DPAA Study: Continued Shift to Digital Signage Networks

  • A new survey of agency media planners conducted by the Digital Place Based Advertising Association (DPAA) reveals a continuing shift of digital and online budgets into digital place based (DPB) media.
  • Just under 46% of planners said they will fund their DPB media plans through digital and online budgets, an increase of 10.6% over 2013 and14.5% over 2012.
  • Planners were asked: “When considering DPB media for inclusion in your media plan(s), from which media would you fund the buy?” The top five most frequently cited in the 2014 survey were:
  • Outdoor: 57.7%
  • Digital/Online: 45.9%
  • National/Local Television: 32.7%
  • Experimental/Test 24.9%
  • Mobile22.4%
  • One explanation for the increasing reliance on digital and online budgets for DPB media can be found in responses to the question: “How concerned are you about online/digital ad fraud and viewability issues?" The response:
  • Highly concerned: 42.8%
  • Somewhat concerned: 52.2%
  • Not concerned at all: 5.0%
  • "With 95% of planners saying that have concerns about online ad fraud and viewability, it's not surprising to find they are looking for other, more impactful video media vehicles to reach target audiences,” said Barry Frey, president and chief executive officer, DPAA. “Digital place based media is a natural beneficiary of this trend because of its ability to reach on-the-go consumers with relevant, compelling content. All DPB advertisers appear on omnipresent screens and ‘above the fold' for the full length of their commercials. We fully expect the shifting of budgets from online and digital into DPB to continue into the foreseeable future."
  • When asked their top reasons for including dpb in their media plans, planners cited these top five benefits:
  • Reach a demographic target: 58.7%
  • Connect with consumers on the path to purchase: 51.4%
  • Geo-targeting by DMA: 43.5%
  • Target consumers by contextual relevance: 41.3%
  • Geo-targeting hyper-locally: 31.2%

The survey underscored the wide range of tools available to planners to evaluate dpb media. Planners identified ten syndicated tools they are using to evaluate dpb media. The five most often cited tools were:

Nielsen: 55.7%
GfK MRI: 53.4%
ComScore: 49.6%
Experian Simmons: 40.0%
Scarborough Research: 35.6%

Others mentioned included IMS, Ipsos/Mendelsohn Affluent, Telmar, JD Power AMMR and NewMediaMetrics.

The survey was conducted online from June 30-July 25, 2014 by the DPAA among approximately 2,000 media professionals employed at full-service and media service agencies around the country. Response rate was 16.8%.

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