AccuWeather Reveals How Weather Info Dictates Consumer Behavior

Sudipto Ghosh

September 25, 2019

To enable brands and advertisers with targeted advertising opportunities, AccuWeather announced the launch of AccuWeatherIQ™.

What happens to the shopping experience when it rains or snows in the US? Would a flood-like situation impact online grocery sales on weekly sales in India? What would it look like for advertisers who invested millions on targeted advertising campaigns to suddenly realize it’s going to lose because of a typhoon or a hurricane? How is the consumer behavior related to weather information, and how brands need to go a step further with making all the right insights with weather data?

According to Rich Relevance, “The difference between a clear day and a cloudy day means a difference of 10-12% in orders for Clothing, Home/Furniture, and Wholesale retailers, and, just as interesting, makes no significant difference for Big Box retailer.” Clearly, this weather data company is trying to add value to disperse the clouds of doubt from AdTech.

While weather data primarily serves the purpose of informing agencies and citizens about impending conditions and keep them safe, the business is now sizzling with real-time analytics ruling the roost. Weather data market has managed to silently grow into one of the fastest-growing and widely adopted technology marketplaces for brands, advertisers, and Big Data analysts.

How?

By virtue of the ability to analyze various real-time scenarios using a combination of Big Data, AI, Data Visualization, Predictive Analytics, and now — People-based Marketing and Advertising for contextual ad-serving on popular advertising platforms, including the Internet and Connected TVs.

Weather data has never been important for brands and consumers. Both buyers and sellers are leveraging weather information to engage in meaningful interactions and more relevant to their requirements. Having access to advanced weather data is critical to making important decisions, irrespective of the time, day, and month of the year. To enable brands and advertisers with targeted advertising opportunities, AccuWeather announced the launch of AccuWeatherIQ™. AccuWeatherIQ is a new advanced data product suite that enables brands and advertisers to utilize AccuWeather’s unique proprietary weather forecasts for targeted advertising via segments available on leading data platform.

Global AdTech RADAR Now Within AccuWeather’s Grasp

In recent months, AccuWeather has shown remarkable energy to solicit its position as a leading AdTech enabler in the industry. It has met the most stringent anti-fraud requirements set by TAG, the leading global certification program fighting criminal activity and increasing trust in the Digital Advertising industry.

By earning TAG’s Certified Against Fraud Seal, AccuWeather joins a group of media and advertising companies that have met the stringent requirements designed to protect advertisers, publishers, technology providers and consumers from digital ad fraud, including “fake clicks” generated from bots, domain spoofing and the reselling of unauthorized inventory. Fraud costs the Digital Advertising industry an estimated $20 billion per year but could go up as high as $50 billion by 2025, according to industry experts.

AccuWeather AdTech Product Meant to Outgrow AdTech Revenue Opportunities

Together with powerful data aggregation and forecasting engines, AccuWeather intends to put forward world-class Digital Advertising enablement for brands and advertisers. Today, AccuWeather database provides real-time insights into thousands of real-time weather observations updated every few minutes from land, ships, and aircraft, in addition to further refining via satellite observations and lightning-strike data for locations around the world. With bette image recognition and processing techniques, the company has managed to redefine global radar data set in over 40 countries showing the precise movement of precipitation via crowdsourced reports, photos and information.

Many studies and experiments show consumers would willingly pay more for certain items when exposed to sunlight, accounting the effect of a combination of meteorological events, precipitation levels and the intensity of light.

Access to Big Data Analytics and Machine Learning capabilities allows new data engine to work with over 160 global forecast models consisting of more than 12 terabytes of data daily run on supercomputers by governments all over the world – including their proprietary models and commercial models.

Eric Danetz, AccuWeather’s Global Chief Revenue Officer, stated –

“We have been dedicated to building products and advertising solutions that embrace the best practices of data privacy regulations to enable our U.S advertising partners to reach AccuWeather users at the right time and the right place, with the right context, while putting our users in charge of their data.”

Making Sense of Weather Data to Drive Targeted Advertising Campaigns

AccuWeatherIQ will help advertisers connect with U.S. users experiencing a variety of weather conditions today, tomorrow, or “next weekend”. The objective is to provide effective messaging based on lifestyle activities and health management preferences influenced by the weather.

By using AccuWeather’s weather data and proprietary forecasting tools, such as its exclusive AccuWeather RealFeel® Temperature and Lifestyle Indices, brands can create more personalized and contextual Digital Marketing campaigns that reach customers at relevant moments in time.

At the time of this announcement, Scott Sameroff, AccuWeather’s Senior Director of Data Products and Partnerships, said, “AccuWeatherIQ answers a critical need identified by our many advertising clients, which is to efficiently and effectively extend weather-based campaigns from AccuWeather properties across their entire media strategy and spend using the same weather data assets — with assurances that the toughest standards of data privacy, consumer choice and protection are applied to such assets.”

AccuWeatherIQ’s weather data segments are currently available in the U.S. on Salesforce and LiveRamp Data Store in addition to AccuWeather’s owned and operated media properties. AccuWeather teamed with this select group of trusted data partners, who are leaders in the market and share AccuWeather’s commitment to consumer privacy and transparency.

Eric added, “By working with world-class partners, such as Salesforce, LiveRamp, and Beemray, we are committed to maintaining industry-leading data privacy and consumer protection practices while supporting business innovation and growth.”

The AccuWeather app for both iOS and Android gives users control over when AccuWeather or its third-party partners may access user data, including device location data, and for what purposes such data may be used, with clear prompts and navigation screens and specific notice and consent language.

Currently, AccuWeather’s D3 concept (Data-Driven Decisions) accounts for forecasting with Superior Accuracy for every longitude and latitude point on Earth. As the gold standard in weather forecasting, AccuWeather is the number one supplier of customized, pinpoint weather warnings to large enterprises, as well as a vital information source for worldwide weather forecasts, data and meteorological consulting services.

AccuWeather implemented processes, systems, and tools to filter out invalid traffic to its web sites, and it obtained Media Rating Council accreditation for invalid traffic detection. Its TAG Certified Against Fraud Seal would further enable AccuWeatherIQ to become popular with adtech players, customers, and media companies.