Mar 16, 2010, New York – Adspace Digital Mall Network is leading the mall media category by incorporating Scarborough data into its rate card as its third party traffic data provider, creating more planning flexibility for its advertisers and agencies.

Historically Adspace has built its rate card around the needs of out-of-home planners, starting with mall traffic and applying Nielsen viewing data to the traffic figures to generate overall impressions. Traffic for all mall-based media is currently sourced from the mall operators, which use significantly different methods for counting traffic.

Mall traffic typically has not been broken down into its component parts, meaning individuals and their frequency of visiting a mall. Therefore, traditional reach and frequency audience metrics could not be developed for mall media. Scarborough, considered the authority on local market research, reports the number of individuals visiting a mall and their frequency of mall visits. As a result, Adspace can provide reach and frequency by DMA for planners using traditional GRP-based planning models. For out-of-home planners, individuals visiting a mall and their frequency of visits are combined to provide a total traffic figure.

“Adspace is a great complement to television, and as the network is integrated into more mainstream media plans that include TV and radio, our audience data must support reach and frequency planning models,” said William Ketcham, executive vice president and chief marketing officer, Adspace Networks. “Scarborough data gives us the flexibility to tailor our audience metrics to the needs of our clients.”

Scarborough data reduces total traffic in the Adspace Digital Mall Network by 9 percent. However, the revised rate card incorporates the results of a Nielsen viewing study conducted in late 2009 which showed a 30 percent increase in traffic viewing the screens, versus the same Nielsen study fielded in 2007. The net impact versus last year’s rate card is an 18 percent increase in impressions. Because pricing is not increasing, the CPM declines from $4.89 to $4.12, providing significantly more value to advertisers.

“It is a step in the right direction for Adspace to provide the media community with an alternative metric that is more indicative of the true traffic in the mall and the viewership of the Smart Screens,” said Paul Lenhart, digital out-of-home director, Zenith Media. “Planning in the out-of-home industry is evolving to make it more comparable to other media, and we appreciate the flexibility that Scarborough data provides.”