The Point of Social
The Three Stages of Research
Ground breaking 3 stage research study into social media usage out of home vs at home.
The study reveals that more diverse and active social media behaviour when out of home leads to an 11% attention gap in daytime social media advertising. Out-of-Home advertising is very well positioned to address this attention gap due to its high reach, time of day synergy with social media and proven priming effects that can improve the performance of social media campaigns.
Stage 1: The What and Where of Social Media
Survey/Mobile Diary task comparing at home vs out of home social media usage: A national online study of 1,150 Heavy Social Media Users aged 18-65 using Research Partner Norstat (Fieldwork conducted in October/November 2025)
5 group typology of activities conducted on social media.
Social media activity out of home (mostly during the day) vs At Home (often in the evening):
• Far more triggers
• Covers more activities
• More outcome orientated
Stage 2: Social Media Attention Gap
Hourly analysis of social attention/engagement metrics demonstrates:
• More active social behaviour (out of home daytime) vs more passive social behaviour (at home morning/evening)
• Leading to an -11% attention/engagement gap for social media adverts during the day
Analysis of social advertising impression and engagement data by time of day revealed a -11% daytime attention gap, largely due to daytime distractions and the more active and diverse social media behaviour when out of home.
Stage 3: OOH Advertising - The Social Media Primer
Out-of-Home and social media have a very strong dual screen synergy. Both are high reach channels and have a clear time of day synergy that is even stronger than AV channels, especially for the core 16-34 audience. There are also clear peaks in Out-of-Home exposure before peaks in social media usage, providing very well placed priming opportunities before subsequent social media ad exposure.
Out-of-Home’s high reach and time of day synergy with social means it's perfectly placed to prime social ads, with multiple research studies proving this increases:
• Engagement/dwell time +42% (2 Eye Tracking studies)
• Brand KPI’s + 7% (Average 93 studies)
• Business effects +34% (Average 82 studies)
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