As many of you know, the recent convergence of the MRI and Simmons surveys will result in significant changes over the coming years. Over the years, we at AGS have worked with both companies using Panorama and other segmentation systems and we eagerly look forward to a larger, unified national survey.

The upcoming 21A data release in May will include the last of the MRI Doublebase (2019/2020) and will be, for the most part, consistent with prior years. As usual, there are always changes to the specific variables and there are a few hundred new variables bringing the total to around 9500 categories, covering everything from tastes and attitudes to major purchases.

For the fall release, we will be featuring for the first time the release of the MRI-Simmons study. The convergence of the two studies will retain the best features of each while increasing the sample size substantially. In particular, the stratified spatial sampling techniques long used in the MRI survey selection will continue to be used.

For 2021B, we will have a range of new attributes covering –

• Health and wellness, including questions on the increasingly popular trend towards telemedicine and on vaccines.
• Automotive, including usage-based insurance and autonomous driving capabilities and usage
• Financial, Legal, and Real Estate, including an expanded section on digital payments
• Restaurants, Food, and Beverages, including expanded ordering and delivery sections
• Retail/Shopping and Apparel – including subscription meal kits, online grocery ordering, and internet advertising.

MRI-Simmons attributes form an important part of the usage of Panorama in a wide range of applications from media selection to product affinity studies, all of which are tied to neighborhoods and market areas using the Panorama linkages.