Rainmakers 2024: Visionary brands winning with Weather

The global economic impact of weather events is predicted to reach $5 trillion over the next five years. Despite Mother Nature’s volatility, the power of weather can be leveraged by brands to help drive business growth across an organization. For marketers, brands can harness weather to help meet objectives, reach audiences, and build brand loyalty. Faced with the impending post-cookie future, savvy brands are already tapping into the weather for a competitive edge.

At CES in January, The Weather Company first showcased its 2024 class of Rainmakers, forward-thinking brands who are using weather insights to better understand their audience’s needs, cultivate meaningful messaging and drive business growth.

“With the  amount of data and reliable forecasts we now have available, gone are the days when businesses could blame poor results on the weather. Rather, businesses should have a weather strategy to deliver future growth,” said Randi Stipes, chief marketing officer for The Weather Company. “Working with innovative brands who are open to digging in to understand the pervasive impact weather can have on their operations is energizing.”

Using data, AI and expertise from The Weather Company, below we highlight two of these Rainmaker brands who not only understand but also predict how consumers will feel, what they’ll try, and what they’ll buy.

CeraVe

Core insight: More than half of millennials, Gen Z and multicultural audiences change their personal care routine as the weather changes because their skin needs change.¹

The CeraVe team leveraged this seasonal connection to reach consumers while they were considering a change in their skincare routine as spring turned to summer. The #1 Dermatologist Recommended Skincare Brand in the U.S.² chose to reach audiences when their real-time local weather conditions were – or were forecasted to be – clear, warm, sunny, cloudy, or high UV. The campaign resulted in an improved sales lift, a return on ad spend that exceeded benchmarks, and a majority of incremental sales driven by new buyers.

Sanofi

Core insight: 61% of people use weather information to assess their flu risk.³

Recognizing the connection between weather and flu to help boost overall community health, Sanofi Flu leveraged a combination of real-time weather data, insurance claims and anonymized health info (down to the ZIP code) to reach at-risk audiences with proactive flu vaccine messages 14 days before flu risk spiked in their area. This led to a healthy 14% lift in familiarity across their target audience, as well as a 3x bump in intent to search for flu vaccines online.

CeraVe and Sanofi join this year’s honorees and the inaugural class of Rainmakers announced in 2023, which includes e.l.f. Cosmetics, STIHL, Toyota and McCormick.

With an abundance of weather data available, it’s critical now more than ever to seek out accurate, actionable data when it comes to insights that go into making important business decisions. The Weather Company is the world’s most accurate forecaster⁴ and the world’s leading weather provider.⁵