Vehicle, with 25% of Hybrid owners saying their next car will be pure electric.

Admedia conducted the ground-breaking research to investigate how the market for Alternative Fuel Vehicles can be accelerated to match ambitious Government targets that aim to reduce emissions from petrol and diesel-powered vehicles. 

The research study was commissioned by Admedia, with input from leading automotive manufacturers including VW, BMW, Kia, Mercedes Benz, Mazda and the PSA Group. 

The study uncovers key adoption behaviours, attitudes and trends that are crucial to the success of the Government’s green plan. 

Based on over 2,500 face-to-face and online interviews with consumers and commercial buyers, it uncovers crucial motivators and identifies four major concerns that unnecessarily stifle Alternative Fuel Adoption. These issues are leading to buyers taking considerably longer to make a decision about whether to purchase an electric or hybrid vehicle and which model to buy. 

The research identifies clear areas of focus that will allow automotive manufacturers to help overcome these obstacles and fast track Alternative Fuel Vehicle uptake.  

Cathryn Hancock, Head of Media, PSA Group (Peugeot, Citroen & DS)

“PSA Group (Peugeot, Citroen & DS) are really excited to have helped shape this research study as it is crucial for understanding the motivators and challenges for increasing Alternative Fuel Vehicle adoption. Having limited insight available in the market previously, this study has uncovered some key insights that have helped us understand the automotive market and will aid in accelerating the transition from fuel to electric and hybrid vehicles.”  

Phil Daniel, Managing Director Sales & Marketing, Admedia, comments;

“We are thrilled to be able to bring this new insight into the market. As leaders in automotive advertising, we have listened to the manufacturers’ challenges of understanding consumer resistance to Alternative Fuel Vehicle adoption and have established a clear path on how to overcome these, helping the industry lead the way in reducing carbon emissions as we head for a greener future.”

The research is now available upon request from Admedia, contact Ian Webber for more information – ianwebber@admedia.co.uk