Resident & workplace profiles
Describe people associated with a source area. They help establish local context, but do not identify the people who pass a particular advertising frame.
For advertising & media-planning agencies
Put local evidence behind your next advertising location.
Compare candidate neighbourhoods using demographics, access and available traffic context. Give your team a clearer reason to investigate one area over another for an outdoor or local campaign.
Use Locus for initial area research. Final placements need media-owner availability, audience and visibility evidence.
Keep the meaning of each measure clear.
A useful comparison keeps the geography, date and measurement type attached to every observation. Different sources answer different planning questions.
Traffic & venue activity
Vehicle counts, pedestrian observations and venue busyness measure different things. Compare compatible measures and show where coverage is missing.
Advertising audience
Reach, impressions and visibility require placement-specific audience evidence. Locus area research does not calculate ad impressions, book inventory or attribute campaign results.
Illustrative comparison / no measured results
A family-focused campaign. Two possible areas.
Area A / Residential high street
Suppose the source-area household profile looks relevant to the brief. That makes the area worth investigating, while the audience passing the proposed frame remains unknown.
Area B / Transport interchange
Suppose a compatible traffic source records more movement here. That could justify a closer look, but the travellers may differ from nearby residents and may never see the proposed frame.
The next decision is which evidence to request: comparable audience measurements, placement visibility, availability and cost. Locus can organise the local context; either area could become the stronger choice once those placement checks are known.
Your comparison brief
Ask the same questions of every candidate.
Use this checklist to structure an initial area comparison. Keep the campaign objective and the decisive unknowns visible alongside the evidence.
- Campaign audience
- Which characteristics matter for this brief, and which are actually covered by the source?
- Area context
- What do resident or workplace statistics describe, and how old are they?
- Activity & access
- What type of traffic is measured, where, and over which period?
- Placement checks
- What must the media owner confirm about availability, orientation, visibility and audience?
Bring the local context into your client recommendation.
Explore candidate areas on the map or use a location report to organise the available evidence for a shortlisted address. Revisit that context when planning future campaigns, alongside actual campaign results.
Check data sources and coverage and the Locus research methodology. For placement-level audience measurement, see Route’s explanation of advertising visibility.