Nieman Foundation at Harvard
HOME
          
LATEST STORY
The Guardian won’t post on X anymore — but isn’t deleting its accounts there, at least for now
ABOUT                    SUBSCRIBE
April 16, 2013, 12:45 p.m.
LINK: www.digiday.com  ➚   |   Posted by: Caroline O'Donovan   |   April 16, 2013

The Weather Company has access to years of weather data, and now they want to sell it. CEO David Kenny, formerly of Digitas, told Digiday he believes weather data offers as strong an “intent signal” as search, and he’s hired a team of “data savants” to help him harness it.

To understand the Weather data thesis, consider the challenge for advertisers wanting to sell beer in the summer in Atlanta. The Weather team shared a finding that, in the summer, no change in weather condition will incrementally lift Atlanta beer sales. In Chicago, however, four consecutive days of below-average summer temperatures will spike beer sales by 20 percent. In the fall, beer sellers in Atlanta might have better luck. Three consecutive days of above-average temperatures in that season cause Atlanta beer sales to spike. Armed with this understanding, beer marketers can figure out when and where to spend their money.

Targeting through Weather’s data has been so successful, in fact, that Kenny plans to soon extend it to other platforms and turn Weather “into an ad network of sorts.”

Show tags
 
Join the 60,000 who get the freshest future-of-journalism news in our daily email.
The Guardian won’t post on X anymore — but isn’t deleting its accounts there, at least for now
Guardian reporters may still use X for newsgathering, the company said.
What should journalists do when the facts don’t matter?
“You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink…Journalists need to understand how distributing true and useful information out into the world can be its own rewarding service — no matter what happens next.”
I’m a journalist and I’m changing the way I read news. This is how.
Sometimes it’s healthy to do something you love less, and differently.