New Service Merges YouGov Profiles, IPA TouchPoints

YouGov media planning and audience segmentation tool Profiles has been combined with the IPA's TouchPoints survey, which provides an annual view of where, when and in what mood people consume media in Britain.

The new offering allows users to identify their target audience using the YouGov Profiles data set insight across TouchPoints location, people, activities, media, emotion and mood data - enabling subscribers to plan and buy their media campaign audience data from one source. According to the organisations, benefits include a 'richer portrait' of audiences, with access to hundreds of thousands of data variables linked with seven-day diarised cross-media behaviour. The deal also enables subscribers to identify more bespoke audiences, with details about the best media and timings to engage them. Data is continuously updated to enable faster planning.

Dan Flynn of the IPA (Institute of Practitioners in Advertising) explained that more and more agencies are using YouGov Profiles data in the planning process, so at the request of its member agencies the IPA commissioned audience research specialist RSMB to integrate Profiles data into the TouchPoints dataset. Commenting on the initiative, Andy Morris, Chief Innovation Officer at YouGov, said: 'We're delighted to work with the IPA to offer this to clients who for many years have been benefiting from the power of Profiles and TouchPoints separately, and now have the ability to utilise the enhanced advantages of both data sets combined'.

Web sites: www.yougov.com and www.ipa.co.uk .