Geopath Market Spotlight | Charleston-Huntington DMA
GeekOUT Fast Fact Friday

For today’s GeekOUT Fast Fact, let’s take a look at a market home to the capital and largest city in West Virginia – the Charleston-Huntington DMA.

Did you know that the country’s first natural gas well was discovered by mistake in Charleston? While digging for salt deposits, Captain James Wilson and his team accidently drilled into a natural gas well. This provided the first opportunity for use of natural gas in the Western world, though it had been used thousands of years prior in China as well.

One of Charleston’s main exports has historically been coal – first discovered there in 1817, just two years after the discovery of natural gas. Given how new discovered natural gas was, coal boomed as the major source of heat and fuel. It wasn’t until years later, that William Tompkins became the first person in the US to utilize natural gas for manufacturing, also in Charleston.

Let’s take a look at some specifics about the OOH media in this market.

According to Geopath Insights, there are more than 2,900 spots measured by Geopath within the Charleston market, which generate over 213 million impressions each week! Additionally, this market has a population of over 1.2 million, and 1/3 of all commuting trips within the DMA take 30 minutes or more.
For more insights on the Charleston DMA, please see our 2021 DMA infographic below.

Next, let’s look at who is spending in OOH within the DMA for January – June of 2021.

It’s interesting to note that half of the top 10 OOH spenders in this market are from the healthcare industry. Though there is a mix of different sectors of the industry, the value of OOH’s ability to reach audience seems well recognized by the industry here. Top national brands McDonald’s and Wendy’s also appear at the top of the list here for spenders.

Geopath has compiled OOH advertising spend data for Q1 and Q2 of 2021 (January-June) sourced from Kantar for the DMA, as well infographics for this and all 200+ DMAs across the country. Both the OOH spending reports, and DMA Infographics can be accessed by Geopath members in our geekOUT Library. If you are not currently a Geopath member, please reach out to us on [email protected] to find out how you can access this information.

Be on the lookout for the Q3 OOH spending report soon!