PRISM In-Store Measurement Moves Closer to Reality

Nielsen In-Store will wrap up its nationwide trial of the in-store PRISM measurement service in December, and syndicated data will be available sometime in 2008, according to the company.

The PRISM service is being developed by Nielsen in conjunction with the In-Store Marketing Institute to measure in-store media and consumer shopping habits. The test period involves tracking traffic and exposure to marketing messages in 160 stores around the country, writes MediaPost.

The research has uncovered a few nuggets of information already:

• Visits to the salty snack aisle result in a closure rate of 66 percent in supermarkets, but only 17 percent drugstores.
• A higher proportion of visits to the snack foods aisle generates more purchases than multiple visits to the dairy aisle.
• 13 percent of shopping trips include kids.
• Shopping with children leads to more purchases, even among categories of little interest to children such as hair care and water.
• The presence of kids does not seem to affect the purchase of candy; however, parents with kids are two-and-a-half times more likely to purchase snack bars and fruit snacks.

An inability to measure the audience for in-store marketing activity has long been a stumbling block to treating retail as a viable medium for brand-building consumer communication, according to the In-Store Marketing Institute.

“Because we are getting a better read on how in-store messaging impacts consumers, we can create more effective ways to engage them in the shopping environment,” said Renetta McCann, chief executive officer of Starcom Mediavest Group. “This elevates the store to the status of new media, as critical as search or mobile or gaming in the overall marketing mix.”

Supporters of the PRISM measurement system include A&P, Clorox, Coca-Cola, ConAgra Foods, General Mills, Group M, Hewlett-Packard, Kraft, Kroger, Mars, Mattel, Miller Brewing, Nintendo, OMD, Proctor & Gamble, Pathmark, Price Chopper, Rite Aid, Safeway, Sears/Kmart, Starcom MediaVest, Stop & Shop, Target, Unilever, Walgreens, Wal-Mart and Winn-Dixie.