Retail merchandising condition executed by retailers and measured by going through newspapers and flyers. A Feature is a printed ad vehicle distributed by the retailer usually weekly, via newspapers, direct mail or in-store. Most commonly used is Feature without Display. Any Feature (with or without a Display) and Feature only (without a price cut) are also available but not used that often.
Reference article: Beginner’s Guide to Trade Merchandising Measurement.
Do coupons get counted as feature? What about in-store sweepstakes? Are there other kinds of things that get counted as feature outside of direct mail or in-store circulars?
I don’t know anything about feature coding outside the United States. So that’s one caveat right off the bat. Second, what I’m about to say applies to Nielsen and I’m not sure if there are some differences for IRI.
In Nielsen data:
Features must be retailer specific. Only printed features are captured – digital features aren’t collected at this point by Nielsen. I can’t think of any distribution methods that meet that criteria except in-store and direct mail but if there was something else, and the retailer provided it to Nielsen, I expect they would code it. The feature ad must be for specific product(s). Nielsen only codes features that can be linked to a product in their database. So a sweepstakes that was a general store promotion wouldn’t be coded. But a sweepstakes including specific products that was advertised in a printed flyer would be coded. Nielsen codes all items listed, details of the offer, any prices features, whether there is a coupon, and coupon value.
I see the last comment about digital features was several years ago so am curious if there’s been an update for IRI to include digital and/or mobile app-based features?
I was talking to someone the other day (a client of IRI) who told me their documentation said digital features were included. I assume anything that impacts every shopper would be included but I’m not sure apps with digital, opt-in coupons would be. I will update this reply if I get any additional information.