Earlier this year, two of the most powerful and well used consumer insight tools were merged together, giving us a new level of insight into shoppers’ purchasing behaviour and motivations. This data now provides an opportunity to get even further under the skin of consumers, and to track behaviour all the way back to actual product purchases.

For years, we’ve used TGI data to create, test and compare audiences. TGI’s broad ranging survey supplies a wealth of information on media consumption, lifestyle, outlook, demographics and even which people are more likely to wear furs in winter. However, one of the limitations of this data is that all responses are 'claimed behaviour' that is not independently qualified.

Kantar’s World Panel data collects information from respondents on their actual purchase behaviour, asking participants to scan every product purchased and send in receipts once a week to give details on the actual amounts spent. This data is often used by brands to assess what consumers are spending, both on their products and their competitors.

For the first time, Kantar’s World Panel data can be fused with TGI, meaning we can combine actual purchase behaviour with respondents' answers on lifestyle, demographics, media consumption and values. 30,000 TGI respondents were fused with 25,000 World Panel donors and matched according to demographic information. This data then was passed through a rigorous testing process to ensure it was both accurate and representative of the UK population.

By way of example, some of the factors we can now investigate include:

·            All the information we usually get from TGI can be run against individual brands.

·            Average 6 monthly spend, for example amount spent on pizzas, by single women compared to women with children.

·            How much is spent on own label products compared to the amount spent on branded products.

·            Where do people buy specific brands, for instance how much do people 65+ spend on tuna at ASDA compared to Tesco.

The data currently available covers the period July 09 – June 10, and 18+ main shoppers are examined.

MEC View

This is a welcomed development in the research sector. This dataset will enable MEC to give more factual information based on numerical information instead of relying on participants’ memory. It will also enable more accuracy as over-claiming and under-claiming won’t be possible.