IRI and MFour Debut Restaurant Visitor Analysis Tool

Consumer data giant IRI has partnered with MFour Mobile Research to launch a new tool called IRI OnSights, which uses MFour's first-party GPS location data to analyse visits to US bars and restaurants by hundreds of thousands of panellists.

Since spring last year, MFour has tracked more than 3.8 million visits to bars and restaurants, providing measurement of how frequently establishments are visited and how much time consumers spend at each. IRI OnSights taps into consumer insights from more than one million verified MFour app users, who have chosen to provide their locations and de-identified demographic information. This data provides IRI clients with both passive tracking insights and actively collected survey information.

The new solution also incorporates data for custom and syndicated consumer panelist survey responses, collected through the MFour mobile app and providing insight into the motivators of a restaurant or bar visit, what was consumed, and visitor demographics.

IRI's President of Consumer and Shopper Marketing Robert Tomei says marketers' understanding of consumer purchasing and consumption behavior at restaurants and bars had previously been largely anecdotal, limiting ability to build insights that include both on- and off-premise activity. Chris St. Hilaire, co-founder and CEO of MFour, adds: 'Combining observed passive insights - which show where mobile consumers go - with active insights from survey data capturing the 'why' behind their visits is a holy grail for market research'.

Web sites: www.iriworldwide.com and www.mfour.com .