Nieman Foundation at Harvard
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.”
