Health Clubs Keep Place-Based Advertisers in Good Shape in Q1 2010

As health club patrons worked to get their waists smaller in the first few months of this year, advertisers in those clubs saw their audiences get larger.

According to Nielsen’s Fourth Screen Network Audience Report for Q1 2010, health club networks drew 25% more monthly video exposures among adults 18+ compared to the fourth quarter of 2009. The increase was consistent across other key demographics, including among males and females age 18-34 and 18-49.

“Health clubs see a flood of traffic in the first few months of the year, and that has a direct effect on advertisers in those venues,” said Paul Lindstrom, Sr. VP of Nielsen’s On Location service. “For the first time, advertisers and networks can use Nielsen’s Fourth Screen Report to quantify exactly how many more exposures they can expect in this sort of seasonal bump.”

Overall, the place-based video networks included in both quarterly reports earned 11% more gross monthly exposures among adults 18+ in the first three months of 2010, on average, compared to the results posted in the Q4 2009 report. Movie Theaters remain the largest sector represented in the report, with 65.6 million total gross video ad exposures among adults 18+ in the first quarter, a 6% increase over Q4 2009.

The newly-released report comes just three months after the inaugural Fourth Screen Report, which looked at placed-based video exposures in Q4 2009. The data – which measure audience exposures by video networks in out-of-home locations like movie theaters, bars, restaurants, retail stores and other place-based venues – offer agencies and networks an easier way to compare place-based advertising audiences to TV, Internet, and Mobile.

The Q1 2010 report also includes for the first time data on Best Buy’s video network, making it the first retailer-owned network to be included in the report. The network accounted for 24 million gross video exposures per month in the first quarter.