GroupM, Kantar to Study Hispanic Consumer Behavior

GropuM is working with Kantar Media on projects designed to integrate the return path data from set-top boxes with other data about consumers, beginning with a look at Hispanic programming and product purchases.

Linking media consumption with purchase behavior is a key to helping marketers determine the return on their advertising investments. The companies say their initiative will make it possible to identify specific Hispanic Spanish-speaking target audiences, TV tuning by program, commercial, channel and time period, commercial measurement, contextual ad performance and TV ROI.

GroupM will be licensing data from Kantar's DirecTView service and overlaying it with data from Kantar Shopcom, a data integration, analytics and insight firm. DirecTView is one of the largest national audience measurement services available in the United States, providing anonymous audience viewing behavior data from 100,000 satellite television subscribers.

"All GroupM agencies are keenly interested in improving methods of collecting, measuring and interpreting television viewing data," Lyle Schwartz, head of implementation research and marketplace analysis for GroupM, said in a statement..  "This new effort offers valuable, comprehensive insights on the role media plays in the consumer's path to purchase that will prove invaluable to our clients."

Kantar, like GroupM, is part of the WPP holding company.

"The initial effort of this initiative allows us, for the first time, the opportunity to explore the relationship between Hispanic programming viewing and purchasing behavior," said Bud Breheney, chief commercial officer for Kantar Media Audiences North America.

Jon Lafayette

Jon has been business editor of Broadcasting+Cable since 2010. He focuses on revenue-generating activities, including advertising and distribution, as well as executive intrigue and merger and acquisition activity. Just about any story is fair game, if a dollar sign can make its way into the article. Before B+C, Jon covered the industry for TVWeek, Cable World, Electronic Media, Advertising Age and The New York Post. A native New Yorker, Jon is hiding in plain sight in the suburbs of Chicago.