• by Sarah Mahoney  @mahoney_sarah, July 14, 2008

TNS is unveiling a new way to measure grocery-store behavior, one it says will give both grocery retailers and packaged-goods marketers new insight into their marketing plans.

Called the TNS Insight Dashboard, the syndicated quarterly metric will track many variables over a period of time, enabling marketers to figure out which of their in-store marketing strategies are working hardest.

"We're combining different data streams to create a much more accurate picture of what's effective, in terms of positioning and promotion," says Mark Greene, VP, sales and planning for TNS North America. That way, he says, companies won't have to rely on inferential guesswork. "Right now, if sale numbers show you've been selling a large amount of Coke or Pepsi in a given store, you assume everything is working--that the labels, the shelf placement, and the displays are all doing a good job."

Dashboard combines information about where shoppers are in a grocery store at any given time, tracking the number of seconds they spend at any display, the amount of time they spend with other products, and then overlaying it with sales information. "A display's stopping power is a good thing when it generates a lot of purchasing, but if people are spending many seconds there and not buying, something isn't speaking to customers properly," he says.

The product, scheduled to be unveiled at the Institute for International Research's Shopper Insight in Action conference in Chicago, is an outgrowth of TNS' custom research for clients. "In some cases, for example, we've been able to tell whether money is better spent on aisles or on end caps. We've been able to pinpoint the most effective end caps--in certain stores, shoppers miss the ones in the back. And clients have even used the information to negotiate an entirely different layout in the store," he says. Because the report is ongoing, it allows companies to benchmark promotional tactics.

TNS is owned by the London-based market research and information group Taylor Nelson Sofres PLC. That company rejected a hostile takeover bid from WPP Group last week. GfK AG, Germany's biggest market-research company, is reportedly working on a bid, as well.