Meebo Buys Research Firm Mindset Media

http://adage.com/article/digital/meebo-buys-research-firm-mindset-media/148749/
Meebo, an internet company specializing in social-networking tools for digital publishers, has acquired market-research firm Mindset Media for an undisclosed sum.

The deal allows Meebo to capitalize on Mindset's audience-research data, which groups internet audiences by what the company considers personality types, such as "openness" or "pragmatism," instead of the stock demographic categories such age, gender or location. Meebo, which had already been using Mindset's analysis for the past year, will absorb 12 of its 14-member staff, which is based in New York.
"Mindset allows us to both connect certain kinds of users with the brand that they will respond most to," said Meebo Chief Operating Officer Martin Green, adding that the research company can better predict which brands a consumer will more likely want to buy.

"It's about finding the affinity of one brand to another," he said. "How can you predict whether a wealthy middle-aged man is more likely to respond to an advertisement from Audi vs. Mercedes? Demographics don't help you predict that."

Mindset works by tracking people's online behavior via cookies it installs through participating websites, such as those from NBC Universal, and applies a personality type based on how people browse the internet. As an example, a person who is considered to have "openness," as defined by the company, is two times more likely to buy organic food than the average consumer.