School’s Out: How OOH Meets Families Where They Play

It is no secret that the power of spending from families is enormous, with over 19.7 million families living in the UK, and with approximately 10.6 million children of school age it is not surprising that when the half term holidays arrive leisure and retail venues see an uptake in both visitors and spend. 

 

Keeping children occupied during the school holidays adds up quickly for parents and carers through things such as; days out, treats and technology. Estimated spending figures for entertaining children during school holidays is around £300 annually, with activities such as visiting theme parks, zoos or the cinema being high on the agenda for school break plans. 

 

During school holidays OOH remains one of the most effective ways to reach families with the ability for ads to be unskippable as well as being able to reach families when they are out of the home spending their time and money.

 

Families are often out of the home during the school holiday periods and OOH gives brands the opportunity to reach these key audiences in high traffic, high dwell areas when they are often in a receptive, spending mindset.

Looking specifically at the first half term break of the year, we have extracted data from our AdMobilize technology on our BOXPARK Wembley site to discover just how much audiences change during school holidays, and why these specific times represent a crucial time to reach family-focused audiences using OOH. 

 

As we expected to see within the data, audiences have increased by 14% from the week previous, demonstrating the key opportunity brands have in this time to target family focused audiences. The number of impressions stayed consistent throughout each day of the week, unlike term time weeks which usually see impression figures peak and trough during specific days and times of the midweek. Backing up these figures we also saw peak impressions during one day of the week rise to 70,950, a 6% increase from the week previous. 

 

As well as solely impression data, the AdMobilize technology can also detect the age of campaign viewers. The data from the school half term week on our BOXPARK Wembley site shows an increase in the amount of ‘young’ and ‘young adult’ viewers, demonstrating further the fact that families are out and about during the break.

While school holiday trends follow a predictable pattern, their value lies in the heightened receptivity of the family audience. During half term, families are likely to move from a functional routine into more of an experiential mindset, making them significantly more responsive to brand messaging. This shift creates an ideal window for family focused brands and campaigns to activate, capturing consumers exactly when they are most likely to be prepared to spend. 

 

To learn more about how to utilise OOH for your family-friendly campaign, please contact sales@openmedia.uk.com

Source: ONS, besa.org.uk, Billboard Media, AdMobilize