In-store media rating system and method

• US 20080005045A1
• Filed: 06/18/2007
• Published: 01/03/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 06/19/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Shopper Scientist LLC
• Original Assignee: Sorensen Associates LLC (TNS Group Holdings Ltd.)
• Inventors: Sorensen, Herb, Albers, David
• Granted Patent: US 8,041,590 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/500
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063 Operations research, analysis or management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/00 Commerce
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 99/00 Subject matter not provided for in other groups of this subclass

Abstract

In-store media rating systems and methods are provided. A disclosed method includes receiving data from a plurality of individual stores, each having an individual store floor plan including shopper accessible areas and shopper non-accessible areas, and providing a standard floor plan including a plurality of predefined sectors. The method further includes standardizing each respective individual store floor plan to produce a corresponding standardized individual store floor plan based on the standard floor plan, wherein relative location and shopper accessible area of each of the sectors in the each standardized individual store floor plan correspond to the location and shopper accessible area of a corresponding predefined sector of the standard floor plan. The method further includes producing an output including the standardized individual store floor plan.

Claims

1. A method of analyzing shopper data from a plurality of shopping environments, comprising:

receiving data from a plurality of individual stores, each having an individual store floor plan including shopper accessible areas and shopper non-accessible areas;

providing a standard floor plan including a plurality of predefined sectors having respective relative locations and shopper accessible areas;

standardizing each respective individual store floor plan to produce a corresponding standardized individual store floor plan based on the standard floor plan, wherein each standardized individual store floor plan includes the same number of sectors as the standard floor plan, wherein the relative location and shopper accessible area of each of the sectors in each standardized individual store floor plan correspond to the location and shopper accessible area of a corresponding predefined sector of the standard floor plan; and

producing an output including the standardized individual store floor plan.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein, for each standardized individual floor plan, a ratio of the shopper accessible area of each sector to an entire shopper accessible area of the standardized individual store floor plan is substantially the same as a ratio of an area of a corresponding sector in the standard floor plan to the entire area of the standard floor plan.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the sectors of the standard floor plan have substantially equal area.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the standard floor plan is substantially rectangular.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein each individual store floor plan and the standard floor plan each comprise a grid of traffic points, and wherein standardizing each respective individual store floor plan to produce a corresponding standardized individual store floor plan, further comprises:

mapping each sector in the individual store floor plan to each corresponding sector in the standard floor plan such that each sector in the individual store floor plan has an equivalent location and ratio of shopper accessible area to a corresponding sector in the standard floor plan, the shopper accessible area of each sector being determined by the number of traffic points within the sector.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein standardizing each respective individual store floor plan to produce a corresponding standardized individual store floor plan, comprises:

(a) determining a weighted geographic center of the entire shopper accessible area of the individual store floor plan;

(b) from the weighted geographic center, determining a first-level quadrant by dividing the entire shopper accessible area with boundary lines to create quadrants such that each first-level quadrant includes one fourth of the shopper accessible grid areas of the entire shopper accessible area;

(c) determining a weighted geographic center of each first-level quadrant;

(d) from the weighted geographic center of a quadrant, determining a second-level quadrant by dividing the first-level quadrant with boundary lines to create quadrants such that each second-level quadrant includes one fourth of the shopper accessible grid areas of the first-level quadrant; and

(e) repeating steps (c) and (d) to determine next level quadrant until a desired number of quadrants is obtained, such that boundary lines for each sector of the individual store floor plan is defined.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the method further comprises:

normalizing the shopper data for each of the plurality of stores according to each sector of the standardized individual store floor plan, to thereby produce normalized shopper data;

wherein the output further includes the normalized shopper data associated with the standardized individual store floor plan.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the shopper data is one of shopper exposure to media per unit area over a predefined period of time and share of shopper exposure of each sector relative to total sectors in the individual store.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the shopper exposure to media is based on at least one of amount of time shoppers spent in an area and direction shoppers faced in an area.

10. The method of claim 6, wherein the shopper data is selected from the categories consisting of shopper exposure, transaction items, and transaction amount measured by currency per unit area over a predefined period of time.

11. The method of claim 6, wherein comparing the normalized shopping data from the plurality of stores using the standardized individual store floor plan is further based on a size of the store.

12. The method of claim 7, wherein the shopper data includes shopper exposure data, the method further comprising, performing orthogonal segmentation by:

identifying a group of stores in which a product category is located in a common sector of the standardized individual store floor plans for the stores;

determining a shopper exposure to the product category for the group of stores based on the normalized shopper data for the common sector.

13. The method of claim 7, further comprising overlaying the standardized individual store floor plan with at least one of product categories and shopping domains.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein shopping domains include at least one of aisle domains, checkout domains, endcaps, service counter domains, and open bazaar domains.

15. A shopper data analysis system for analyzing shopper data from a plurality of shopping stores, comprising:

a data generating device positioned in each store and configured to generate shopper data based on shopping activity of shoppers, the store having an associated individual floor plan; and

a data analysis device including a conversion program that is configured to receive the shopper data generated from the data generating device and the individual floor plans of each shopping store, and further to standardize each of the individual floor plans to thereby form a corresponding standardized individual floor plan for each store, the standardized individual floor plan for each store having sectors that correspond in location and ratio of shopper accessible area to sectors in a standard floor plan, to thereby enable a comparison of shopper data among the plurality of shopping stores.

16. The shopping data analysis system of claim 15, wherein the standard floor plan includes a plurality of predefined sectors and each individual store floor plan is standardized to include the same number of sectors as the standard floor plan, wherein physical locations of the sectors in the each individual store correspond to physical locations of the predefined sectors of the standard floor plan, and wherein the sectors within each floor plan are substantially equal in size.

17. The shopping data analysis system of claim 16, wherein the conversion program is further configured to standardize the individual store floor plan by:

dividing each individual floor plan into a plurality of grid areas to represent traffic points of each store;

creating the same number of grid areas in the standard floor plan;

mapping each grid area in the individual floor plan to each corresponding grid area in the standard floor plan such that an weighted grid area in the individual floor plan is created wherein the weighted grid area has an equivalent geographic location and shopper accessible area to corresponding grid area in the standard floor plan; and

defining boundary lines of each sector of the individual store floor plan based on the weighted grid areas in the sector.

18. The shopping data analysis system of claim 17, wherein the shopper data includes media exposure data consisting of a number of shoppers per unit area over a predefined period, an amount of time shoppers spent in an area, and a direction shoppers faced in the area.

19. The shopping data analysis system of claim 15, wherein the shopping data generating device is a shopper position data generating device.

20. The shopping data analysis system of claim 15, wherein the shopping data generating device is an image data generating device.