Scarborough Research and Acxiom Partner on Market Segementation

Scarborough Research and Acxiom® Corporation announced a marketing arrangement that will provide marketers more actionable information to precisely target prospects and customers who represent their most profitable and strategic opportunities. The joint marketing effort will make Acxiom Personicx® household segmentation data available through Scarborough Research, and the Scarborough Local Market and USA+ data will be available through Acxiom Personicx.

The combined use of Personicx and Scarborough information can lead to even greater actionable consumer insights for marketers. For example, a national furniture chain seeking to find the right customers for its new line of upscale furniture can append their in-house customer data with Personicx segmentation to determine the most responsive prospects for a targeted marketing campaign. Those Personicx segments representing the best prospect group then can be analyzed against Scarborough media and lifestyle data to determine the most effective ways to reach them in their local markets.

Personicx is a household-level segmentation system that places each U.S. household into one of 70 segments based on that household's specific consumer and demographic characteristics. The use of household Personicx can, for example, reveal the dramatic difference between the consumer behaviors of an affluent retired couple living next door to a young family who is just starting out. As a prospecting tool, Personicx helps marketers identify those consumers who could be their most profitable customers. Personicx currently benefits marketers across many major industries, including banking, retail, automotive, insurance and healthcare.

Scarborough Research's consumer shopping, media and lifestyle insights cover 81 leading markets and several smaller markets in the U.S. Scarborough surveys consumers directly in the local cities where they live to ensure that the insights captured truly reflect the consumer's "real world" environment. Scarborough's consumer data is currently used by Fortune 1000(TM) marketers for more effective co-branded partnerships, to win back market share, to expand the reach of their brand, to choose the most relevant media and to drive greater ROI for their marketing programs.

"Scarborough Research is committed to delivering services that drive greater marketing program impact and return-on-investment," said Alisa Joseph, vice president, Advertiser Marketing Services, Scarborough Research. "The combined insights from Scarborough and Acxiom result in a powerhouse of information for any marketer who is looking for more effective customer retention and acquisition campaigns. The ability for marketers to develop messages that are tailored to better address the buying motivations of their customers is significant given the multitude of product choices offered to consumers today."

"In today's complex marketing environment, consumers receive more commercial messages than ever before, which makes it tougher to stand out in the marketplace," said Louis Rolleigh, Personicx Product Leader, Acxiom Corporation. "Marketers who craft their campaigns with targeted customer information have a distinct edge on their competition. The Personicx/Scarborough combination sheds light on thousands of attributes of a customer or prospect, providing superior impact for any marketer wanting to increase success and to cut through the clutter."