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Nielsen 'Suspends' P.R.I.S.M. Project

By Peter Breen

The Nielsen Company confirmed today that it has suspended plans to launch a syndicated data service based on the P.R.I.S.M. initiative.

"Given the nation's serious economic state, Nielsen and its clients have decided [that] this is not the right environment to launch a national syndicated service," according to an official statement released on Friday. "As a result, Nielsen is suspending [the] service indefinitely."

Nielsen's statement asserts that the industry "as a whole is very supportive of a syndicated service" that would provide metrics for measuring consumer reach within the store, but that "many clients ... are not in a position to fully fund" the project in the current economic environment. The company said that it will offer custom work for interested clients "until a syndicated service is financially viable" for enough of them in the future.

The P.R.I.S.M. initiative was originally launched in 2006 by a consortium of consumer product manufacturers and supporting retailers spearheaded by the In-Store Marketing Institute. The goal was to establish a valid metric for estimating shopper traffic by using a store's sales data and other obtainable pieces of information.

In December 2006, the consortium selected Nielsen to commercialize the project and develop a nationally syndicated system that would provide the industry with data on the audience for in-store marketing activity. Nielsen launched a new business unit, called Nielsen In-Store, and set out to create a service that not only would provide audience measurements, but also would gauge marketing effectiveness by auditing the presence of in-store marketing materials. The company's original timetable called for the syndicated service to be launched by the end of 2007.

Last month, Nielsen announced that Walmart -- which had supported the P.R.I.S.M. initiative from the outset -- had decided not to participate in the data syndication service.

"It's really a shame," said Peter Hoyt, executive director of the In-Store Marketing Institute. "We all had such high hopes for this. There were some incredible findings gained through the early stages of the project, though, and I imagine that sooner or later someone else will appear who can build on this platform."

In a statement released to the media, Procter & Gamble also expressed disappointment over the announcement and said that it would "continue to leverage the robust P.R.I.S.M. data" that it has already obtained. P&G was a founding member of the P.R.I.S.M. consortium and the initiative's most vocal advocate.

Published: January 2009

Source: In-Store Marketing Institute

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