history of claritas

CLARITAS History

Learn the history of Nielsen Claritas

Nielsen Claritas, has its roots in the General Analytics Corporation (GAC), conceived in 1961 by Jonathan Robbin; a scientist who understood that America was not destined to be a mass market for long. Though he was not a marketer by profession, Robbin understood before others that America was becoming a market of diverse populations that reacted and behaved differently–a so-called market of minds. To find, locate and describe these markets, Robbin created a new market research firm and invented a new industry – geodemography, the practice of identifying and mapping to the ground different subsets of the U.S. population. Out of this grew the first syndicated segmentation system – PRIZM, a standard way of sorting the population into similar groups by behavior and attributes so that businesses could act on the information.

Claritas (pronounced 'CLAIR – uh – toss') was founded in 1971 when Robbin repurchased General Analytics Corporation (GAC) from a California conglomerate to which he had sold it in the 1960s. When his market research firm came back to him, Robbin renamed it for the Latin word for "brightness." In 1978, his market research company entered the collective American imagination by creating the short, catchy descriptions for neighborhood PRIZM clusters that made such names as "Bohemian Mix" part of the nation's vocabulary.

Throughout its history, Claritas has added core competencies to dramatically expand its vision and scope. Today, Claritas is the premier market research company providing marketing information resources and solutions for companies engaged in consumer and business-to-business marketing. We are dedicated to helping our clients maximize their profitability by focusing on targeted and measurable marketing programs and enterprise-wide technology solutions.

Milestones

Claritas was the brainchild of a scientist, and its first significant application was for the federal War on Poverty program in the 1960s. Purposeful science has always guided the company's direction and development, but its applications and products now reside firmly in the world of evolutionary, technology-fueled business. Through the decades, Claritas has become a much larger market research firm through strategic acquisitions. Always, it has been a company of firsts:

1961 – Jonathan Robbin founded General Analytics Corporation and applied computer programs, such as factor and cluster analysis, to demographic databases. He begins work on government contracts. Private industry follows.

1971 – Robbin, a scientist with a fondness for literature, renames his market research company Claritas (Latin for "brightness").

1976 – Robbin invents geodemography by linking geography with demography.

1976 – Robbin takes actionable data to the business community by describing the massive data produced from the U.S. Census in useful terms. The information is presented in the first segmentation system, PRIZM.

1978 – PRIZM clusters are described with simple, easy-to-remember names – "Bohemian Mix" – that eventually enter the American vocabulary through books, the press and academe.

1979 – Claritas had attracted enough attention to earn a business partner – Warner Communications. In 1982, VNU of the Netherlands purchased Warner's interests and in 1986, VNU Marketing Information Services of New York acquired the remainder of the market research firm outright.

1979 – Precision marketing is created – the science of examining micro-markets by drilling segmentation below the ZIP Code level to the census tract and block group levels, via PRIZM.

1987 – A household-level segmentation system is developed for marketing financial services – P$YCLE.

1987 – COMPASS is launched – a powerful desktop marketing analysis system.

1988 – Market Audit is acquired – the leading provider of bank market share and consumer behavior data for financial products and services.

1990 – MicroVision, the first ZIP+4 level segmentation system is released.

1991 – A household-level segmentation system is developed for marketing life insurance products – LifeP$YCLE.

1992 – Claritas and a sister Nielsen company, National Planning Data Corporation, are merged.

1994 – PRIZM grows to a 62-cluster system that is more powerful and more descriptive of the U.S. population.

1996 – Strategic Mapping Inc. is acquired.

1997 – Urban Decision Systems is acquired.

1997 – National Decision Systems is purchased by Claritas' parent and exists alongside Claritas.

1997 – Urban Decision Systems is merged into National Decision Systems.

1997 – SiteReports.com is launched – Claritas' first offering of demographics for purchase and retrieval online.

1998 – PrecisionCode, the one-stop desktop geocoding system, is launched providing the ability to append geographic, cartographic, and segmentation information to customer files.

1998 – The Convergence Audit is created to track America's response to the explosion of voice, video and data services by surveying more than 30,000 households annually about telecommunications and utilities issues.

1999 – National Decision Systems and Claritas merge to form Claritas.

1999 – iMARK, a breakthrough software application, offers a powerful new solution for market, site, and customer analysis.

1999 – iMARK Online, a remotely hosted application, allows users to perform site, market, and segmentation analysis over the Internet.

2000 – ConneXions is introduced as the newest segmentation system aimed at offering telecommunications, Internet, cable and satellite companies increased precision in targeting their voice, video and data services.

2001 – The introduction of ConsumerPoint, a comprehensive and powerful target marketing system that harnesses the collective power of market demographics, consumer segmentation and behavioral survey data to increase marketing effectiveness.

2003 – Claritas introduces a new version of PRIZM designed to harness the power of both household and geographic level data.

2005 – Claritas introduces the new evolution of financial segmentation in the latest version of P$YCLE, designed to help marketers tap the power of affluence combined with lifestage.

2008 – Claritas retired the Integras brand name and created a new analytical consulting and implementation solution called Claritas Analytical Consulting.

2008 – Claritas is now referred to as Nielsen Claritas.

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