Unveiling UK data from the recent ‘First Class Advertising – The Enduring Magic of Airports’ global report by IPSOS/JCDecaux Airport (which polled over 9000 flyers), plus newly commissioned insight among UK passengers reveals the power and influence of the Airport to reach four key audience groups: Business Flyers, Frequent Flyers, High Airport Spenders and GenZs.
The opportunity to reach GenZs:
The insight reveals the opportunity to reach the valuable GenZ audience, an influential, globetrotting and affluent demographic.
- Heathrow GenZ flyers represent 43% of Business Flyers, 25% of Frequent Flyers and 19% of High Airport Spenders, with 21% earning more than £55,000 annually.
- In the UK, GenZs have taken an average of 4 flights in the previous 12 months, 33% travelled more than in 2019 and over half have plans to travel in the future.
- The path to purchase among UK GenZs is strong, 72% would consider purchasing an advertised product/service, while 55% have purchased a product/service after seeing an ad.
With air travel set to overtake 2019 levels in 2024², the insight shows:
- UK flyers view Airport advertising more favourably than online and social media advertising in terms of: international status, creativity, quality, brand image and attention.
- Airport advertising drives awareness, consideration and purchase among UK flyers. After seeing an Airport ad, 45% of people searched for more information, half visited a retailer in-store or online and 39% bought the product or service.
- 65% of UK flyers have maintained/increased their number of flights compared to 2019.
This insight shows the Airport is a uniquely powerful environment for brand communication, reaching premium audiences in a receptive mindset, when they have time to engage with messaging and welcome the opportunity to purchase at the Airport. With GenZs representing 18% of all flyers at Heathrow and planning to travel more than ever,there’s new opportunities for brands to engage this influential, affluent audience in the real-world, creating synergies with online and social media. Powered by data, there are exciting digital OOH opportunities including programmatic plus new 3D Out-of-Home capabilities too – making this the ideal time for brands to capitalise on the rise in travel across all audiences.David Hawkins Director of Commercial and Partnerships at JCDecaux Airport
The insight showed the four key audience groups are:
- Business flyers: took at least 1 business/ ‘bleisure’ flight in the previous year. UK Business flyers fly 5.2 trips on average, which is 1.5 more trips than the global flyers average (3.7). 45% of all Heathrow flyers vs. 42% of all global flyers.
- Frequent flyers, who took at least 5 flights in the previous year. They represent 28% of all Heathrow flyers.
- High Airport Spenders – these are flyers who spent over 500USD at the airport in the previous year. They represent 26% of all Heathrow flyers.
- GenZs aged between 18-24. They represent 18% of all Heathrow flyers.
Source: ²ICAO figures and forecast
Methodology
1. The study was carried out by Ipsos for JCDecaux Airport. The insights are based on the results from a 15-min online survey of over 11,000 respondents conducted from October to December 2023 spanning 14 countries.
The sample consists of nationally representative respondents of each market's general population. This is why we have over 9,000 flyers among our overall sample of 11,000+ respondents. This allow us to compare the profile of flyers vs the nationally representative population.
From these 9,000+ global flyers JCDecaux Airport extracted insights on over 600 (657) UK flyers including over 400 (466) Heathrow flyers.
2. JCDecaux UK conducted further research on Heathrow domestic passengers, based on a 10-minute additional online survey fielded in the UK conducted by Norstat. The sample from Heathrow was 600. These 600 people had visited Heathrow at least twice in the past 12 months and they were further split into four groups who had visited each terminal. The nationally representative UK audience sample was 200 so 800 respondents in total.