Blizzards & Beer: How Weather Affects What We Buy
Working with the immense trove of weather data amassed by The Weather Channel, Vikram Somaya has found some strange and unusual connections between the weather and consumer behavior. In this presentation, hear some of the fascinating facts surrounding purchasing behavior and how marketers can use this data to create stories that are both compelling and sometimes entirely intuitive.
Do people buy more beer or less in Seattle when the rainfall is above average in the autumn months? What does the dew point in Dallas have to do with the purchase of bug spray? Can the humidity in NYC affect engagement around shampoo ads? Understand the power of data intelligence as the speaker applies historical weather conditions for 6000 individual locations to local store sales and consumer sentiment. The result of these calculations proves that weather affects much more than whether you take an umbrella with you. It also fashions the way we think, eat, feel, pray and love.
The Weather Company
As general manager of the WeatherFX division at The Weather Company (Weather), Vikram Somaya leads the team that creates localized ad targeting solutions using the company’s access to location data and the best, most comprehensive weather data in the world. Before joining Weather, Somaya held leadership roles in data analytics and business development at Thomson Reuters, Bluekai, Milabra, Phorm, and Operative Media. He received a bachelor’s degree in the history of art from Yale University.