Frequently Asked Questions
What do the numbers in Outdoor Impact 2.0 show?
Outdoor Impact is a calculation and planning tool, i.e. the system provides you as a user with data showing the expected reach and frequency as well as the total number of contacts (VAC, visibility adjusted contacts) that your campaign is expected to receive. The figures, in addition to showing the entire population, can be broken down into different samples such as e.g. geography, age, gender, income.
Reach is the count of unique people in a particular market exposed at least once to an OOH frame(s) over a specific period of time. Reach percentage reflects the portion of the target population exposed to an OOH panel. Reach % is calculated as Reach count / Target population count x 100%.
Frequency is the average number of times that an individual reached is exposed to the OOH frame(s) in a specific period of time.
What „currency“ helps measure the audience we reach with outdoor campaign?
– VA, Visibility adjustment. Evaluated advertising panel visibility based on factors such as size, location, distance, and type of object.
– ROTS, Realistic Opportunity To See. Evaluated contacts based on the possibilities to see the advertising frame, where aspects such as where and how fast one moves, distance to the object and the display length/share of time for video on digital screens are included in the calculation.
– VAC, Visibility Adjusted Contact. VAC is evaluated contacts for each individual frame based on the combination of VA (visibility adjustment) and ROTS (realistic opportunity to see). To summarize, the VA information about each advertising frame together with the traffic flow figures and ROTS calculation gives the VAC for each advertising frame.
The travel habit studies mean that we can break down the VAC figures into different target groups and calculate reach and frequency for them.
What is the difference between VACs for digital displays and for static advertising posters?
There are three different main types of advertising objects in outdoor media: static frames, scrolling frames, and digital screens. On static frames, it is the same advertisement for an entire period (usually a week). A scrolling frame has a mechanism that enables several different advertising posters to be shown in a sequence. Digital screens work just like a TV monitor and show shorter films in a loop. The most common models for this are for videos of 10 seconds long and rotated in a loop with different shares of time.
When calculating VAC, digital screens get higher values than static frames, because many studies, e.g. by measuring eye movements, show that the movement in a video creates higher attention of the recipient than a static frame does. On the other hand, the VAC value of a digital screen must be distributed between the various advertising videos being shown, since a passer-by normally has time to pass the screen before the entire loop of commercials has finished showing. The starting point then becomes the advertising share (SOT, share of time) that the content represents. The two most common formats are advertising films with a SOT of 8.33% and 16.66% respectively.
How do you know how many people see outdoor advertising?
There are three main bases that together provide the opportunity to make an overall calculation of the contact volumes for outdoor advertising:
Data on each advertising object. Data on ~ 6000 frames from the largest Baltic cities in the system. Validated information about location, direction, size, surroundings, and proximity to different traffic flows for each object. It is used to calculate the conditions and how well the advertising is seen. For each object, a calculation model is created that shows how visible the advertisement is based on where the recipient (audience) is located.
Traffic flows. A large number of traffic flows for different types of traffic: cars, cyclists, public transport, and pedestrians. Data is used from different traffic measurement systems, both public and private. All traffic flow data is supplemented with traffic modeling based on data from HERE maps, a company specialized in traffic modeling in public traffic environments. This provides data on how many individuals pass an object and how quickly. In total over 2 million street links evaluated that show how different types of traffic move between the measurement points.
Travel habit studies. Travel habit study by Nielsen IQ, in total 5900 interviews conducted providing background variables (age, gender, income, etc.) and self-reported travel habits. These surveys were conducted in 2 waves, Winter 2023-2024 and Spring 2024. Respondents are weighted to be representative of the entire population of the main Baltic cities. The travel habit studies provide data on who passes the advertising frames and how often, i.e. they enable us to calculate reach and frequency in different target groups.
Why are VAC numbers important?
VAC is the main currency of the outdoor media. The term VAC stands for visibility-adjusted contacts. It is a measure of audience-level advertising contacts.
The outdoor media uses a method that takes into account both the size and location of the object (advertising frame / screen) as well as the passers-by’s ability to observe the advertising displayed on the frame, based on parameters such as their speed and direction of motion relative to the object. The system adjusts the number of contacts exposed to advertising messages based on both the visibility of the object and the behavior of the observer. The outdoor medium is the only media that takes into account the visibility / viewing situation of both the advertising frame and the audience.
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