Scarborough[1] is a United States-based market research company that measures shopping patterns, media usage across platforms, and lifestyle trends of adults. Specializing in local and national consumer research, Scarborough measures over 100 local markets in the United States. Scarborough is headquartered in New York City.
Scarborough is a joint venture between The Nielsen Company and Arbitron.[2] Scarborough began as a subsidiary of VNU and was merged with Birch Radio in 1987. VNU then sold 50% of interest in Scarborough to Arbitron in 1992. VNU was renamed as the Nielsen Company in 2007.[3]
Scarborough's major services include:
Scarborough uses a 3-part survey with over 210,000 respondents. Industries served include print, digital, radio, broadcast TV, cable TV, out of home, agency and sports marketing. Scarborough’s Top-Tier Local Market Studies,[4] newspaper audience ratings, and multiple market and national studies are accredited by the Media Rating Council (MRC).[5]
As of 2013, Scarborough research interviewers were not empowered to remove contacted individuals from their lists on request, citing privacy concerns,[6] leading to complaints from an antagonized pool of potential respondents. In Q4 of 2015, that policy was changed.
Scarborough Sports Marketing is the Sports division of the overall brand of Scarborough. This division measures purchasing habits of sports fans for teams, leagues, marketers and media professionals. The data gathered by Scarborough is used by clients to learn more about and assist with corporate sponsorships, fan development, merchandising, promotion, competitive information, ticket sales, marketing, media selling, media placement and schedules. Scarborough’s studies are used to determine information on local and national markets throughout the United States.