Adspace Digital Mall Network [1] this week announced record annual revenue growth of 37% for the full-year 2013.
[2]“This was an excellent year for Adspace, as we successfully established multiple strategic content partnerships, gained significant traction with retail and automotive advertisers, and increased our sales by 37 percent,” said Dominick Porco, Chairman and CEO of Adspace.
“We also received strong Nielsen numbers that support Adspace’s selling proposition including a substantial increase in viewership, which we believe further proves the power of the Adspace medium. As we move into 2014, we are confident that with the backing of great Nielsen numbers, new partnerships, and new clients, Adspace is well-positioned for sustained double digit growth.”
Attributing to this growth is Adspace’s impressive content lineup including several new partnerships in 2013. Adspace rounded out its lifestyle programming by adding Conde Nast’s third title, Details Magazine, joining Lucky Magazine and Conde Nast Traveler.
Details Magazine, which targets men ages 18-24, is Adspace’s first content provider that speaks solely to young men. This demographic visits the mall more than four times a month, a 45 percent higher rate than the national average.
Adspace also forged content partnerships with BuzzFeed and NowThis News [3] to bring Millennial targeted, entertaining programming to the Smart Screens. These programs provide viral content in real time, enticing consumers to tap/scan the NFC/QR code enabled mTAG to see full videos and lists. The program averages 1,000 scans/taps per week. Lastly, there was strong editorial support of retail in the annual Holiday Gift Guide, a program featuring the hottest gifts of the season. Each gift suggestion receives a 12 second spot, with several appearing in every 6 minute loop. 2013 was a record breaker year with 285 products featured, up 57 percent from 2012.
The addition of the new content partnerships in conjunction with Adspace’s staple in-house shopper-centric programming drove an increase in notice rate, as measured by Nielsen. Notice rate increased to 86% of shoppers, up from 75% in 2011. Prompted commercial awareness has stayed consistently high over the past six years, with 34% of shoppers recalling an advertisement.
Adspace also released a revised Nielsen IMS simulation that confirms the network’s selling proposition as a powerful complement to television. For example, shifting 15% of a New York DMA 4-week primetime spot TV campaign’s budget to Adspace Networks increases effective reach (3+ impressions) by 76 percent, from 38.2% to 67.2%.
The combination of new partnerships, increased viewership, editorial support of retail, and a revised IMS simulation drove a large increase in the number of overall advertisers, with marked increase in the retail and automotive categories. Specifically, the number of retail advertisers increased by 68%; including top players such as Macy’s, Gap, Banana Republic, Old Navy, H&M, and LOFT. Adspace also contracted with every domestic automotive brand, with the total number of automotive advertisers increasing by 300%, compared to 2012.
Additionally, Adspace ran a series of successful retail test campaigns in 2013, further proving DPb medium’s ability to generate sales lift. Highlights include significantly boosting sales of a $30 product sold in stores outside the mall. This was an 11- percentage-point gain in sales volume of the product compared to other media. In a separate test, Adspace boosted in-store traffic for an in-mall retailer by 8% during a 4-week flight.
Finally, looking to 2014 growth, Adspace established a new partnership with Vistar Media. As the leading exchange for programmatic buying, the Vistar Media partnership provides an excellent opportunity for advertisers to easily place DPb ads and activate new budgets that have not historically been allocated to the category. Adspace’s size and ability to deliver an enormous number of impressions helped land ten major buys in 2013.
“All in all, with the backing of great Nielsen numbers, new partnerships, and new clients, 2013 was a banner year for the Adspace Digital Mall Network,” said Susan Danaher, EVP, Chief Revenue Officer. “With the confidence that we are well positioned for sustained growth, Adspace is looking forward to an equally successful 2014.”