By Philip Kinzler, product marketing lead, IBM Watson
Advertising. Published on September 26, 2018.
Marketers get excited about data,
artificial intelligence and the internet of things because of their combined
power to potentially impact consumers' everyday lives. Across the commerce
landscape, the potential applications may be limitless: Farmers are now using
satellite data to help increase crop yields and improve the quality of the food
we eat. Shippers are deploying blockchain technology to modernize the supply
chain and get products into stores more safely and quickly. Banks are relying
on encrypted mainframe computers to help protect consumers' personal data and
prevent cybercrime.
One of the areas in which marketers have
only just begun to tap the exponentially increasing unstructured data of the
internet is the weather. Corporate America's growing interest in weather data
makes sense, given the near universal influence of environmental factors like
weather on consumer purchase behavior. Fluctuations in weather can determine
the frequency and timing of everything from doctor visits to shopping trips to
attendance at entertainment and sporting events.
New and emerging technology platforms allow
marketers to leverage weather data and connect with consumers in more targeted
and relevant ways. For example, IBM Watson Advertising has informed
its WEATHERfx platform with the Truven MarketScan database, which includes
more than 250 million unique patients from across the health care spectrum,
through a strategic partnership with Watson Health called WEATHERfx Health with
Watson. A wide array of the platform's triggers can help predict when certain
weather patterns may exacerbate particular health conditions. By analyzing the
two sets of data, WEATHERfx Health with Watson empowers brands to connect with
consumers during these critical moments in order to drive both awareness and
action.
Contextual targeting based on weather
conditions can prompt an immediate response to messaging from a variety of
health and wellness brands. Migraine sufferers, for instance, may experience
the onset of symptoms in extremely dry or humid climates, or following the
rapid drops in atmospheric pressure that come with stormy weather. By creating
a look-alike model from the aggregate anonymized data, marketers have a better
understanding of the circumstances that may affect the typical migraine
sufferer and can serve up an ad when weather conditions may seem more likely to
trigger an episode.
Retailers and manufacturers can employ
preventative messaging in a host of different scenarios to drive traffic to
stores—for example, recommending purchasing over-the-counter allergy
medications when pollen counts are high. A national cough drop brand recently
used WEATHERfx Health with Watson to target cold and flu sufferers in a digital
ad campaign designed to raise awareness and consideration through highly
relevant placements triggered on conditions that may aggravate coughing
symptoms. The campaign outperformed the broader performance benchmarks for
desktop and mobile by 520 percent and 160 percent, respectively,
per Watson Advertising campaign results.
Make It Relevant and Personal
Increasingly, marketers seek to create
relevance through personalization. The recent surge in adoption of ad blockers
is clear evidence that consumers prefer a world with fewer ads, yet surveys
have also shown that consumers appreciate ads that are tailored to their
interests and shopping habits. In addition, personalized ads have the potential
to lift sales and increase campaign ROI.
As with any personalized campaign, the
challenge is to create highly targeted, relevant ads without becoming intrusive
or annoying. This is particularly true in campaigns that leverage patient-level
data. Targeting a group of consumers with a specific health condition adversely
affected by weather is both an opportunity and a responsibility to conduct
personalized marketing in a deliberate manner. A few guidelines:
Comply with patient privacy laws
In the case of WEATHERfx Health with
Watson, ads are served based on the when and where that the weather signal
provides, and not the who, which eliminates privacy concerns. The patient
database is generalized but is able to give a better aggregate signal because
of the larger sample size.
Create contextual relevance
Utilizing weather data is not as simple as
promoting cold beverages during times of warm weather. Consider geographical
differences when setting campaign triggers for specific consumer needs. For
example, a suntan lotion brand may want to target consumers in Minneapolis on a
sunny day in January with 50-degree temperatures, but not when similar
conditions are reached in Miami, as those consumers may be shopping for cold
remedies.
Right time, right message is critical
The myriad ways consumers choose to treat
specific health conditions are among the most personal decisions they may make.
Thus, a campaign's message and its timing are both critical. Marketers should
focus on providing information that the consumer may not already know about how
weather can impact that condition—for example, informing the diabetes patient
about how temperature extremes may raise blood sugar counts—while giving as
much advance notice of the weather changes as the data will allow.
Campaigns that leverage weather data can
generate an immediate receptivity and response because consumers are getting
necessary information in the most accurate and relevant context. As brands
continue to build their relationships with AI, weather and well-being can be a
natural marriage for marketers.
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