AC Nielsen launches business unit for loyalty marketing

AC Nielsen has formed a loyalty marketing business unit that will provide end-to-end loyalty solutions in order to enable clients to gain innovative, feasible, high-value consumer insights from retailers’ shopper information. The unit has been named AC Nielsen Loyalty.

Insights provided by AC Nielsen Loyalty will enable retailers and their key manufacturer partners to work with the data generated by retailer loyalty programmes to better understand consumers’ shopping behaviour and preferences. They can also develop targeted, loyalty building marketing and merchandising programmes and track their impact on shoppers over time.

“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 maximising the return on their marketing investments,” says Steven M Schmidt, president and CEO, VNU Marketing Information and AC Nielsen. “Our aim is to help retailers find powerful new consumer insights in their loyalty data and use those insights to accelerate their growth. It will also give manufacturers new insights into category and brand performance and help them work more closely with retailers on highly targeted and effective category management programmes.”

Tom Markert, currently senior V-P and chief marketing officer, VNU MI and AC Nielsen, has been appointed as the president and CEO of the AC Nielsen Loyalty global business unit. Laurence Michael, currently senior V-P, Global Retailer Services Marketing, has been made its MD. The Indian head for this venture is yet to be decided.

“The industry has long recognised that loyalty programmes can provide highly valuable details of new insights into consumers’ shopping behaviour,” Markert says. “But so far, most retailers have struggled to realise the potential inherent in their loyalty data. Our solution combines the retailer-specific transaction data generated by loyalty programmes 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.”

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

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