The In-Store Marketing Institute and VNU have formed a partnership to launch a global measurement service that will help marketing professionals better understand how to reach and influence consumers while they are in the store and making their final purchasing decisions.
The new service will build on a development effort called P.R.I.S.M. (Pioneering Research for an In-Store Metric) conducted in early 2006 by a consortium of retailers and manufacturers led by the In-Store Marketing Institute. The P.R.I.S.M. Project created a new approach to in-store research that gives the retail industry a common language to measure in-store consumer reach. Members of the consortium include 3M, Coca-Cola, Kellogg's, Miller Brewing, Procter & Gamble and The Walt Disney Company, with support from retailers, including Albertsons, Kroger, Walgreens and Wal-Mart.
The new service, which will be developed through a new unit of VNU known as Nielsen In-Store, will measure consumer exposure to a fast-growing and powerful array of in-store marketing vehicles, including television and radio, shelf talkers, digital signage and other point-of-purchase displays. Collectively, these in-store marketing approaches stand as the sixth largest advertising vehicle in the United States, at $18.6 billion in spending in 2005.
Nielsen In-Store is part of NielsenConnect, a recently established division of VNU that will integrate the company's store of consumer and media intelligence from dozens of business units to provide clients with the clear, actionable information and forward-looking insights they need to run their businesses.
The new service will also help retailers improve results through better store layouts, category adjacencies and product selection.
The new service will draw on the measurement, analytical and marketing capabilities of a number of VNU businesses, including ACNielsen for retail measurement, consumer panel and retailer services; Nielsen Media Research for audience measurement and analysis; and Interactive Market Systems for media planning and modeling. The service will also tap into the retail insights of VNU's Spectra, Trade Dimensions and BASES businesses, as well as VNU Business Media, which operates the GlobalShop trade show and publishes a number of marketing, media and retailing industry magazines and Web sites.
For more information, visit www.instoremarketer.org and www.vnu.com.
