Most people know Nielsen as the TV rating company. In reality, however, Nielsen is a multiplatform research company that has constantly been evolving since 1923. Its goal is to measure and track a wide range of consumer activity in order to establish a 360-degree view of individuals and market segments. To accomplish this, Nielsen has to follow consumers wherever they may be watching TV, online, in their homes, or in stores. How does Nielsen track all this activity? The veteran research firm has established effective methods of recording consumer activity, from retail scanner data to household panels to monitoring social networks. As data are captured, they are transferred to a Nielsen data warehouse, where they are matched to the right individual and added to the terabytes of information Nielsen already possesses. Through data sorting and analytics, Nielsen cuts through billions of daily transactions to deliver clear consumer insights to clients.
To create value for customers and build meaningful relationships with them, marketers must first gain fresh, deep insights into what customers need and want. Such insights comes from good marketing information. As a result of the recent explosion of marketing technology, companies can now obtain great quantities of information, sometimes even too much. The challenge is to transform today’s vast volume of consumer information into actionable customer and market insights. The American consumer market consist of more than 310 million people who consume more then $10 trillion worth of goods and services each year, making it one of the most attractive consumer markets in the world. The world consumer market consists of more than 6.9 billion people. The business market involves even more dollars and items than the consumer market. Understanding buyer behavior is one of the biggest challenges marketers face.
The Assignment
4-15. What is Nielson’s Expertise?.
4-16. Providing a real-world example, describe how Neilson might discover a consumer insight.
4-17. What kinds of partnerships might Neilson need to form with other companies in order to accomplish its goals?
