|
DoubleClick and information resources establish strategic alliance to provide IRI's E-testing Service to CPG industry Innovative Service Links Internet Advertising with Offline Purchasing
Chicago and New York: With consumer packaged goods (CPG) marketers expected to pour roughly $1.2 billion into online advertising by 2003, Information Resources, Inc. (Nasdaq: IRIC), a leading international market research and information company, and DoubleClick (Nasdaq: DCLK), the leading global Internet advertising solutions company, today announced a strategic alliance to help these marketers develop effective online advertising strategies. This new alliance will provide CPG marketers with the first market intelligence service to measure the impact of diverse Internet advertising strategies on offline product purchase behavior. IRI's service, called e-testingT, will enable marketers to measure the impact of their Internet advertising efforts on actual offline consumer purchasing behavior by using a subset of IRI's Shoppers' HotlineŽ Consumer Panel of 55,000 U.S. households with DoubleClick's sophisticated ad-targeting capabilities. IRI Panel members will be exposed to online ads from a specific CPG company over a defined period of time, enabling the e-testingT service to correlate consumers' Internet activity, such as sites visited and exposure to ads, with their actual purchase of packaged goods products. The result: e-testingT can offer insights into the effectiveness of Internet promotion and its impact on consumer buying habits. All members of the e-testingT panel have opted-in to participate in this service; and all online data collected is anonymous to DoubleClick. The incorporation of DoubleClick's ad-targeting capabilities enables e-testing to become yet another component of IRI's Internet toolkit. Developed by IRI, the Internet toolkit helps CPG companies develop and implement Internet strategies, and evaluate their effectiveness. DoubleClick joins other IRI alliance partners, such as Forrester Research and PC Data, to provide the premier Internet marketing diagnostic services in the industry. "This alliance combines the unique research capabilities of IRI with the sophisticated targeting capabilities of DoubleClick to provide CPG companies with a cost-effective tool to measure the impact of online advertising on product purchases," said Greg Ellis, Vice President and General Manager of Research, DoubleClick. "As brand managers integrate the Internet into the marketing mix for their brands, they will need to know how this medium compares to traditional media," said Lana Busignani, IRI senior vice president for strategic business development. "e-testing can help them understand the responsiveness of their brands to Internet advertising and whether or not it demonstrates a return for their investment." Information Resources, Inc. is a leading provider of UPC scanner-based business solutions to the consumer packaged goods industry, offering services in the U.S., Europe and other international markets. The company supplies CPG manufacturers, retailers and brokers with information and analysis critical to their sales, marketing and supply chain operations. IRI provides services designed to deliver value through an enhanced understanding of the consumer to a majority of the Fortune 500 companies in the CPG industry. About DoubleClick Inc. Credits: PressReleaseNetwork.com |