Pseudo brand demonstrates power of advertising at airports

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Independent research into a fictitious brand called "Bleu" carried out at London Heathrow recently has helped to understand the effectiveness of airport advertising. media@BAA, the advertising division of BAA and JCDecaux Airport, the world's leading player in airport advertising, yesterday unveiled the results of research into the effects of 'Bleu' advertising.

The objective of the research was to establish the isolated effect of an average airport advertising campaign. Bleu was launched at Heathrow during January 2002 with the strap line 'banking will never be the same again'. The brand was advertised across all four terminals and interviews were carried out amongst passengers during the last two weeks of January to establish the impact the brand had created.

Given that there was no brand heritage, loyalty or additional advertising support, so respondents would have had no other exposure to the brand, the results were surprising: the total awareness for the brand Bleu was 31% after only one month. This represents 1.3m passengers who were able to recall the brand. In addition, 31% of people surveyed were able to correctly recall the slogan.

Perhaps one of the most striking results was that 81% of those interviewed could attribute Bleu to airports and airports alone. BAA said that this characteristic proves that without any outside influences of other media, existing brand perception or loyalty, that airports offer true effectiveness as an advertising medium.

Head of media at media@BAA John Pizzamiglio commented: "We have always known that the airport environment is unique for advertisers. The combination of dwell time, innovative advertising and the unmatchable volume and profile of our travellers delivers advertising cut-through, and this research now quantifies the potency of airport advertising."

Marketing director at JCDecaux Airport UK Richard Malton said: "The Bleu project represents a paradigm shift in airport advertising bringing much needed accountability to airports and establishing airports as a true contender for media planning schedules targeting affluent and influential decision-makers."