Experian Simmons launch new cross-platform media planning service.

Experian Simmons, part of Experian Marketing Services, announced the development of Simmons ConnectSM, a new cross-platform media planning service that includes the industry’s first digital-media panel that links metered online and mobile activities to thousands of consumer brand preferences, attitudes, lifestyles and behaviors. Simmons Connect will provide marketers with the insights they need in an increasingly fragmented media environment to plan marketing efforts across traditional and emerging digital platforms, including mobile, using a consistent consumer definition.

Respondents to the trusted Simmons National Consumer Study (NCS) and National Hispanic Consumer Study (NHCS) will be invited to join the Simmons Connect panel. Experian Simmons will continuously measure and report detailed online and mobile activities of opt-in panelists through the use of state-of-the-art electronic meters installed on panelists’ home computers, smartphones and digital tablets. This anonymized transactional data will be combined with more than 60,000 consumer elements collected from panelists through their NCS and NHCS surveys, including their use of traditional media, brand preferences, shopping habits, attitudes, opinions and more.

“A common challenge for marketers with new and unknown media is avoiding the waste of marketing dollars due to a lack of proper metrics and accountability measures,” said Ken Wollenberg, general manager of Experian Simmons. “With Simmons Connect, Experian Simmons removes the unknown from the equation, providing marketers with the information they need to make informed cross-platform marketing decisions and ensure wiser use of limited budgets.”

Through the integration of these two comprehensive data sets into a single service, Experian Simmons will provide marketers with actionable tools to guide their multichannel brand strategies by revealing how targeted consumers engage with various media platforms and how incremental reach is gained across platforms and channels. The service also will deliver much-more needed time-spent metrics for targeted consumers across a wide range of media platforms and device-specific activities. Media platforms include traditional print and broadcast media as well as PC-based Internet, mobile phones and tablets. Device-specific activities range from watching live and recorded broadcasts and listening to music, watching videos and reading blogs to using messaging apps, playing games, accessing social media, browsing the Web and more.

“Creating meaningful connections with consumers in this increasingly fragmented media environment requires marketers to fully understand their target customers’ shifting habits and engagement with new digital and mobile devices,” said Matt Seeley, group president of Experian Marketing Services. “Simmons Connect helps simplify the complexity of cross-platform marketing and provides our clients with a distinct competitive advantage when it comes to customer acquisition and engagement.”

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