ACNielsen | Homescan® expansion to 10,000 homes

Expanded consumer insights helping you to enhance your brand’s performance and grow your business

Effective March 2006, the Australian ACNielsen | Homescan panel has grown from 7,500 to 10,000 homes - making it the biggest per capita consumer panel in the world.

This latest expansion is a demonstration of ACNielsen’s commitment to the provision of consumer insights. As trends such as channel-blurring, increased retail focus on private label and deep discounting emerge, we understand that having the most complete market coverage and the most in-depth understanding of consumer purchasing dynamics is critical in ensuring the success of your brands.

The key the benefits include:

1) Expanded segmentation:

Segmenting consumers in to groups according to purchase behaviour, attitudes and store loyalty has always been part and parcel of the Homescan panel service. Now, with even more households, the degree of segmentation can be further refined.

Sources of volumetric growth for a brand are two-fold - attract more buyers or get existing buyers to buy more.

But just how well do you understand who the non-buyers are?

• Do they even buy the category?
• Of those who do buy the category, which brands do they buy?
• Are they heavy buyers of the category and hence worth targeting?

And what of your existing buyers?

• Who are the heavy buyers that you need to protect?
• Are there households who are infrequent/light buyers of your brand whom you could convince to buy more?
• How many buy into Private Label and only buy your brand when on promotion?

These are the types of questions that in-depth consumer segmentation allows. Insights from consumer segmentation allow you to differentiate between consumer groups and thereby design marketing and sales strategies specifically to influence a positive change in their purchase behaviour towards your brands.

2) Expanded trade insights:

Desktop access to key account level consumer behaviour

A major component of the Homescan expansion is the inclusion of a Retail Health folder within ACNielsen | Homescan i-sights. Specifically designed to assist in the delivery of consumer focused retail reviews, the ACNielsen | Homescan i-sights Retail Health suite of reports facilitate the understanding of how consumer behaviour is impacting sales of your brands/categories both overall and within specified accounts, allowing you to develop brand/category strategies which are based on addressing weaknesses and building on strengths.

Trading partners need to leverage the power of categories to capture more shoppers, increase shopping frequency and encourage increased spending to drive sales in a situation that is win-win for supplier and retailer alike. Shoppers go to the store to buy products, retailers must figure out which categories and brands will drive desirable behaviour in store. As the supplier you need to ensure your products are best positioned to help the retailer in this quest.

Assessing the underlying behaviour and demographic composition of each brand franchise and the competition within, and across, all accounts will be enhanced by the greater granularity provided via the 10,000 homes.

Improved channel read

An expected trend among our surveyed senior leaders of FMCG manufacturers (ACNielsen’s Retail Barometer Survey) is for growth to come from non-traditional channels

Homescan measures sales across the entire breadth of retail channels that are taken back to the home. With the expansion it is expected that Homescan’s unique positioning to read these non-traditional channels will be enhanced. Understanding how consumers purchase outside the traditional grocery channels will enable better implementation of brand and account plans specifically geared to these channels and those who shop their.

3) Expanded analytical depth:

Reviewing your portfolio of brands

Another of the core issues facing the FMCG industry currently is the aggressive plan of the key accounts to introduce Private Label. ACNielsen’s Retail Barometer Survey indicates that the majority of the surveyed senior leaders of FMCG manufacturers expect range reductions of some kind in the next few years.

This introduction inevitably places greater pressure on manufacturers in terms of the range review process. Providing consumer insights that serve to demonstrate the additional value that new range introductions and line extensions bring to the category and trade will become increasingly important. Likewise, evaluating an existing range, in terms of the consumer appeal will provide the extra insights as to which lines should stay and which would be better deleted. The larger panel sample will enable this type of analysis to be conducted across a broader spectrum of the product lines to assist in better balanced range decisions.

Timely understanding of the impact of Private Label

The need to track consumer acceptance and adoption of Private Label will become vital to assess how key account strategies in this area are impacting branded manufacturers.

While Homescan can already monitor Private Label acceptance, the larger sample will enable a quicker read on trial and adoption than would previously have been possible. Likewise, the expanded panel will enable greater depth of analysis in to each of the tiers of Private Label across key accounts within categories as they are introduced. The improved timeliness in reporting the impact of Private label investment on their business will benefit manufacturers and retailers alike.

ACNielsen | Homescan - expanded consumer insights helping you to enhance your brand’s performance and grow your business