Multi-venue location optimization with overlapping audience reach areas

The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) is currently facing recruitment challenges. Similar to target market advertising in other industries, military recruitment can be optimized by aiming recruitment efforts at populations with high enrolment success potential. Using historical data, geographical regions with high potential for recruitment can be identified. This can be used to optimize the reach of recruitment events to high potential geographical regions. This paper looks at applications of facility location optimization in recruitment attraction event planning activities where there are intersections in regions each venue can attract audiences from (venue reach areas), and the probability that the events will attract targeted audience varies by geographical location. This study models the problem as a mixed integer nonlinear problem (MINLP) and provides an exact solution method. This is followed by a case study applying the model to the CAF’s recruitment events for a sample geographical area of the Canadian National Capital Region (NCR).