All Eyes on London: should advertisers treat the capital differently?

CBS Outdoor, one of the UK’s leading outdoor media companies, has questioned whether London advertising should be up-weighted to match the vast economic differences between the capital and the rest of the country.

At an event last Friday at London’s City Hall, advertisers, brands and media executives gathered to listen to a succession of speakers present arguments that illustrated the growing divide that has seen the capital largely defy the recession and witness significant growth in many sectors.

With speakers including BBC Chief Business Correspondent Linda Yueh, London Underground boss, Mike Brown and social commentator Peter York, a view of the tall cultural and economic fence around the capital was clearly presented.

With £62 billion in sales from 32,000 shops last year, 37,450 restaurants and 30% of all (non-grocery) shopping in the UK, economically, London towers above other cities and regions. It is, says Linda Yueh, pretty much tied for the world’s economic top spot with New York.

Yueh also noted that London’s growth continues to outpace the rest of the UK, and the capital is still, despite the recession, creating jobs – most of which have higher wages than elsewhere. In fact, Londoners are 91% richer than the rest of the UK.

Staggeringly, London also accounts for 22% of the UK’s economic output and, taking assets into account, has a population where one in eight people is a millionaire. The list of facts seems almost without end.

Yet it is not just wealth: the population is large, concentrated, sociable and culturally sophisticated – it is “wired to the world…[and is populated with] more exotic, evolved life-forms,” joked Peter York discussing his love for the city he grew up in.

13% of the entire UK population now lives in the place “everyone can call their home.” It is a cultural melting pot, a global business focal point and a shopping world-leader. In short, it’s an advertiser’s dream town and a key target for any national campaign.

It’s getting bigger, too. As Mike Brown, whose tube and rail network relies massively upon advertising for funding, points out: “London is growing at a rate equivalent to two tube trains full of people each week.” That’s a lot of people.

CBS Outdoor has the largest poster and digital network in the capital and arguably the most iconic audience touchpoints in the UK, including the tube, 9,000 buses and Westfield – with London transport advertising reaching 5.5 million people every day.

Now the company is opening up the debate, it says; asking if it’s time to see London treated differently to reflect the clear differences that make it, as one delegate pointed out, a “separate country”.

“London matters,” says Simon Harrington, CBS Outdoor’s Marketing Director, “and it’s growing in importance as the gap widens between the rest of the UK.” But should advertisers be paying a premium to reach larger, wealthier and more concentrated audiences? Should London be seen as an up-weight to a national campaign?

It seems to be a clear ‘yes’ for many; but other views are now sought.

“We appreciate that the weight of media spend directed towards London will be different for every brand,” says Harrington, “and that there is no formula or algorithm that says if you up-weight London by X it delivers Y, however, we firmly believe London has an increasingly important role to play and we are simply encouraging debate, challenge and re-appraisal.”

CBS Outdoor are offering to help brands understand how important the capital is to them using their research and insight – the work.shop.play online panel and the media neutral planning tool the London Worker Survey.

As Dominic Mills, who chaired the event says, it’s tricky to pin down and give a consistent view; “we instinctively know London is different, but it’s not easy to quantify”.

Newsline would like to hear your views. Should London be treated differently? If not, why not? And what would it mean to brands if London wasn’t the cultural, economic and shopping behemoth it is today?

If you have something to add to the debate, get in touch using the opinion link below.

You can see the rest of the videos from this event on MediaTel’s YouTube channel.