Ellis believes that location intelligence tools such as Pitney Bowes Business Insight's MapInfo are becoming critical in market research as they provide businesses with added insight to market, plan, assign assets, track resources and manage services with the intelligent use of geographical data.
International marketing research company, AC Nielsen utilises the tool for feasibility studies, particularly in the retail industry to analyse proposed sites for specified land uses. It draws on National Address Data (NAD) and Living Standard Measure (LSM) data to determine the feasibility of proposed sites as well as to perform microanalyses within a specified buffer to determine the competitors of a particular retailer. According to Riona Naidu, GIS Manager at AC Nielsen, location intelligence is a key element in the research projects carried out by the company, particularly in terms of verifying and visualising data.
“When conducting consumer research, we use it to produce location maps and fairly distribute client regions to the researchers for field work as well as allocating them to our measurement department's databases for reporting purposes. The tool's spatial analysis ability enables us to localise specific regions of interest according to clients' needs,” continues Naidu. “Our automated map report templates are all created with this tool and through ProViewer, non-registered users can also view interactive maps and data tables relevant to them. In addition, it is used to geocode and validate the data in AC Nielsen's household register that was created 40 years ago.”
In a recent media project, AC Nielsen used the tool in measuring the exposure on outdoor advertising sites such as billboards, especially in validating site data and the analysis of results.
“Using Npods, (Nielsen Personal Outdoor Devices) researchers completed a respondent travel database, identified the different LSM patterns with drive-time analysis and were able to establish the best outdoor advertising spots for different products,” explains Naidu. “The tool was applied in all stages of the research project. Verifying site characteristics and map sites prior to kick-off; processing the datasets and visualising key points such as geocodes, primary roads and facing direction of the billboards; as well as investigating zero passage sites, invalid road designations and street segments with a high range of passage subsequently. After this successful test run in South Africa, a similar project is now being deployed in the USA.”
“Currently being applied with great success by various market research institutions, we at ST Group believe that Location Intelligence is not a ‘nice-to-have' anymore, but is fast becoming a ‘must have' in this industry,” adds Ellis. Founded in 1994, Spatial Technologies is a solutions company, focused on the delivery of location-based business intelligence value to clients.
