Indiantelevision.com Team

(28 July 2006 2:00 pm)

MUMBAI: In a step to enable clients gain innovative, actionable, high-value consumer insights from retailers’ shopper information, ACNielsen, a VNU business, today announced it has formed a global loyalty-marketing business unit that will provide end-to-end loyalty solutions.

"Loyalty marketing is an outstanding opportunity for retailers to keep consumers coming back to their stores, create real affinity for a retailer’s banner, and capture the largest possible share of their market while maximizing the return on their marketing investments. ACNielsen Loyalty will combine our information- and consumer panel-management skills, leading-edge technology and advanced analytical capabilities to help retailers find powerful new consumer insights in their loyalty data and use those insights to accelerate their growth. It also will give manufacturers new insights into category and brand performance and help them work more closely with retailers on highly targeted and effective category management programs," said VNU Marketing Information (MI) and ACNielsen president and CEO Steven M. Schmidt.

The formation of ACNielsen Loyalty follows an intensive research and development effort. The new unit’s capabilities will complement and expand upon numerous products and services that support loyalty marketing efforts currently offered by ACNielsen and other VNU business units.

VNU MI and ACNielsen senior vice president and chief marketing officer Tom Markert has been named president and CEO of the ACNielsen Loyalty global business unit. Laurence Michael, currently senior vice president, global retailer services marketing, will serve as managing director.

"The industry has long recognized that loyalty programs can provide highly valuable detail about what’s in consumers’ market baskets and new insights into their shopping behavior. But to-date, most retailers have struggled to realise the potential inherent in their loyalty data. Our solution combines the retailer-specific transaction data generated by loyalty programs with the complete view of the marketplace generated by our existing consumer research services. Both views are essential to understanding the forces that drive shopper loyalty," Markert said.

ACNielsen Loyalty will build upon and complement ACNielsen and VNU capabilities and expertise in areas such as consumer segmentation and targeting, consumer panels and customised research.

"The formation of ACNielsen Loyalty is one of our major initiatives in providing the most thorough, objective and insightful coverage of consumer behavior and attitudes at every level of the marketplace in every corner of the globe," added Schmidt.