Big numbers are difficult to add up

I applaud the way Van Wagner has built up its business over the past few years and the site types and locations it has introduced, but I am fed up with this harping on about how much more effective its sites are than any other site type (MW March 13).

What a surprise that its own research (using a sample of 205 adults driving up and down the Old Kent Road) shows mega 96-sheets to have higher recall than bus-stop ads – what next, research showing that round wheels work better than square ones?

The research states that mega 96-sheets offer 33 times more brand impacts, but doesn’t the company realise a mega 96-sheet ad costs 160 times more than a London six-sheet, and that you can’t extrapolate findings on Old Kent Road across the rest of London, much less the country?

Van Wagner then quotes some cost-per-thousand figures, based on its mega 96-sheets having three times the gross opportunities to see of a 48-sheet… not possible if they’re on the same stretch of road and therefore have the same gross audience.

Perhaps square wheels can be shown to work better after all!

Louise Goulborn

Managing partner

Concord

London W1