Arbitron Inc. & Scarborough Research unveil mall shopper audience measurement.

Scarborough Research and Arbitron have announced a new audience metric that provides more precise measurements of the American mall shopper.

The new metric — The Scarborough Mall Shopper Audience data — and its incorporation into an advertising reach and frequency model, enables advertisers, ad agencies, media buyers and other marketers to better understand the media value of their ads and promotions in malls and shopping centers. Shopping venues also can now be credibly evaluated as part of the communications mix in a traditional multimedia advertising campaign.

“This is a major breakthrough for the shopping center industry as it relates to the advertising and marketing community,” said Stewart Stockdale, chief marketing officer, Simon Property Group, and president of its business-to-consumer group, Simon Brand Ventures. Mr. Stockdale is the chief industry proponent of the ‘mall-as-media’ concept, and commissioned Arbitron two years ago to study a sampling of Simon Malls, the results of which prompted further studies that eventually led to today’s announcement.

“For the first time, we can quantify the specific value of national brand advertising, marketing, and consumer promotions in our malls using terms that are familiar to the advertising community and a measurement the industry understands,” Mr. Stockdale said.

“Malls are emerging as a critical marketing platform. Advertisers benefit because of the unique ability to reach consumers who are in the buying mindset and in close proximity to the point of purchase,” commented Alisa Joseph, vice president of Advertiser Marketer Services for Arbitron Inc. and Scarborough Research. “The availability of these new audience measurements for the shopping center industry enhances the depth of information on mall media for the entire advertising community. These new measures provide important insights as mall developers, retailers, and agencies are seeking to identify ‘place-based media’ that can have an impact on their bottom line.”

Scarborough Research began its development process for this new shopper metric by first conducting personal interviews with decision makers at leading advertising agencies to establish the need for mall audience measurements. Scarborough then tested and refined a shopping center-centric reach and frequency application. The result is that the company expanded its multi-media local market syndicated study to collect information on”past 7-day” shopping for individual malls and shopping centers. The 7-day mall shopping measurement supplements the “past 30-day” and “past 90-day” metrics already offered in the study. Scarborough’s newmall-centric reach and frequency application will offer media planners and buyers the ability to assess unique shopping center visitors and the frequency of their mall visits. Mall shoppers can also be analyzed with any of Scarborough’s other measurements on the shopping patterns, lifestyles and demographics of American consumers in order to help establish the value of a given mall audience.

“When agencies and advertisers evaluate mall advertising as a component of the overall marketing and media mix, they will have a myriad of new insights to demonstrate the value of the mall shopper,” said Bill Rose, senior vice president, marketing, Arbitron Inc. “We are confident that the combination of the new mall audience data and Scarborough’s other measurements on the American shopper will establish a stronger foundation to support mall developers, retailers, agencies and advertisers in their quest to create an optimal shopping environment for consumers.”