Ethnic Workbench Reveals Retail Sales Trends In Hispanic & African-American Markets.

Information Resources, Inc. announced the availability of Ethnic Workbench a new service for analyzing retail sales
trends and measuring the effectiveness of marketing programs in Hispanic and African-American markets.

“Any CPG manufacturer or retailer seeking sales and market share growth over the next few years has to be studying the behavior of the U.S. ethnic markets, as Hispanic population and buying power is expected to grow twice as fast as the rest of the population,” said Neil Canter, division president for IRI’s Analytic Insights Group. “Every CPG marketer has at least considered –and many have allocated significant resources to — ethnic-targeted marketing initiatives. Yet marketers are just beginning to leverage the rich sales information and analytic tools now available to identify opportunities and evaluate results in the cities and stores dominated by ethnic shoppers.”

IRI’s new Ethnic Workbench service enables CPG marketers to compare retail sales trends in key ethnic markets against the overall U.S. average to identify opportunity gaps and to measure the impact of specific ethnic-targeted marketing efforts. For example, whereas year-over-year dollar sales in the ready-to-eat cereal category are flat for the U.S. as a whole, the Ethnic Workbench reveals that sales have increased nearly seven percent in key Hispanic markets. A ready-to-eat cereal manufacturer can then drill down to review sales at the brand level to determine whether its brands are getting their fair share of the growth.

The Ethnic Workbench also answers questions like:

— How effective are ethnic-targeted marketing efforts, such as Spanish-language advertising, in driving sales growth in ethnic stores?

— Which brands are over- vs. underdeveloped, or growing vs. declining, in ethnic markets vs. the general market?

— Are ethnic-targeted SKUs getting the desired level of distribution in ethnic stores?

For more information at http://www.infores.com