IRI arms cough/cold retailers with new tool to boost performance

CHICAGO — IRI earlier this week launched IRI Illness Tracking, a new solution that pinpoints consumers who suffer from cough, cold, influenza and allergy symptoms throughout the year, so that over-the-counter product marketers and retailers can grow sales during the flu season through better planning and activation programs.



“The launch of IRI Illness Tracking signifies a much-needed innovation in the OTC marketplace,” stated Bob Sanders, EVP IRI Health Care Practice. “For manufacturers and retailers, ‘winning the season’ requires more accurate, granular, integrated and timely insights, and that is exactly what IRI Illness Tracking offers. With improved forecasting, granularity and data integration, companies will be able to enhance their efforts in everything from supply chain management and customer engagement to media optimization.”



IRI has joined forces with Symphony Health to launch the fully integrated service on IRI Liquid Data. IRI Illness Tracking will offer cutting-edge tracking capabilities for the U.S. population affected by respiratory and allergy symptoms to help companies improve their resource allocation, activation programs and return on investment for products within these seasonal categories.



By integrating anonymized illness incidence data from Symphony Health with IRI’s point-of-sale and consumer-shopper data, companies will gain better and more timely insights into seasonal categories, thus helping them more efficiently plan, activate and measure their results. Illness Tracking will allow users to combine insights easily from all other IRI solutions, including IRI ShopperSights, IRI Consumer and Shopper Insights Advantage and IRI Media Advantage, creating a robust and comprehensive activation platform.



“IRI Illness Tracking is a further demonstration of IRI’s strategy and commitment to drive client growth by bringing all data sets under one platform,” added Sanders.



IRI Illness Tracking will be available in September 2017, prior to the beginning of flu season.