Given the public’s ability to dodge much advertising at home using their remote controls, mouses, spam filters, recording devices and other tools, marketers are shifting more to what is called “out-of-home advertising” (OOHA). As the name indicates, OOHA is advertising that occurs outside the home, on digital or fixed-content billboards, posters and screens in or on subways, buses, stadiums, airports, gas stations, supermarkets, restaurants, and other locations.
According to the Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA), OOHA currently comprises a very small portion of overall media ad spending (4% in 2012), compared with magazines (9%), radio (10%), newspapers (13%), cable TV (18%), broadcast TV (23%) and the internet (23%). Yet OOHA revenue has grown every year since 2009, rising to $6.7 billion in 2012 to become “the fastest growing local ad medium with 22% growth over the last decade,” per OAAA.
But not all OOHA is equal. Some OOHA surfaces can be more effective than others. Learning Life’s approach is predicated on the principle that it is easier to engage people when they are sitting or standing and gazing at things, whether this be standing in bathrooms, bus stops, or waiting lines, or sitting in restaurants, bars, cafes, laundromats, hair salons, trains or buses. Such situations are opportunities for incidental learning – unintended learning in everyday life, in contrast with the typically deliberate learning that happens in schools – connecting people to intriguing information and questions on topics of public import, leading to a world of learning, fun and reward online at Learning Life via website address or QR code they enter into their cell phones, tablets or laptops.
Prior research on the effectiveness of different OOHA surfaces is fairly scarce though, so Learning Life recently conducted its own first test. On one sunny Saturday afternoon in May, Learning Life staff distributed a small sample of 1,000 coasters and 1,000 napkins (see above photo; we did not distribute the fridge magnets featured at top left in the photo) in about a dozen restaurants, bars and cafes on two popular commercial streets of Alexandria, Virginia. We took care not to do anything else differently to help control for other factors that might account for the results we got.
Our results before (Friday) and after (Sat-Thurs) the napkin and coaster distribution were as follows:
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
Monday
Tuesday
Wedn
Thursday
Visitors
25
32
71
51
37
58
43
Pageviews
80
149
328
207
193
189
117
The chart shows a notable increase in the number of visitors and page views[1] comparing Friday, the day before we distributed the 2,000 coasters and napkins, and the several days after the distribution, especially Saturday through Wednesday. The number of visitors nearly tripled and the number of page views more than quadrupled from Friday to Sunday, declining thereafter. These increases are all the more notable because Learning Life’s website normally attracts fewer visitors and page views on weekends, when people are more likely to be out than at their computers.
If we count up the increased number of visitors and page views from Saturday through Thursday, subtracting 35 visitors and 125 page views for each day as an average of normal website traffic without the napkin and coaster distribution, we net 82 added visitors and 433 page views, or 1 visitor for every 24 napkins and coasters, and 1 page view for every 4.6 coasters and napkins.
This, of course, excludes the presumably much larger number of people who read the napkins’ and coasters’ imprinted invitation, but did not use their phones, tablets or laptops to go to Learning Life’s website. It is also worth noting that the napkins and coasters we distributed did not offer any incentives (e.g., rewards or discounts on consumer goods or services) to go to Learning Life’s website, as we expect future sponsored Learning Life surfaces will (for more, see my recent post titled “Sponsoring Learning Life”).
Learning Life’s website traffic grows every month, but is still very small, as these numbers indicate. The increases we document in this test though are encouraging for the use of everyday surfaces people sit or stand and gaze at to spur people to learn more.
[1] Visitors = the number of individuals or “unique visitors” who visited Learning Life’s website. Pageviews = the number of Learning Life website pages viewed. The number of pageviews is usually larger than the number of visitors since individuals often view two or more pages of a website.
Advisor Spotlight: John Schorr, Ph.D.
Interested in terrorism and disaster preparation and response? Passionate about global economic development, population and the environment? Or, do you just need some expert advice on how to conduct research to help your community, or to properly undertake a public opinion survey? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you might want to meet John Schorr.
John Schorr is Senior Professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Stetson University in DeLand, Florida (where John and Learning Life founder, Paul Lachelier, were colleagues), Co-Director of Stetson’s Institute for Social Research, and – we are happy to add – a supporter of and advisor to Learning Life.
Born and raised in New York, John graduated from Hartwick College with his bachelor’s degree, the New School for Social Research with his Master’s, and Brown University with his Ph.D., specializing in sociology throughout. After teaching briefly at the City University of New York-Staten Island Campus, John began his teaching and research career at Stetson University in 1975. Over his career, he has taught the sociology of development, the city, population and the environment, as well as statistics, community-based research, and that staple of so many sociology professors: introduction to sociology.
As a researcher, John has published and presented numerous research articles on the impact of disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina, 9/11, the Oklahoma City Bombing, and Three Mile Island, on communities and first responders. He co-authored the book Demanding Democracy after Three Mile Island (1991) with Raymond L. Goldsteen, and was a consultant on the design of a national Gallup Survey on terrorism. In recent years, John has spear-headed the development of community-based research at Stetson University to get students directly involved in research benefiting local communities.
As a volunteer, John has served for 25 years on the Board of Directors of Community Outreach Services, a local substance abuse treatment agency, for over 20 years as a member and then Vice Chair of the International Board of Partners of the Americas (the largest non-profit for people-to-people cultural exchange in the hemisphere), for 10 years as President of the Florida-Colombia Partners chapter of the Partners of the Americas, and for 7 years as a research consultant to a variety of local community organizations.
Since Learning Life’s founding in 2012, John has advised us on various issues and attended our monthly meetings. Asked why he volunteers for Learning Life, John says,
“The concept of Learning Life intrigues me. I think we may be on the verge of developing a model for increasing awareness and critical thinking for people not ordinarily involved in the major political and social debates of the day.”
Now in semi-retirement, John teaches full-time in the spring semester at Stetson University, then travels with his wife, Phijitra, to Chiang Mai, Thailand, where they stay from July to January each year.
Learning Life thanks John for his volunteerism!
To learn more about volunteering with Learning Life and other ways you can help, contact us at email@learninglife.info.
Educational Contributor Spotlight: Brian Wansink, Ph.D.
Did you know:
Changing from 12-inch to 10-inch plates leads people to serve and eat 22% less.
Low-fat food labels spur people to eat 16-23% more calories.
Slicing fruit leads school children to buy and eat over 70% more fruit.
People pour on average 28% more into short, wide glasses than tall thin glasses.
These are just a few examples of some of the fascinating findings about eating behavior one of Learning Life’s first educational partners, Dr. Brian Wansink, has produced.
Wansink is Professor of Consumer Behavior at Cornell University, and founder and Director of its Food and Brand Lab. Wansink and his Lab’s research documents how our food environments – homes, supermarkets, restaurants, etc., and elements like lighting, music, color, size, and wording – often powerfully influences what and how much we eat.
As Wansink told Learning Life, the mission of the Food and Brand lab is to “discover and disseminate transforming solutions to help people eat better.”
This mission and his Lab’s research have resulted in over a hundred published research articles and books, and landed Wansink in print, video and film on every continent but Antarctica. His research also led Wansink to serve as White House-appointed Executive Director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion (CNPP) in 2007-2009, during which time he oversaw the development of the 2010 Dietary Guidelines, the Healthy Eating Index, and the Cost of Raising a Child Index.
As CNPP Executive Director, Wansink also helped increase the number of hits to the USDA’s dietary guidelines website (mypyramid.gov) to 5.2 million per day, a 44% increase; launched a campaign called “Partnering with My Pyramid” which mobilized a hundred companies to promote the dietary guidelines through packaging, ads, tray liners, etc.; and developed new tools like the “My Pyramid” for mothers and toddlers, and a My Pyramid menu planner, which are downloaded over 100,000 times every day, especially by teachers and students.
Wansink’s mission to shape food environments to promote healthier eating has also put him and his research on the front pages of major newspapers like the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, as well as on CNN, NBC News, ABC News, The Today Show, 20/20, 60 Minutes, and National Public Radio, among others.
Wansink writes an eating column for AARP titled “Chew on This.” In books, Wansink wrote the bestseller, Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More than We Think”(2006), and the forthcoming Slim by Design: Mindless Eating Solutions for Everyday Life(January 2014).
While the term “mindless eating” may suggest to some that consumers must become more mindful about their eating, Dr. Wansink’s more practical approach is to encourage food makers and servers, from major food manufacturers to homemakers, to make often simple changes – like reducing plate size, and giving healthy foods more enticing names – that can boost both sales and healthy eating.
Given Brian Wansink’s important work, we at Learning Life happily feature a quiz on our website highlighting some of his Lab’s fascinating findings, and look forward to helping him further to disseminate his research via Learning Life social media channels and everyday life surfaces.
As Learning Life’s founder, Paul Lachelier, notes, “Brian’s work is a shining example of the research university professors are doing on so many topics that are really interesting and important to people’s lives. At Learning Life, it’s part of our mission to help university researchers spread their most interesting findings on the surfaces of everyday life, where people will see them.”
For more information about Dr. Brian Wansink and his Food and Brand Lab, visit:
The following op-ed was published in Alexandria’s (Virginia) Gazette Packet on May 2, 2013.
Did you know:
Alexandria’s currently has around 146,000 residents, 30% of whom speak a language other than English at home.
Alexandria’s extraordinary arts community contributed $71 million in city economic activity, and 1,774 full-time equivalent jobs in 2010.
One of Alexandria’s most recent community health assessments ranked obesity, tobacco use, and substance abuse among the city’s greatest health challenges.
Volunteer Alexandria every year organizes “Spring for Alexandria” a one-day volunteer event to benefit our city and its non-profits. This year it happens this Friday, May 3, at locations throughout the city.
These are just a few examples of facts that can help us better understand and engage with our city. But how do we disseminate such facts to inform more city residents?
All the above facts were culled free from the websites of our city government, Volunteer Alexandria, and the U.S. Census Bureau.
However, as abundant and free is information on the internet, one still usually has to search for it to find it and use it. Those more motivated to learn and engage thus benefit disproportionately from the internet and the Information Age more generally, while those less motivated to learn benefit much less. This problem applies not just to city information, but to all kinds of information essential to personal and collective health and success.
Knowledge is indeed power. Research shows that the more knowledge or education one has, the better are one’s employment prospects, income, health and community engagement. Studies also show that people who are more informed about a given topic comprehend and problem-solve better and remember more about that topic.
Recently, I founded an educational non-profit in Alexandria called Learning Life to address this problem. Learning Life’s mission is to inform and empower more people by printing knowledge on the surfaces of everyday life (health on table tents, poetry on cup sleeves, history on wallpaper, science on cereal boxes, etc.), then linking these surfaces to an ever growing world of learning online.
Learning Life’s mission is based on three educational realities: (a) learning doesn’t just happen in youth, (b) nor just in school, and (c) learning doesn’t just happen deliberately, but also incidentally. We learn incidentally in everyday life from casual conversation with friends and family as well as from work, volunteering, television, the internet and various surfaces, like billboards and posters. However, most of public education’s focus is on schools, not everyday life, and everyday life is filled with far more advertising than learning.
So, what if we started using everyday life surfaces to inform and engage more people in and about Alexandria?
This year, Learning Life is pursuing educational partnerships using everyday surfaces like table tents, drink coasters and fortune cookies to creatively inform and engage more Alexandrians about health and other issues, as well as to encourage more D.C. metro area residents to learn about Alexandria’s rich artistic offerings. Those interested in learning more, or possibly partnering with Learning Life can contact us at email@learninglife.info.
But not all OOHA is equal. Some OOHA surfaces can be more effective than others. Learning Life’s approach is predicated on the principle that it is easier to engage people when they are sitting or standing and gazing at things, whether this be standing in bathrooms, bus stops, or waiting lines, or sitting in restaurants, bars, cafes, laundromats, hair salons, trains or buses. Such situations are opportunities for incidental learning – unintended learning in everyday life, in contrast with the typically deliberate learning that happens in schools – connecting people to intriguing information and questions on topics of public import, leading to a world of learning, fun and reward online at Learning Life via website address or QR code they enter into their cell phones, tablets or laptops.
