Calculating Accurate Mobile Impressions (S1-E000-01)

Collecting impression data cleanly and consistently for many experiential marketers is almost impossible.  How can multiple teams gather something as abstract as “onsite impressions” reliably? Calculating accurate mobile impressions is key.

This is Part 1 in a 4-part series detailing the contents of Podcast OOO – Pilot: Defining the Dollar Value of Impressions. (Go to Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4)

Reliability vs. Validity

First, let’s briefly visit the problem of reliability vs validity.  For instance, you might have caught in an earlier article this distinction, but it warrants repeating here.  Data are “reliable” when collected in a consistent, replicable way. Data are valid when they are accurate.

In short, reliability is more important than validity or accuracy.  We explore why this is the case in our article titled “Collecting Event Marketing Field Staff Data”

For example, how do you collect data, and what’s the data you should be collecting when it comes to impressions to get reliable impression data? There are three categories of impressions, each requiring a reliable method of counting.  In this article, we’ll cover the first, calculating Mobile Impressions.

(You can listen to the full podcast episode below.)

Mobile impressions will apply if you have a wrapped vehicle in-market and drive from venue to venue.  Therefore, we know these impressions have value because billboards exist.  Billboard advertising is sold every day.  Your branded vehicle is delivering the same thing; the same value.

To determine the number of mobile impressions generated by branded vehicles in the market, a multiplier is applied to the miles driven. We look at miles as being all-purpose vehicle miles, so don’t try to dissect urban versus rural.

Industry Standard for Mobile Impression Multiplier

An industry standard was published in a study by the American Trucking Association in 1977 titled “The Visual Impact of Trucks in Traffic.”  The authors reported a conservative multiplier of 101 impressions per all-purpose vehicle mile in this study.

The authors reported a conservative multiplier of 101 impressions per all-purpose vehicle mile in this study.

Most mobile tours will record miles for DOT logs, so the process can be as simple as getting the starting and the ending mileage from the DOT log for a “total miles driven in the market” figure. You multiply that by 101 and have a reliable method for counting mobile impressions.

If you wanted to be a little more on the liberal side of counting your mobile impressions, some studies were done in the venture capital space that would argue the number might be closer to 220.  This research had more to do with the placement of the logo on the vehicle, which can get complicated.  We recommend using 101 as your multiplier, and you can take it to higher levels if needed.

Further Reading

You can read more about the other areas of experiential marketing impressions and how to count them by reading the next article in this series titled, Counting Onsite Impressions.