CACI and O2 Motion introduce revolutionary footfall analysis to help businesses enhance their customer insight

In a move that will help retail and hospitality businesses better understand customer behaviour, CACI, the consumer and location intelligence specialist, and O2 Motion – which provides rich insights on aggregated and anonymised population movement – have joined forces to create a truly comprehensive and accurate location intelligence service.

The new, revolutionary ‘intelligent footfall’ solution provides landlords and occupiers with a more detailed picture of consumer behaviour than is possible with traditional footfall counting systems. It combines CACI’s expertise in demographic and behavioural profiling with insight from O2 Motion – a service from O2 Business that uses anonymised, aggregated data created by the mobile phone network to give a picture of movement trends across the UK.[i]Existing solutions, by contrast, use technologies that have always been imperfect.  

The CACI and O2 Motion system can be set up at specific positions, using anonymised and aggregated connection data between devices and mobile network masts to give an up-to-date picture on how movement trends impact  footfall volume. It can also provide insight into crowd dwell time in specific areas, and help retailers understand how people are travelling through a store, used in conjunction with additional information such as store conversion rate.  

Using CACI’s analysis of this data, retailers can better understand their customers, and create a store more tailored to their needs.  The data can be used to more effectively merchandise the space, analyse in greater detail the interaction with events and commercialisation activities, and properly attribute footfall.

Commenting on the ‘intelligent footfall’ solution, Dan Parr, Vice President of CACI, said:“O2 Business selected CACI to team-up on the deployment of this new solution, and we are delighted to be working on something that has the potential to revolutionise the way landlords and retailers consider their spaces.  Covid has put retail and leisure on a new path, and we need proper, accurate analysis of the changed customer-operator relationship to deliver something fit for the future.

“At a time when the whole industry is seeking to forensically examine the value of space, this collaboration brings together industry leading expertise in anonymised, aggregated crowd movement data and demographic and behavioural insight, which we believe will be critical for businesses up and down the country as they re-evaluate the role of bricks and mortar retail, and its contribution in today’s omni-channel world.” 

Geoff Wappett, spokesperson for O2 Motion said:“As we emerge from lockdown, retailers and landlords are under pressure to build back better, whilst also creating safe, effective spaces for their customers. The right data can help them do this, and that’s what O2 Motion is all about. As mobile devices connect to different masts, they create data footprints which we then anonymise, aggregate, and extrapolate to gain a picture of how people are moving around. This insight can prove invaluable for helping businesses understand and respond to changing customer needs – helping them plan spaces that work for everyone.”

The ‘intelligent footfall’ solution will be a driving force behind CACI’s new retail lease model, announced in 2020 as a data driven, objective means of helping landlords and retailers agree new commercial terms. This lease model will utilise anonymised, aggregated data from O2 Motion and CACI’s insight to make determining rental levels easier and fairer, creating a value based on the store’s ability to engage with its consumers and unlock spend. 

O2 Business is now part of Virgin Media O2, which launched in June 2021, as a new joint venture between Liberty Global and Telefónica in the UK. While there is no change to existing services today, plans are well underway to offer seamless broadband, entertainment, and mobile services all in one place, under one roof, later this year. Through a dedicated function, business and public sector customers are set to benefit from a richer suite of products and collective expertise from Virgin Media O2 Business. This includes a variety of managed connectivity services and flexible working capabilities, security, data insight, 5G private networks and cloud solutions, as well as wholesale services to other operators and partners.

[i]Data insights shared by O2 Motion never allow identification or mapping of individuals, and operate within strict privacy guidelines