Product Category Structure

The Vivvix product category structure has been developed, maintained and updated with the needs of the advertising industry in mind. It provides an organized and hierarchical view of competitive advertising category segments. There are other systems used by business and government to classify businesses according to type of economic activity and process of production, such as NAICS. These have a different purpose and bear little resemblance to the Vivvix structure.

The origins of the Vivvix Category Structure dates back more than 20 years when the consolidation of several different syndicated advertising monitoring companies occurred. Each of these firms had its own category structure and these were eventually blended together into a uniform system. Over time the category structure has continued to evolve in response to industry and client needs. Reviews and updates are done in response to client requests, the emergence of new product segments and internal reviews of high growth and high ad spending category groups.

Changes are only done once thorough research has been done to precisely define new category segments, differentiate them from existing segments and assess how changes will affect Vivvix data. There must be sufficient volume of activity in order to have a new category created. This is researched by reviewing the categorization of current Products.

Anytime the category structure is updated, products are re-categorized as necessary to reflect the new category structure.

Hierarchical Structure

The Vivvix category structure is a hierarchical structure. There are six levels: Section, Industry, Major, Category, Sub-Category and Micro-Category. Within the category structure not all levels are required. Having open levels available allows for expansion when necessary. Products are assigned to a single lowest hierarchical level. All levels are assigned a code which consists of a letter followed by a series of numbers.

At the highest level, there are eight Sections:

These Sections are broken down into the five lower levels of the structure as shown in the example below:

Multiple category levels allow for easy grouping of like Products at different levels as needed.

Categorizing Products

Products are categorized in the most appropriate category. They may only be categorized in the lowest level category that is available within the category grouping that it belongs. Once categorized in the lowest level category available the Product becomes associated with the higher level categories within that same category grouping.

For example:

The B11 Major category appears as below:

The lowest level category available in the B11 Major category group is Sub-Category. All Products that are assigned in the B11 category group must be assigned to one of the available Sub-Categories (B111.1 thru B111.8).

A Check Card Product will be assigned to the B111.3 Sub-Category which associates it with the B111 Category, the B11 Major, the B1 Industry and the B Section.

In many cases category names are very specific:

In other areas category names are more general:

Guidelines, used by our collection groups, have been created to aid the collection user in determining the proper category assignment for a Product.

For example:

General Promotion Categories

General Promotion categories are found across the category structure. General Promotion categories will contain Products that represent three or more products that are featured in the same ad that would have individually been categorized within the category group that the General Promotion category represents. Ads that feature three or more products are credited to a Product that contains a summary term that best represents the combination of the three or more products. These terms are defined in guidelines for the collection user.

It is also used for nonspecific General Promotion ads.

For example:

Corporate Promotion/Sponsorship Categories

Corporate Promotion/Sponsorship categories will contain Corporate Promotion and Sponsored Event Products that have been placed by an advertiser whose main business would be categorized within the category group that the Corporate Promotion/Sponsorship category represents.

For example: