Weather Patterns Trigger Consumer Purchase Behavior

We all know that weather impacts the way we feel and the way we act. Rain keeps us indoors, can affect our mood and change what we do. We also feel and act quite differently on beautiful sunny days.Did you know that the weather can also affect what and when people buy? For example, pizza deliveries go up on rainy days as does on-demand movie purchasing and when cold weather strikes, pharmacy sales go up.Socialtyze is now working with IBM Watson to help advertisers capitalize on targeting people by zip code based on the weather so that when specific patterns strike, brands can showcase their products in the newsfeed of Facebook and Instagram, prompting them to purchase.This is a gamechanger for brands looking to reach customers during specific weather patterns.This new technology combines the power of weather intelligence from The Weather Company with a cross-channel digital marketing platform. It gathers geographically and seasonally-proprietary weather data and in some cases, customer-specific sales transactional data. It then uses the data to create weather triggers based on conditions that influence consumer behavior.Weather triggers are categorized into three conditions that influence consumer behavior:

• Relative conditions like forecasted rain, heavy rain, high cloud coverage, and inclement weather
• Consumer activities like outdoor activities, grocery shopping, eating out, online shopping, etc.
• Product triggers such as CPG products, food and beverage items, and hair care products to name a few.

The triggers are also relevant to specific locations and seasons, meaning a brand can predict audience needs in target markets in real-time or even months before.Here’s how it works -

1. The tool analyzes data: interprets and normalizes past, present, and future weather in conjunction with industry-leading sources of sales data.
2. Creates triggers: defines condition mixes based on hyper-local data to determine when the weather is most likely to drive consumer purchase or action.
3. Activates media: in real-time across paid social media.

There are many industries that can benefit from this platform and technology. Here are a few case studies across Wine & Pharma:WineIn 2017, $98M wine sales were driven by weather.IBM Watson analyzed sales data and weather conditions during winter in different regions and found that nearly half of 2017 weather-driven wine sales occurred in winter. Ultimately, this data helped wine brands know when they should activate their campaigns to drive results.

PharmaceuticalA popular retail giant sought to maximize their share or revenue from health care related products. The retailer took advantage of the technology to reach consumers when and where symptoms were prominent, or where prescriptions were most likely to be filled.The retailer was able to reach the right consumers in the right moments, and thus succeeded in driving consumers in-store for health care medications, along with notable foot traffic lifts including:

• Rx Total Flu resulted in an 11.29% lift
• Cough & Cold Symptoms resulted in a 24.39% lift

Another dry eye relief product also leveraged triggers and audience targeting to reach relevant consumers and drive consideration of their product, resulting in a 28% Lift in Purchase Intent for the products, 3x the Health/OTC intent benchmark. The campaign also yielded a sustained lift in purchase intent from campaign launch to campaign completion.In summary, this tool paired with optimized paid media targeting has the power to impact your bottom line by solving the part of the equation of serving the right content, to the right person, at the right time.Source: IBM Watson & Nielsen