••• customer experience
Maritz expands CultureNext engagement platform
Optimizing employee and customer connections
MaritzCX, a Salt Lake City customer experience software and services company, and Maritz Motivation Solutions, a St. Louis-based employee recognition firm, have formed a partnership that joins the MaritzCX platform with Maritz’s CultureNext engagement platform to offer an integrated solution to optimize the employee and customer connection and its positive impact on the customer experience. The newly integrated solution allows for customer feedback gathered in the MaritzCX platform to be turned into performance data for employees supported by recognition and rewards that are managed within the CultureNext platform. By combining the two SaaS platforms, companies can enhance visibility, information and action at each customer touchpoint with employees in each department, creating a continuous improvement cycle that helps businesses retain employees and customers longer, while growing revenue faster.
www.maritzcx.com
••• online research
Online MR crowdfunding platform launches
Share research insights and costs
Chicago-based start-up Collaborata launched in beta in May. The online platform enables research clients to connect to shape projects and share research insights and costs. Clients post projects they want executed to the site and other clients help shape the projects through their comments. Research suppliers, who are rated on the site by clients, bid on projects using a specially designed wizard. Once a vendor is selected, a funding goal is established together with a timeline and cofunding begins. Research suppliers can team directly with a client to pitch a study to other clients or leverage Collaborata to market their own multi-client project. Co-founder Jimmy Zollo was most recently at Chicago tech start-up GrubHub and co-founded Collaborata with his father Peter Zollo, founder and former CEO of TRU, a youth research and insights firm acquired by WPP and Kantar in 2012.
www.collaborata.com
••• research software
Dapresy Pro Version 10 available
Offering a templates library
Sweden-based data visualization software firm Dapresy has launched Dapresy Pro Version 10 for market research firms and marketing departments, featuring several enhancements. Dapresy Pro provides enterprises with tools to visually communicate actionable KPIs to each stakeholder in unique views. These can be customized for different categories of decision makers to maximize actionable outcomes. Dapresy Pro Version 10 offers a templates library that saves time building and designing dashboards and allows users to create their own custom templates. In addition, the Instant Infographics capability provides access to thousands of icons and shapes that can be directly tied to data with animations and action alerts to provide a better understanding of how and what to act upon.
dapresy.com
••• the business of research
New Research Speakers Club debuts
A forum to develop speaking skills
A new forum to grow the speaker talent in the marketing research industry has launched in Toronto, London and Chennai, India. The New Research Speakers Club, founded by Annie Pettit, will give researchers, statisticians, data scientists, data visualization experts and others from related professions a forum to develop their speaking skills. The club is aimed at helping those who have limited speaking experience and those who have never spoken at a major conference before. The London chapter is chaired by Betty Adamou, founder of Research Through Gaming, and the Chennai chapter is chaired by Pravin Shekar, president of KREA. Pettit serves as the chair of the Toronto chapter. Chapters meet regularly for about one hour every two to three months and offer attendees the opportunity to speak about a research topic of their choice. The club is online at http://newrst.wordpress.com.
••• telephone research
SSI offers cellular phone database
Geographic and demographic variables
Shelton, Conn., firm SSI has launched SSI Smart Cell Sample, a comprehensive cellular phone database with targetable geographic and demographic variables that provides efficiencies in targeting participants and conducting survey research by phone. Available in the United States, Smart Cell Sample is based on confirmed data from wireless service providers linking phone numbers with owners’ addresses. Including more than 480 million telephone numbers, Smart Cell Sample is verifiable and updated regularly. Approximately 80 percent of working RDD cell numbers match to low-level geographic data, while up to 60 percent have a full suite of demographic data appended, including age, gender, name, ethnicity, income, occupation and education.
www.surveysampling.com
••• shopper insights
New platform for ongoing retail optimization
Brands compete for at-shelf decisions
State College, Pa., in-store behavior analytics firm VideoMining Corp. has released its new Brand Strength Tracking and Decision Analytics Solution. The latest offering leverages the firm’s ShopperFirst platform and reveals where buying decisions are being made and how the decision process differs for every brand, category or shopper segment. The solution derives insights from millions of shopping trips per month to provide measures of: how reliant a brand is on at-shelf decisions; how a brand competes in at-shelf decisions; and how a brand’s decision mix differs across demographic segments. Brand Strength Tracking and At-Shelf Decision Analytics collects and analyzes big data on in-store behavior and shopper characteristics. It provides tracking of KPIs to improve strategic and tactical planning across a range of marketing and merchandising functions, enabling: on-going monitoring brand stability and at-shelf win rate; benchmarking performance and evolution of best practices; tracking comparative brand performance relative to overall category performance; and analysis of performance by specific shopper segments (demographic and trip type).
www.videomining.com
••• Briefly
Iselin, N.J., research firm Schlesinger Associates has launched The Wall by Schlesinger, a dynamic, multi-window, interactive wall for free-form or structured display of variety of study stimuli or as a central repository of information from which insights can be actioned. The Wall is available in Schlesinger’s key markets of New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles. It is designed for projects where visual impact for participants is important, high engagement is a challenge or critical or where the project involves idea generation/co-creation. The Wall is available for demonstration at Schlesinger’s current series of Research Technology Days.
www.schlesingerassociates.com
Chicago-based firm Doyle Research Associates has released More Profit, Longer Life: How Qualitative Research Optimizes the Product Lifecycle, a nine-page e-book that can be downloaded for free from the firm’s Web site.
doyleresearch.com
Nielsen, New York, has launched its enhanced offering, Total Channel Solution, allowing Nielsen clients to unify all data sets they have access to from any data, proprietary or third-party, across multiple platforms to achieve a total channel view of their business performance. The solution enables coverage of all channels, including measurement of specialty stores, e-commerce, mass outlets and department stores. It will also provide a perspective of performance drivers, leveraging and integrating Nielsen content while augmenting data through models, comparisons and forecasts. This launch leverages an alliance with big data discovery and data sharing solutions provider 1010data, utilizing its integration platform to bridge Nielsen’s data sets, data science expertise and 1010data’s big data engine to enable manufacturers and retailers to bring together all of the data they need to track, and ultimately grow, their business.
www.nielsen.com
MaritzCX, a Salt Lake City customer experience software and services company, has introduced two new capabilities in its customer experience product offerings, PredictionCX and SocialCX, to help businesses broaden their understanding and response to customers. PredictionCX provides capabilities to help businesses grow by analyzing known customer information and applying it to predict customer loyalty. MaritzCX is partnering with PurePredictive, a technology provider with technology that uses artificial intelligence to automate machine learning, to deliver part of the PredictiveCX solution. MaritzCX will then use its platform and services teams for the remaining analytics and reporting. PredictiveCX will be integrated into MaritzCX dashboards and case management to provide a customer recovery system through a closed-loop process. PredictiveCX is currently being offered through a limited, early-adopter program. SocialCX is an offering that helps customer experience professionals manage and increase reviews on social media at the local/branch level.
www.maritzcx.com
In New York, marketing technology firm Experian Marketing Services has introduced the Audience Engine, an audience management platform that links and matches data across the marketing ecosystem in a unified, automated platform for targeting, execution and measurement of addressable advertising campaigns. Audience Engine provides users with a single platform to create, understand and activate their addressable advertising campaigns leveraging a combination of first-, second- and third-party data sources. For TV advertisers, this includes linear, addressable and over-the-top audiences, such as connected TV. Users of the platform can reach 85 percent of the entire U.S. population with addressable advertising campaigns and advertisers can reach 100 percent of the household-level addressable TV operators in the United States.
www.experian.com/marketing-services
Stockholm-based research technology firm Cint has launched Cint Connect, a real-time insights tool that offers a self-serve ecosystem for audience and ad effectiveness measurement. The global cross-panel, cross-device insight exchange enables panel partners to generate higher revenue on their communities as well as gather additional profiling data in an automated and cost-effective way by offering their members the ability to participate in advertising research.
www.cint.com
London-based researcher Kantar has integrated into Google Consumer Surveys. Through the collaboration, Kantar will act as a validation partner and leverage its research capabilities to ensure the accuracy, responsive-ness and representativeness of Google Consumer Surveys panels. Using a systemic research validation program, Kantar becomes an early access support to Google Consumer Surveys as they expand into new markets. In 2016 Kantar will be providing validation services for Google Consumer Surveys as they deploy new mobile app services in Asia and Europe. Kantar’s digital data collection enterprise, Warren, N.J., firm Lightspeed GMI, launched a joint service with Google Consumer Surveys in 2014.
www.kantar.com
In Sydney, researcher Lightspeed GMI has expanded its Re-Track capabilities to the Asia-Pacific region. Initially launched across Europe, Re-Track is a process to test, optimize and redesign tracking services to communicate with mobile audiences. It offers a full-scale design review of existing trackers and planning services for new trackers that includes sampling, fieldwork plan, question format and design. The firm has also unveiled the QuickTurn Insights and Fast Track Service solutions in APAC. QuickTurn Insights provides access to insights from consumers and offers 15 questions, 500 respondents, one open-end question, an incidence rate greater than 65 percent and five media/digital files, with results delivered in 48 hours. Fast Track, the firm’s accelerated survey service, enables online surveys to be created within hours of submitting the final survey questions. With access to pre-profiled respondents, clients receive their survey within 48 hours of submitting their final question-naire.
www.lightspeedgmi.com
Irvine, Calif., firm MFour Mobile Research has developed a new pipeline to push surveys to consumers based on the smartphone apps they use. Rather than asking panel members which apps they use, MFour’s app targeting is based on passive tracking that automatically identifies and verifies the apps they’ve downloaded. This tool can be combined with GeoValidation, MFour’s GPS-enabled respondent locator. GeoValidation certifies when panelists have arrived at a given retail outlet or other location that’s relevant to a survey. The survey can then be completed on the spot, before respondents have finished shopping or shortly after they’ve left, while the experience is fresh in mind.
mfour.com
In the latest development in their strategic alliance, Kantar Media, London, and comScore, Reston, Va., will launch a series of cross-platform solutions in Latin America. TGI Clickstream, which is already available in the U.K., France and Turkey, will launch in Brazil later this year, enhancing clients’ consumer targeting and digital media planning capabilities. Subsequent launches in 2017 include Colombia, Argentina, Peru and Chile. The service will combine TGI survey data from Kantar Media and MMX digital measurement data from comScore.
www.kantarmedia.com/us
Morganville, N.J., research technology labs provider Interactive Video Productions (IVP), with support from HCD Research, has introduced a Neuro Omnibus for Video Testing, which allows companies to receive information relating to the subconscious response of consumers to Web or broadcast video. It is designed to be integrated into traditional research, providing snapshots of data to help marketers identify content that contributes to the desired attention, arousal and emotions throughout the video. Researchers obtain metrics including an indication of the impact of the first six seconds of their tested ad and animated graphs exhibiting where and when responses varied throughout the video. Consultation with staff from HCD Research explaining the results will help to provide additional understanding of the data. The range of target audiences will include: Millennials, Boomers, Gen X, new car buyers, mothers of young children and online shoppers.
www.interactivevideo.com
Fishkill, N.Y., incentive solutions provider Virtual Incentives has launched its application programming interface (API) for rewards and incentives. It offers greater efficiencies from initial implementation to instant, personalized reward delivery. The new API is part of the company’s complete rewards platform, which provides a complete solution from company-side program development to private, secure, instant reward delivery. The latest release of the API helps companies implement their application, loyalty platform or procurement system directly with Virtual Incentives.
www.virtualincentives.com
Warren, N.J., digital data collection firm Lightspeed GMI has expanded its data services capabilities by making available a set of consumer data sets tied to an online survey panel. Leveraging data from KBM Group and their I-Behavior data sets as well as Acxiom, Experian and The Futures Company, Lightspeed GMI can deliver enhanced profiles of U.S. consumers to its clients to provide more holistic views of shoppers/purchasers. AmplifyR Appends, now available in the U.S., aims to offer an understanding of targeted consumer segments by overlaying demographic data and lifestyle attributes to panelist profiles.
www.lightspeedgmi.com
Ipsos InnoQuest, New York, has launched InnoConstruct, a tool for identifying the best combination of concept elements, including headline, insights, benefits, reasons to believe, brand, price and package. Clients receive direction for building an optimized concept and simulations for what-if scenarios related to using different concept elements. Clients who use InnoConstruct will receive all of the standard deliverables that Ipsos InnoQuest’s concept testing provides, including concept performance, trial potential and the Archetype Innovation Profile, which tells clients whether they have a Breakthrough, Me-Too, Niche, Premium or other type of innovation. Sales forecasts are also available and do not require the optimal concept to be retested.
www.ipsos.com/innoquest
SERMO, a New York-based social network for doctors and health care professional polling company, has launched SERMO RealTime, a research tool for frequent, short surveys with health care professionals. It allows users to query nearly 2 million health care professionals and taps into a global proprietary health care professional panel, including doctors in 80 countries and more than 40 percent of all U.S. physicians. It is also able to target by specialty and geographical location, as well as by disease state. RealTime has 200 medical conditions to choose from and plans to add more in the future.
www.sermo.com
InCrowd, a Boston-based provider of market intelligence to life sciences and health care firms, has introduced the InCrowd MicroTracker, an automated approach to life science tracking studies where brand perceptions by health care prescribers and consumers are longitudinally assessed and monitored over time. With the new solution, life science market insights teams can gather data on KPIs with an unbiased and representative health care sample as they define it against targeted specialists drawn from InCrowd’s global “crowd.” They can also automatically: repeat the fielding of a tracker survey; exclude previous respondents for a given number of waves; aggregate responses; provide visual comparison of waves; and filter results based on respondent groups or crowds.
www.incrowdnow.com
Unomer, a mobile market research technology company based in Palo Alto, Calif., and Bangalore, India, introduced a mobile in-app market research platform at AAPOR’s Annual Conference held on May 12-18 in Austin, Texas. Unomer enables brand managers, consumer insight leaders and market researchers to create interactive surveys that can be natively embedded in and distributed across a network of mobile apps widely used for shopping, ticketing, travel, utility and gaming on smartphones. The approach is designed to give brands access to a large base of mobile users, allow targeting based on user profile and behavioral data and deliver intelligence in real-time as users provide instantaneous responses.
www.unomer.com