The Weather Company Renews Collaboration with GSK Consumer Healthcare; Weather Unveils Enhanced Allergy Tracker with Personalized Experience to Help Consumers Better Manage Seasonal Symptoms

NEW YORK, April 25, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Weather Company, an IBM Business (NYSE: IBM), announced today the renewal of its collaboration with GSK Consumer Healthcare and PHD Media Worldwide. As part of their continued relationship, Weather has introduced an enhanced Allergy Tracker, which includes increased personalization capabilities to help consumers stay one step ahead of their allergies this season. The Allergy Tracker delivers a comprehensive experience where information for managing allergies is available in the same place. This includes current weather conditions, hyper-local allergy reports, expanded forecasts, editorial content, and more.

Seasonal allergies are unique to each person, and this updated Tracker delivers a personalized experience so the most essential information is easy to find. The Tracker, with impactful local allergen information, will be surfaced to users based on the user's preferences, user's location, and historical engagement behavior data. Provided with this information, consumers are better equipped to manage their allergies – whether indoor or outdoor – and can take smarter preventative measures to make managing allergy season easier than ever before. The Allergy Tracker, sponsored by GSK Consumer Healthcare's Flonase® brand, is available in The Weather Channel apps, weather.com, Flonase.com, and select retailer sites.

"Allergens impact us in very different ways, as there are a variety of factors - whether it's specific allergens or the combination of several - that contribute to individual symptoms," said Jeremy Steinberg, global head of sales, The Weather Company. "At The Weather Company, we are passionate about using data to deliver high-impact, individualized experiences for people to help in their daily planning and decision making. The refreshed Allergy Tracker, created in collaboration with GSK Consumer Healthcare and PHD Media Worldwide, will empower consumers to help them better understand and manage their symptoms this allergy season."

New enhancements to The Allergy Tracker include:

• A personalized current conditions module, so users can easily access the essential information for managing seasonal symptoms
• A daily outlook, which includes previous day (when available), current day and seven-day forecasts; local allergy reports powered by hyper-local social sentiment data; current vs. historical pollen/breathing/mold allergen data; social sharing capabilities
• Custom editorial content including a dynamic infographic with tips for managing spring and fall allergies
• An indoor allergy tracker and pollen hot spots chart, which can be personalized for each user

"We have had a successful relationship with The Weather Company over the past three years, and this year's enhancements to The Allergy Tracker are about helping allergy sufferers better understand the specific allergens that could impact their health and wellbeing, so they can take action to help reduce or prevent their symptoms," said Theresa Agnew, Chief Marketing Officer, GSK Consumer Healthcare. "By collaborating with Weather, we are able to tap into their scale and get the Allergy Tracker as well as the Flonase® Sensimist™Allergy Relief campaign in front of nearly a quarter billion consumers across the Weather properties. And, we are also able to further extend that reach by taking Weather's innovative data targeting solutions beyond their properties, and applying that precise targeting to our entire campaign."

The updated Allergy Tracker is part of GSK Consumer Healthcare's and PHD Media Worldwide's overall campaign to launch the new Flonase® Sensimist™ Nasal Spray. As part of the campaign, GSK Consumer Healthcare will leverage Weather's insights, predictive analytics, and data-driven ad solutions to help eliminate media waste and engage consumers at the right time and place both on and off of Weather's properties (The Weather Channel apps, weather.com). Those solutions include:

• WEATHERfx, a targeting capability that leverages the impact of weather conditions on emotions and behaviors to deliver messaging that can drive consumer action
• First-Party Audience Segments, which leverages first-party data to create audience segments for precise targeting outside of Weather's properties. GSK is a launch marketer for this new targeting capability.

The Weather Company, an IBM Business
The Weather Company, an IBM Business, helps people make informed decisions – and take action – in the face of weather. The company offers the most accurate, personalized and actionable weather data and insights to millions of consumers, as well as thousands of marketers and businesses via Weather's API, its business solutions division, and its own digital products from The Weather Channel (weather.com) and Weather Underground (wunderground.com).

The company delivers tens of billions of forecasts daily. Its products include a top weather app on all major mobile platforms globally, a network of 250,000 personal weather stations, a top-20 U.S. website, one of the world's largest IoT data platforms, and industry-leading business solutions.

Weather Means Business™. The world's biggest brands in aviation, energy, insurance, media and government rely on The Weather Company for data, technology platforms and services to help improve decision-making and respond to weather's impact on business. For more, visit theweathercompany.com.

SOURCE The Weather Company, an IBM Business

Related Links

http://www.theweathercompany.com

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