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Johnny Panagiotidis
Associate Director
ACNielsen Customised Research
There is a growing expectation among clients when purchasing marketing research, that research suppliers should no longer deliver ‘simply data’ but instead provide ‘actionable insights.’ As one of our leading clients has stated, “insight is something which provides a new perspective or thought about the market or consumer which compels us to change the way we do business for driving growth.”
This unique ability to integrate data sources provides our clients with a complete picture of what is happening within their categories and brands, and the impact of marketing initiatives on consumers’ attitudes, behaviour and sales. It enables us to provide our clients with powerful insights and actionable recommendations to the business issues they are facing.
When companies undertake brand and advertising tracking research, whilst it may provide insights into the impact of marketing activities upon brand health measures, external factors such as pricing/price promotions are often inferred in terms of their impact. So for example, if during a TVC period price promotions are also implemented, and we see a lift in claimed trial, there is no way of measuring the impact of price promotions versus TVC on driving the gains in trial.
Similarly, when measuring sales or consumer behavioural dynamics (via Homescan panel information), the impact of TVC and/or above-the-line (ATL) activity is often inferred. So for example, while Homescan data may reveal that additional buyers have been attracted to a brand during a TVC period, if there were price promotions during this same period, there is no way of measuring whether the new buyers were attracted by the TVC or price promotions or both.
So we can see that measuring brand health, using various data sources in isolation (such as Brand and Advertising Tracking, Scan sales or Panel data), often means that researcher suppliers are unable to measure the full impact of marketing initiatives implemented by manufacturers.
Our Data Integration Approach
We start by evaluating 'claimed' measures versus 'actual' sales data to analyse the effectiveness of communications undertaken. This allows us to measure whether TVC activity or other factors (such as price, promotion, in store presence, distribution etc) are impacting sales.
- We then evaluate 'actual' sales data versus consumer 'behavioural' data (ie Homescan), to see what changes in consumer purchasing behaviour are impacting sales (ie more buyers purchasing or buyers purchasing more?)
- This allows us to evaluate whether marketing initiatives have been successful and to understand what consumer behaviours we have been able to influence.
- To provide a complete picture, we also compare 'behavioural' measures versus 'claimed' to see if they are consistent. Since we know consumers may not always do what they say, this can reveal powerful insights.
View case study
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