FORT LAUDERDALE — The Weather Company has been selling ads in to its mobile apps based on specific weather conditions local to users for a couple of years now. In this video interview with Beet.TV, David Clark, who oversees the company’s TV division, explains the value to marketers.
“Think of the question ‘What is the weather?’ as a proxy question. People are trying to make a decision to do something else and that’s really important to marketers. So we built a product called Weather FX, which takes weather data and matches it to people’s behavior.
“We understand the patterns and we make that available to marketers and help them make decisions. We know that when it rains you can sell more umbrellas. But what’s more interesting is, it’s going to be 50° in Palm Beach tomorrow, what brand of raspberry should we have on the shelf?
“That is really the power of it. Weather affects mood, it affects behavior, it affects decisions, and you’ll find QSRs, movie studios, big box retailers, auto… the weather affects foot traffic, it affects sales, it affects everything.”
Clark also talks about connected TV app plans and the recent acquisition of The Weather Company’s digital division by IBM.
This video was produced at the Beet.TV executive retreat presented by Videology with Adobe, AT&T AdWorks and Nielsen.
You can find more videos from the Beet Retreat on this page.
