eXelate Behavioral Data Indicates 'What is Good for Apple May be Good for All' as iPad Launch Announcement Lifts Entire Tech Shopping Segment

NEW YORK, Feb. 11 /PRNewswire/ -- January 2010 saw the launch of two highly anticipated digital devices - Apple's iPad and Google's Nexus One mobile phone. Though both launches generated a lot of buzz, observations gathered from eXelate behavioral data indicate that the iPad launch not only generated increased purchase intent activity for all Apple products it also did so for the entire portable computing space.

According to the inaugural issue of the eXelate indeX, a new regular audience data trending report from eXelate's Data Lab, audience shopping trends showed that the iPad launch event on Wednesday, January 27th created a positive impact on Apple's current roster of products. It also helped generate purchase intent and interest that lifted the entire portable computing segment. eXelate's Lab did not observe a noticeable impact on technology purchase intent segments queried for Google's January 5th launch of their Nexus One mobile phone.

The eXelate indeX is a regular "trend watch" issued by eXelate based on anonymous audience identity and activity data gathered from billions of monthly unique targeting events on over 200M segment unique users that are part of the eXelate eXchange.

Shopping activity is defined by the report as qualified interactions with leading shopping promotion and comparison websites by eXelate's in-market shopping audience of over 40M US Unique Visitors.

As the iPad will not be available to shoppers for over a month, it appears that the press coverage for the launch of the product spurred demand for associated Apple products that currently can be priced and purchased online. According to purchase intent activity gathered from eXelate's Shopping Intent segment, on Wednesday, January 27, the date of the iPad announcement, consumers seeking to purchase currently available Apple products surged 27%.

The Apple iPad announcement also seems to have had a positive residual impact on the "portable computing" category as a whole. Building up to, and peaking on the announcement day, the number of consumers interested in purchasing a laptop computer also grew. The eXelate Lab saw a 31% increase in activity from Tuesday, 1/26/10 to Wednesday, 1/27/10 in the Laptop segment. On a week to week basis, the jump was even greater at +57%.

Interestingly enough, this expected "coattail" impact of the announcement actually lasted longer on non-Apple products, as we observed another increase of 26% on Thursday 1/28/10.

Although no similar impact was seen on the date of the Nexus One announcement, it is important to note that observed Shopping intent activity during the Nexus One introduction may have been impacted by the launch date's (January 5th) proximity to Christmas and New Year's Day, as well as the increased media clutter in the days leading up to the Consumer Electronics Show, where Google's announcement was one of many technology launches to happen during the week.

"The findings of this and many future trends identified by our Data Lab and published in the eXelate indeX will result in more optimized campaign planning in 2010 for our advertiser, agency and ad network partners," said eXelate Chief Revenue Officer Mark Zagorski. "As most advertisers have been comfortable with the concept of buying specific, identifiable, audience segments, we feel that it will be important to not only look at how audiences behave, but also who comprises these audiences. With eXelate's broad pool of data, we are able to look at both."

According to Ms. Ayelet Nuta, Director of Analytics and head of eXelate's optimization research and Data Lab, in future eXelate indeX research reports, the lab will dig deeper into how specific audience segments react to market activity and how their behavior patterns differ.

eXelate's Data Lab is able to pinpoint specific dayparts and market segments which can greatly improve campaign performance - based on actual audience data and campaign performance and not just market intent - thereby generating significant and unexpected improvements in campaign results.

eXelate plans on issuing regular eXelate indeX reports tracking unique audience activity trends throughout 2010. The current report can be found at: http://www.exelate.com/indexreport

About eXelate:

The eXelate eXchange is the world's first and largest open marketplace for behavioral targeting data. Through participation on the eXchange and access to proprietary data management tools such as eXelate's teXi, data buyers build an instant behavioral targeting function and optimize their campaign delivery, while data sellers gain direct control over their audience data distribution and build a new privacy-friendly income stream. The eXchange includes over 40 top ad network, agency and demand side platform buyers and dozens of leading publishers, who deliver targeting data on over 200M monthly segment unique users in lucrative verticals including Business-to-Business, Auto, Travel, Finance, Shopping and registration-based Demographics. For more information please visit http://www.exelate.com.

SOURCE eXelate