by donmimi83 (mostly away )

In an interesting story from the WSJ.com, RE/MAX is using data from Cox Communications DVRs to track viewer watching patterns and figure out where to place their advertisements.

Using a new process that taps into data from cable set-top boxes, RE/MAX found that, along with home-improvement shows, those households were also likely watching cable channels such as auto-focused Speed, as well as shows including TNT’s “Without a Trace.”

They also merged the viewing pattern data with demographic data in order to segment their audience.

By using viewing data from cable set-top boxes and merging it with information from demographic data companies such as Claritas, the technology can create a general behavioral profile of a viewer. For instance, RE/MAX wanted to reach women 25 years to 54 years old with $75,000 or more annual income and who were in the market to buy or sell a home in the next 12 months.

This sort of precision is already commonplace on the online world — even more precision is available in social networks (see Marketing Yourself with Facebook Flyers) — but it’s interesting to see the same targeting abilities start to move into the offline world too.

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