• by Wayne Friedman , December 10, 2008

Hallmark Channel has struck a first-of-its-kind deal with Nielsen Company's NielsenConnections that will show who is watching the cable network and buying products.

Using NielsenConnections' Brand Target Audience products, Hallmark will target some 125,000 consumers from Nielsen Homescan Panel, tracking product purchases across consumer packaged-goods, health and beauty aids--products specific to baby boomers, a key demographic of Hallmark.

The deal will allow Hallmark to access all its media platforms and retailer areas, including the nearly 4,000 Hallmark Gold Crown Stores, Hallmark Magazine and Hallmark greeting cards.

Hallmark's first effort will be to analyze Hallmark Channel's holiday marketing campaign, "Home for the Holidays," across its multiple platforms and in Wal-Mart stores.

Nielsen notes that baby boomers account for nearly $230 billion in sales for consumer packaged-goods products, representing 55% of total sales. Over 6,500 brands are measured in Nielsen Homescan, which has more than 1% U.S. penetration. Of those brands, baby boomers account for over 50% of sales for 72% of those brands. Howard Shimmel, senior vice president of client insights at Nielsen, says: "This new data enables Hallmark to not only better understand its highly valuable audience, but also to document its ability to deliver these influential consumers across all of its platforms."

Hallmark will also license NielsenConnections products to allow the media to be evaluated for its client's marketing targets, rather than the commonly used age and sex demographics.

This is one of the first studies using these tools. Nielsen and Hallmark looked at the spending power and brand loyalty of baby boomer households for consumer packaged-goods products.