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Airport Advertising Effectiveness: An Exploratory Field Study

By Rick T. Wilson and Brian D. Till

Out-of-Home


"Transit advertising is a growing category of out-of-home advertising and an area that has received little academic attention. This study keys in to elements of effective airport advertising and is applicable to other transit locations."


Source: Journal of Advertising, Spring 2008, 37(1), pgs 59-72.

Type of Promotional Material/Activity Tested: Effectiveness of airport advertising 

Sample Population: Randomly selected airline passengers at NYC’s LaGuardia Airport in May 2005. There were 50 participants in the recognition study and 58 participants in the recall study.  More participants were female than male. Ages ranged from 18-55 with the largest age group being 35-54.  All participants had flown out of LaGuardia at least once in the past month. More were flying for leisure than for business.  

Methodology:
 

Recognition survey:  an 11-page survey included with a booklet of color photographs of the 28 concourse advertisements, as well as 7 filler ads to test for false positives.  

Recall survey:  a four-page questionnaire that asked participants to list any ads they remembered seeing inside the concourse (unaided recall). Later in the questionnaire, participants were asked to do the same but this time but were given 13 product categories to help prompt their memory (aided recall).


Metrics:  Participants’ ability to recognize and recall the advertisements in the airport’s concourse.
 

Independent Variables


Dependent Variables

 

Top Line Results:
 

Recognition study: 

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Recall study:

 

 


Take-Away:
 

Transit advertising is a growing category of out-of-home advertising and an area that has received little academic attention. This study keys in to elements of effective airport advertising (and is applicable to other transit locations):
 






Complexity rating: 2 out of 3 (Complex statistical analysis scale: 1= none, 2= moderate, 3 = difficult)
 

This paper is available for purchase from the publisher