FEED Issue 03

31 TECHFEED Medicx

standard of TV, radio and newspaper audience data collection for decades. In the past marketers and advertisers would focus their strategy around those designated market areas. But the Medicx Micro-Neighborhood concept is much more granular, and targeted down to the level of the nine-digit zip code for postal delivery - and beyond. “Going right down to the level of the household, in our sector, is not something that can ever be utilised simply because of consumer privacy, but if you take a step up from the household, you have the Micro- Neighborhood,” explains Joachim. Micro-Neighborhoods, of which there are 30-35 million in the US, can be profiled and sorted based on different types of information – including number of households and population density. Through the Medicx process, the company can associate a great deal of rich data with each Micro-Neighborhood. “Regionality is something that greatly affects people and lifestyle. The idea is to be as relevant to an individual as IS TOO SENSITIVE TO BE READY AVAILABLE THROUGH PLATFORMS RUN BY NOVICES THE TYPE OF INFORMATION WE USE

Each medical transaction is associated with the submission of an insurance claim. “There are billions and billions of these transactions that occur on an annual basis,” says Joachim. “It is very sensitive information, but our sector has been able to utilise this type of intelligence in a de-identified and privacy-safe manner. There are a number of companies that aggregate and source this medical transaction information, so businesses can look at the intelligence from a 30,000 foot view to understand how a drug is being used in the country or what the diagnosis rate is of a certain condition. This infrastructure has been used for 30-plus years in the United States.” Weintraub developed a way to take this industry-standard information a step further and apply it to the consumer advertising space. Out of that came the Medicx-trademarked concept of the Micro- Neighborhood, which denotes a limited geographic area, representing a subset of potential consumers. WHO ARE THE PEOPLE IN YOUR MICRO-NEIGHBORHOOD?

“A Micro-Neighborhood can be as small as a US residential street or block with six to 12 households,” says Joachim. “Or it could be a larger geographic area, say in Manhattan where an entire residential building with a few hundred apartments could be its own Micro-Neighborhood. The idea is to take the United States, or any area, and break it up into definable geographic sizings…In some cases we have to group certain Micro-Neighborhoods together to meet privacy standards and to insure there is never a risk of re- identification of an individual consumer.” Traditionally, the US had been broken up into DMAs, designated market areas. DMAs comprise 210 regions which are used by The Nielsen Company for audience measurement and historically have been associated with individual media company’s broadcast radius. The Nielsen Company supplies reports on audience demographics, viewing statistics and has been the gold

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