When you walk through a railway station ticket gate, wait for a car park barrier to lift or put petrol in your car, chances are there is an advertising message staring you in the face.

With the growth of online advertising, you could be forgiven for thinking that traditional channels might be facing some decline. But that’s not the case and advertisers are getting cleverer at looking for places to communicate with key audiences. And Ordnance Survey’s data is helping to make the process more efficient, saving money and time for one of the agencies

T4 media recognised that as people travel they move through different ‘break points’ for example to present a ticket at a railway barrier or when filling their car with fuel – and that this provides an ideal opportunity for advertisers to reach a specific audience with messages tailored to a particular location – perhaps related to a specific local event or focus. The numbers of people using these breakpoints can also be verified providing advertisers with an effective tool in their marketing portfolio.

By using Ordnance Survey’s free mapping from the OS OpenData product range within a desktop spatial information system, the company have been able to slash the time they spend working out what locations could be relevant to their customers.

By managing the location and characteristics of the advertising space network, staff no longer need to manually identify suitable outdoor advertising spaces as they can now analyse multiple seed points from their desks.

The system has been tailored to the company’s needs by Cadcorp – an Ordnance Survey Developer Partner – and incorporates geographic data which can be tailored to specific projects and proposals.

So the next time you stop at a ‘break point’ and see an advertising message, you’ll know that Ordnance Survey helped to put it there!