Charter Advertising

Using PRIZM to target prospective high speed data customers

Background

Established in 1993 as a cable television company, Charter Communications has grown to be the third largest provider of broadband services and a Fortune 500 company that operates in 40 states. Charter provides a full range of advanced broadband services to the home, including cable television on an advanced digital video-programming platform via Charter Digital Cable brand and high-speed Internet access marketed under the Charter Pipeline brand. Commercial high-speed data, video and Internet solutions are provided under the Charter Business Networks brand.

Discovery

Charter learned that 267,139 of its video customers were in areas serviceable by high-speed data network, but were not subscribers. Accordingly, it made those areas the focus of the campaign.

Strategy

As part of ongoing efforts to expand its customer base, Charter wanted to craft a successful, cost-efficient marketing campaign that targeted prospective high-speed data customers. Additional goals were to keep costs per sale under $60, while obtaining a four percent sale-per-contact ratio. Charter's strategy was to develop a target market using both its internal variables and PRIZM codes at the ZIP+4 level. Those variables included:

• The customer's current services – Digital, Expanded, and Premium
• The type of home the customer lived in
• Customer tenure
• The town or the five-digit ZIP code where the customer lived

As an inducement, Charter offered free installation and $1 per month for the first two months with a four-month contract.

Implementation

Charter ranked PRIZM clusters by index based on the customers who had high speed Internet connectivity, their basic service and the clusters' market penetration. An index of 100 is considered average. Therefore, households in a cluster with an index of 150 are 50 percent more likely than the average household to have a propensity using a High Speed Data service. Charter focused on the top 10 clusters in its analysis, half of which were the top five of the PRIZM system. The top 10 clusters with were: Blue Blood Estates, Country Squires, Winner's Circle, God's Country, Kids & Cul-de-Sacs, Executive Suites, Boomers & Babies, Second City Elite, Greenbelt Families, and Pools & Patios.