Every company and every analyst wants to looks at their retail data a little differently. And Nielsen and IRI are both happy to deliver customized views of their information (for a price). This is the option chosen by most large CPG companies: a custom database.
But to provide a cost effective option, Nielsen and IRI also have a standardized view of their information, usually referred to as a syndicated database.
If you can get by with a syndicated database, you can save tens of thousands of dollars a year (per category!).
There’s a catch, though. A syndicated database uses standard category and brand definitions that may or may not make sense for your business. A custom database allows you to decide how to structure your category, what products you want to include, and how you want to organize them. In addition, in a custom database, you can have your own sales regions and precisely match your fiscal or key reporting periods.
Why can’t you customize your syndicated database on your own? You (sort of) can but it will be labor intensive. And there are lots of facts where you can’t just group products together and get the right total (facts like distribution and velocity).
Here are the first things you need to do to figure this out:
1) Get the syndicated category and brand definitions from Nielsen/IRI. How closely does it track with how you look at your business?
2) Get ballpark costs for a syndicated option and a custom option. How well do the price points match your budget? Is a custom database even within the realm of possibility?
If you find that even the syndicated database cost is out of range, consider making one-time or occasional purchases of syndicated reports. These are delivered in Excel and can be very cost effective for marketing planning or making that crucial presentation at your biggest account.
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