Award-Winning Weather Based Advertising for Healthcare Brands: Boost Campaign Performance with Real-Time Weather Data

The Link Between Weather and Advertising for Healthcare Marketers 

Weather is always a hot topic, even when it’s cold outside.

Regardless of current weather patterns, the weather has thoroughly permeated our lives from water cooler small talk in offices to heated debates on climate change in the global arena.

Extreme weather events are increasingly impacting us, affecting our commutes, vacations, where we choose to live, and our health. Weather is also a proven predictor of consumer behavior and purchase intent. Different local weather conditions drive demand for specific products, even if it’s as simple as a change in wind speed.

According to the British Retail Consortium, weather remains the most significant influence on consumer behavior, second only to the economy. It affects consumers’ emotional state, purchase decisions, and spending willingness. Even commonplace, minor fluctuations in weather can impact the food we buy, what type of clothes we wear, the car we drive, and even the homes we buy.

For example, supermarkets look at the forecast daily and alter stock requirements and pricing accordingly, knowing that a 1-degree rise in the temperature can lead to a 22% boost in demand for fizzy drinks, a 60% decrease in porridge, and a 90% increase in demand for garden furniture. Research by Weather Trends International found that by matching weather and sales history from the same period, they could quantify the relationship between specific categories and weather. For example, a -1°F YoY change in weekly average temperature would translate to a +2% increase YoY for cold and flu medication sales. 

Ad targeting based on weather allows advertisers to predict consumer needs and deliver timely, relevant messaging to target audiences. Real-time weather data can inform adaptive advertising campaigns, which have the potential to engage consumers and drive conversions by marketing specific products at optimal times for purchase. 

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What is Weather Based Advertising? 

Weather-based ad targeting helps marketers optimize their campaigns by aligning ads with local weather conditions down to the ZIP code level, enhancing ad effectiveness and ROI.

Weather based advertising uses real-time weather data to place brand media when and where they are most relevant. While some basic solutions simply use location data, more robust weather based advertising solutions - such as that from The Weather Company - use a mix of location data, weather data, sales data, and de-identified health and demographic data. This advanced methodology helps to better influence contextual and customized  targeting that drives consumer engagement and purchase intent. By leveraging target ZIP code populations proven or predicted to be clinically affected by weather, marketers can reach healthcare providers (HCPs) and condition-relevant consumer populations when and where they’re likely to take clinical action influenced by weather. Targeted weather-based ads provide several critical benefits to pharma marketers, including: 

• Increasing brand relevance during clinically influential moments, as influenced by near real-time and predicted weather changes
• Maximizing hyper-local exposure and relevant reach before and when weather-related symptoms are activated
• Customizing messages for HCPs and consumer populations without the use of digital identification, like cookies
• Boosting the likelihood of conversion, therefore improving campaign ROI

Weather-based ad targeting relies on symptom and activity signals to determine when to target audiences in ZIP codes where weather conditions are optimal for causing specific behaviors. For instance, a pharma brand could use weather-based geolocation advertising to promote cold medicine in winter and allergy medicine in the spring based on local pollen counts. They could also use this approach to reach local doctors likely to prescribe a solution to symptomatic patients. Other weather based advertising strategies include activity signals, such as shopping outdoors versus online on a nice day, or increasing doctor visits and OTC treatment sales during weather-induced symptom flare-ups.‍

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Benefits of Using Weather Forecasting Tools for Advertising and Selecting the Right Solution

Weather forecasting tools help inform adaptive advertising campaigns that resonate with HCPs and consumer populations based on the weather conditions they experience. This is possible with predictive analytics underpinned by artificial intelligence, which enables highly personalized ads that more effectively engage consumers—several weather-targeting tools in the market use AI. However, marketers should consider certain features when looking for the best one for their business.

AI-powered weather data enhances campaigns' precision and marketing ROI, instilling confidence in pharma brands to make better data-driven decisions. When combined with accurate forecast data, AI helps pinpoint where, when, and how the weather affects health symptoms, purchasing habits, and prescription behaviors. It does this by predicting how the weather “feels” by ZIP code to determine how likely weather changes will influence specific symptoms or activities.

Using AI tools to analyze weather data and predict consumer behavior, pharma brands can also overcome several advertising challenges related to weather based advertising. These include adapting to fluctuations in seasonal norms and climate variability, ensuring accurate weather data to make informed advertising decisions, and accessing accurate location data crucial for effective weather-based targeting. 

The best weather-forecasting tools possess strong capabilities in these areas: 

• A data foundation that combines real-time weather data and anonymized health information to determine the weather by ZIP code and how changes impact symptoms and clinical activity
• Artificial intelligence modeling that anticipates when consumers may be likely to need symptom relief or medical aid based on real-time weather influence
• A future-proofed solution not reliant on third-party cookies, but first-party data

PulsePoints’ Weather Signals

Pharma brands can partner with PulsePoint for near real-time weather based advertising solutions. Our award-winning Weather Signals solution leverages The Weather Company's most accurate forecast data and industry-leading AI to pinpoint where, when, and how the weather affects health symptoms, purchasing habits, and prescription behaviors. 

With PulsePoint, you can reach HCPs and condition-relevant consumer populations when and where they’re most likely to take clinical action due to the weather. For HCP targeting, Weather Signals can help brands reach local doctors who will likely prescribe a solution to symptomatic patients. For DTC targeting, brands can reach consumer populations before and while they may be symptomatic. 

Marketers can then activate campaigns against these signals in an omnichannel way across display, TV/ video, DOOH, audio, social and EHR. 

The overall benefits of using these weather signals in advertising campaigns include increased brand relevance during clinically influential moments, maximized hyper-local exposure, and relevant reach before and when weather-related symptoms are exacerbated, as well as customized messaging for HCPs and consumer populations (no cookies required!).

In beta tests, we’ve seen a 66% TRx (total prescription) increase for exposed prescribers using Weather Signals and a 30% TRx increase for exposed HCPs using Clinical Behavior bidding optimization, demonstrating the proven success of partnering with PulsePoint for weather based advertising campaigns.

PulsePoint provides in-platform access to over 500 Weather Signals within the following categories:

• Absolute Weather: The measurement of specific weather conditions at the ZIP code level based on observed within The Weather Company’s first-party weather data.
• Activity: Seasonal weather conditions detected at a ZIP code level, as observed within The Weather Company's first-party data, that are conducive to driving people to take part in a specified activity.
• Emotion: Connections identified between weather condition mixes and motivation that align with desired consumer emotional context or actions at a ZIP code level.
• Health: Weather conditions present at a ZIP code level that historically have caused symptoms to flare or prescriptions to be refilled, as observed within The Weather Company’s first-party data.
• Predictive Health: Machine learning generates a “risk of illness” probability for targeted ZIP codes, anticipating when consumers may require symptom relief or medical care for a specific condition based on weather patterns, anonymized demographic data, and deidentified health claims at a zip code level.
• Product: Targets consumers within ZIP codes currently experiencing an optimal mix of weather conditions that historically drive incremental sales lift, according to third-party data sources, such as NielsenIQ POS consumer sales data, and correlating weather conditions that were present at time of purchase.
• Relative Weather: Select whether the weather condition listed has occurred within the last 3 days, is currently occurring, or is projected to occur within the next 3 days in a specified ZIP code, as observed within The Weather Company’s first-party weather data.
• Severe Weather: Reaches audiences facing extreme weather conditions at the ZIP code level, as detected by alerts, advisories, watches, and warnings issued by the National Weather Service (NWS) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Below is a high-level view of how the data methodology behind Weather Signals works:

The platform-accessible data segments contain unique insights, such as The Weather Company’s first-party weather and geo-based historical and seasonal averages, anonymized medical claims, licensed prescription sales data, and five years of in-store OTC sales data provided by Nielsen. 

AI technology backed by advanced modeling and machine learning combines this data to predict how the weather “feels” by ZIP code and determines how likely weather changes will activate symptoms. By combining real-time weather data with other health-related insights, the model can anticipate when consumers are likely to need symptom relief or medical aid based on real-time weather influence.

The data in each segment is refreshed every 15 minutes to accommodate changes in weather by ZIP code and how those changes impact real-time symptoms and clinical activity. By leveraging The Weather Company’s enhanced first-party data for campaigns, brands don’t have to rely on third-party identifiers, making the solution future-proofed and not reliant on cookies.

Conclusion

Weather based advertising offers significant opportunities to deploy more relevant and engaging marketing when pharma marketers seek more advanced ways to reach HCPs and consumer populations without needing third-party identification.

Since localized weather data can serve as indicators of purchasing habits and online behavior, personalized ad strategies using weather marketing stand to play an influential role in the future of healthcare advertising. With performant, privacy-forward, and The Weather Company’s first-party weather data, marketers can drive advertising effectiveness and consumer engagement now and in the cookieless future.

If you want to partner with PulsePoint on effective weather based advertising campaigns, contact us to learn more.