Quantifying retail relevance

Conducting and sharing researches for the benefit of the retailing sector by market research agencies is proving beneficial to many retailers. Karthik Nagarajan, Associate Director – Nielsen Online, The Nielsen Company, throws light on a few of the researches by The Nielsen Company.

Jasmeet Sahi (JS): In a recent survey, India was ranked No.1 on Consumer Confidence. What criteria do you follow to conduct a survey of this kind?

Karthik Nagarajan (KN): The Consumer Confidence survey is a quarterly survey conducted online across 56 countries. India has come out on top in the latest round of the survey. The survey quantifies people’s perceptions on three questions – their opinion on future job prospects, their opinion on the state of their finances and their opinion on whether this is a good time to buy their needs and wants. A score of 133 indicates the overall opinion on the above three questions is good. India at 120 is definitely closer to it than any other country at this time.

JS: Nielsen has formed an alliance with Face Book; and BrandLift is a part of that collaboration? What is it all about?

KN: The alliance makes Nielsen the chosen research partner for Facebook. What this means to the advertisers is that when they advertise on FB properties, they get access to evaluate the effectiveness of their campaigns using Nielsen’s Brandlift or AdEffectiveness tools.

JS: Face Book usage has multiplied enormously of late. Was that a reason to collaborate with FB for market research?

KN: Yes, the interest was mutual. Besides being an extremely fast growing social community globally, FB also offers marketers unique opportunities like seed marketing, etc.

JS: What areas does The Nielsen Company cover for its retail surveys?

KN: The Nielsen Company conducts surveys for the retail sector under varied categories like Brand performance, shopper trends, store competition, retail solutions, and age of stock amongst a host of others.

 JS: In what way does Nielsen plan out advertising campaigns for online advertising for its clients?

KN: Nielsen covers the online advertising market in multiple ways. AdEffectiveness and Brandlift helps advertisers and agencies measure the effectiveness of their online campaigns. AdRelevance helps the industry keep track of different campaigns that are becoming live; the sectors that are most active, activity of advertisers as well as the kind of creative advertisements that are doing well. Both the products are currently available in India.