Time To Get Real-Time
Unlocking New Mall Audience Insights With Data Jam
Julian Kindred, Client Strategy Director
A key aim for us coming into 2025 was to further enhance our data and insights offering, allowing us to provide greater transparency around the impact of our retail OOH formats, audience and environment. This was bolstered by our recent announcement of our partnership with Data Jam, providing real-time data to revolutionise how Out-Of-Home (OOH) advertising impressions are tracked and analysed across UK shopping centres.
One of the most fascinating things we’ve learned since the launch of this partnership is the sheer scope of audience engagement we can now measure. Our network of Jam Boxes (Data Jam’s GDPR-compliant device that is installed directly onto OOH units), which spans over 20 malls across the UK, has already provided a baseline of 12 months of data. At the heart of this data is a clear picture of how people engage with our OOH spaces.
Unpacking the Insights
The trends emerging from the data are already providing us with fascinating insights that we believe give advertisers the ability to refine campaign strategies, enhance targeting and maximise engagement within some of the UK’s busiest retail environments. This covers a plethora of useful breakdowns of audience behaviour including time of day / week, mall type, yearly peaks and gifting moments.
The data informs us that ads are getting seen on our screens, delivering nearly 7 million daily impressions. There is a broad spread of visits across the day with discernible peaks all year round. Individual screens also deliver a daily frequency of around 4, ensuring ads are very much seen and consumed.
It tells us that there are notable audience boosts during half term holidays, bank holidays and around gifting opportunities (including Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Valentine’s and Black Friday) where we have been able to track impression trends to a peak over the weeks before and on specific occasions.
Rise of the night-time economy - malls are making investments to provide audiences with greater experiences outside traditional shopping hours
The rise of the night-time economy
What excites us most is the vast potential of Data Jam’s data to enhance marketing strategy. We can also refine our understanding of audience behaviour at different times of the day. With this in mind, we’ve identified a growing trend in the night-time economy, which covers a wide range of activity in town and city centres taking place between the hours of 6pm – 6am including retail, culture & leisure, transport and accommodation – highlighting that malls remain vibrant destinations even beyond traditional shopping hours.
We know malls are investing more into this trend, with Metrocentre recently announcing plans for a £6 million investment to redevelop Green Mall entrance as part of a move to enhance its day-to-night offering.
Our data shows that mall screens deliver 15% of total average impressions after 6pm across the week. This however jumps to 24% of visits when focused on the peak Thursday – Saturday period and rises further to 36% on Fridays, when audiences engage longer in shopping, leisure and dining experiences at mall locations, presenting an opportunity for brands to reach people in the right mindset and in a relevant location with friends and family.
Dwell & Frequency
As well as examining standout occasions on a case-by-case basis, it’s important to also look at the bigger picture when it comes to footfall patterns. Having access to a full 12 months worth of data means we’re able to see how our audience behaves whilst providing essential context to the numbers.
One key behaviour we’ve started to look into is the relationship between dwell time and visit frequency. This shows we generally experience a greater number of visits during the colder winter months but people spend a shorter time per visit (inclination for more purposeful Xmas shopping whilst spending less social time in the centre as we are usually buying for loved ones. During the other 9/10 months of the year, we are seeing a reversal of this pattern as audiences spend longer but visit less as we behave more leisurely, taking advantage of the dining and entertainment facilities that bring people together.
What This Means for Our Clients
For our clients, this partnership represents a significant opportunity to refine and optimize their advertising strategies. Real-time data means we can now provide a level of precision that wasn’t possible before. From identifying high-traffic moments to tailoring campaigns around key audience behaviours, this partnership opens the door to smarter, more effective OOH advertising.
Moreover, as we continue to grow our network with Data Jam, we’ll be able to offer even more granular insights, further enabling us to deliver highly targeted and contextually relevant advertising experiences. Whether it’s the best time to engage with shoppers, understanding how foot traffic correlates with seasonal trends, weather patterns or knowing the most impactful days for campaigns, advertisers will have access to deeper insights that improve campaign performance and drive greater ROI from their shopping centre advertising investments.
Want to discuss this further? Please feel free to get in touch if you would like to talk to us about opportunities relating to anything mentioned above or any other queries.