Analyze media coverage with MediaMind
New York-based StrategyOne, the research division of Edelman, has launched MediaMind, a system for tracking, measuring and analyzing media coverage for individual projects, across a corporation, or against competitors. MediaMind combines analysis and evaluation by StrategyOne with a customized version of Biz360’s media measurement application, Market360. The result is the ability to measure results, identify competitive vulnerabilities and opportunities, and refine strategy to achieve program objectives. For more information visit www.strategyone.net .
Test multiple solutions with Evolutionary Choice Modeling
Leon Tyler Marketing Research, St. Louis Park , Minn. , is now offering Evolutionary Choice Modeling, which lets users test sets of solutions rather than individual concepts. Like conventional concept testing, this approach begins with a set of target audience needs and desired benefits that represent a new product or service opportunity. But rather than matching an individual technology application with the set of needs and desired benefits to form an individual concept, a set of technologies and ranges of execution variables are identified that could satisfy the target need and provide the desired benefits. The methodology generates a model that predicts the market share potentials for all possible combinations of technologies, execution variables and benefits. For more information call Leon Tyler at 952-836-0071.
New trend reports from Scarborough
New York-based Scarborough Research has announced a new service that enables Scarborough users to subscribe to customized consumer market trend reports that are delivered monthly. Named Scarborough Consumer Tracker, this new service permits marketers to monitor market penetration changes, competitive challenges and consumer trends on a local, regional or national level using Scarborough data. The new reports may include information regarding consumer purchasing trends, market penetration changes, competitive fluctuations, product penetration rates, shopped vs. bought ratios, and marketing program effectiveness.
Scarborough Consumer Tracker reports are available as monthly and quarterly deliverables. The specific parameters of the report are customized to accommodate the marketing challenges of the client. This new tracking service has been created as a complement to Scarborough ’s local and national syndicated databases which are released to clients twice a year. For more information visit www.scarborough.com .
Web-based tools measure message effectiveness
Blackfriars Communications, Inc., Maynard , Mass. , has announced a new suite of tools for marketers to assess the effectiveness of their business communications and solve messaging problems. These Web-based tools apply a uniform methodology that analyzes how well messages will resonate with four targeted audiences: customers, media, analysts and salespeople. Through a series of pointed questions, Blackfriars’ assessment tools are designed to help marketers develop presentations, Web sites, advertising and collateral with simple, clear and consistent messages. Customers who have entered into a consulting or direct enterprise relationship with Blackfriars have the opportunity to license the assessment tools for a 12-month period. For more information visit www.blackfriarsinc.com .
Data mining add-in works with Excel
Resampling Stats, Inc., an Arlington , Va. , software firm, has released XLMiner, a data mining add-in for Excel developed by Cytel Software Corp. and distributed by Resampling Stats, Inc. XLMiner is a fully integrated add-in to Microsoft Excel. Topics and methods available in this tool include classification (classification trees, discriminant analysis, logistic regression, neural networks, naïve Bayes, k-nearest neighbors), prediction (multiple linear regression with subset selection, k-nearest neighbors, regression trees), affinity analysis (association rules), data reduction and exploration (principal components, k-means clustering, hierarchical clustering), and data preparation (partitioning into training, validation and test data sets, stratified sampling for rare outcomes, missing data imputation, binning, transformation of categorical variables into dummies or category scores). XLMiner also extends Excel’s graphics with matrix scatter plots, dendrograms, box plots and lift charts. Because XLMiner is Excel-based, it is designed to have a short learning curve for those familiar with Excel. It can also integrate with other Excel-based analysis the user may already be doing. XLMiner uses Excel primarily as an interface and platform — XLMiner’s data mining modules were developed by Cytel Software Corp. These modules do not depend on Excel’s statistical calculations. While Excel limits the user to 60,000 rows, XLMiner allows the user to sample from a larger database, do the analysis on a statistically-valid sample, and, for supervised learning, score the results back out to the database. A limited version download is available at www.xlminer.com .
Conjoint tool from Moskowitz Jacobs
White Plains, N.Y., research firm Moskowitz Jacobs Inc. has issued a new release of IdeaMap.Net, a self-authored conjoint tool for developing product concepts and marketing and advertising programs. Once users enter the test elements of a product or communication, IdeaMap.Net’s technology will place these elements in dozens of different combinations for consumers to rate. The quantitative data ultimately reveals the most preferred elements, based on a mathematical model. Tests can be conducted globally, currently in 15 languages (more are being added).
Marketers can test ideas online with consumers via Conjoint, ConScreen (concept screening) or basic Questionnaire modules. In the Conjoint and ConScreen modules, tested ideas are presented to respondents in a randomized order to prevent bias. Testers can see data accumulating in real-time reports as a study is underway. At conclusion, IdeaMap.Net will generate summaries plus provide the raw data for additional analysis. For more information visit www.mji-designlab.com .
System lets users work with sample from several sources
U.K.-based Pulse Train has announced an alliance with Centurion Marketing Systems, suppliers of MARSC, a scalable solution for management and control of project-based research sample. The firms’ integrated system organizes sample derived from a variety of potential sources, such as CRM systems, corporate data warehouses and other external sources. It allows sampling rules to be applied, to extract representative subsets of the data, and passes these sample records to Bellview Fusion, for Web or CATI (or mixed-mode) interviewing. Bellview Fusion is able to report back to MARSC the disposition of the sample, thereby completing the loop and allowing for oversight of the sampling process. MARSC has been designed to work with both event-driven and ad-hoc projects. For more information visit www.pulsetrain.co.uk .
Retail sourcebook from Trade Dimensions
Wilton, Conn.-based publisher Trade Dimensions International Inc. has released its 2004 High-Volume Retailers - The Alternate Channel Sourcebook, a new reference dedicated to the fast-turn, high-volume world of alternate channel retailers, covering supercenters, wholesale clubs, discount stores, dollar stores, drug stores, department stores, category killers, specialty retailers and military buying centers. It features over 600 U.S. and Canadian company profiles, including the names of more than 4,500 key executives. This information is extracted from the Trade Dimensions Retail Database. For more information visit www.tradedimensions.com .
NetReflector updates InstantSurvey
Seattle-based research software firm NetReflector, Inc. has released InstantSurvey 4.4, the latest upgrade of its online survey application. New features include a redesigned distribution management control panel, distribution templates, draft distributions and an HTML invitation template.
The new distribution management user interface, consisting of a control panel with tabs, is designed to increase flexibility and provide users with better visibility into the status of their online survey distributions. This includes a toolbar that shows distribution status at a glance and a status tab that provides a graphical display of response statistics.
New distribution templates allow users to reuse distribution settings the next time they create a distribution, edit these templates and share them with members of their group.
Users can now set up sophisticated distributions over time, rather than all in one session. This is accomplished by saving the distribution as a draft distribution and returning to it later to continue working on it. Simple distributions can still be made using the step-by-step distribution wizard. For more information visit www.netreflector.com .
New version of Inquisite
Austin, Texas-based Inquisite has released Inquisite 6, an automated Web survey system. This latest version of Inquisite offers data pre-population capabilities, a new response editor, advanced data-sharing, and enhanced templates and styles.
The pre-population feature allows users to import data into a survey from an external data file (.csv, .txt) and map it to the survey content. In addition, they can choose to show answers to those questions or hide them from respondents. This feature allows personalization of surveys and makes data, such as demographics, available for reporting without actually asking respondents for the information.
A database editor offers administrators the ability to manage data once responses have been received. Users can edit individual responses, batch updates for groups of respondents and delete respondents from the database.
Inquisite’s data-sharing capabilities allow administrators to give others in an organization the ability to access data that was previously only available to the owner of the survey. The dataset also can be constrained by allowing the sharing of specific data with specific users.
The enhanced templates and styles of Inquisite allow a survey administrator to change the entire look of a survey instantly and consistently, since all fonts and colors for questions, tables and text are aggregated into styles. Templates also have styles defined for each type of control, such as question, table and text label. For more information visit www.inquisite.com .
Long form version of NCDB
GeoLytics, Inc. has released The Long Form Version of the Neighborhood Change Database (NCDB), which will allow users to access Census data from 1970-1980-1990 and 2000 all on one disk. The updated Neighborhood Change Database expands on the earlier version by adding nearly 2,500 new variables. The NCDB upgrade has about 1,800 variables from the 2000 Census Long Form. In addition, it has over a thousand variables from each of the 1970, 1980 and 1990 Long Form Censuses. These data sets are available in their year-specific boundaries as well as being normalized to the 2000 boundaries for comparisons of the areas over the 40-year time period. For more information visit www.censusdata1.net .
Shared-cost study looks at Boomers and their elders
Strategic Directions Group, Inc., St. Paul, will conduct its eighth shared-cost, industry-specific studies on Baby Boomers and their elders during the first quarter of 2004. The basic package includes a half-page for a participating company’s own proprietary questions, as well as shared data from a 16-page questionnaire covering behaviors related to health, real estate/finance, food, travel, demographics, and Internet and media usage. The data is conveyed in a custom set of approximately 500 cross tables. Beyond the basic fee, other deliverables include the purchase of additional half-pages, questionnaires sent to a client’s own proprietary sample, a report, and a presentation on the data. Each study also incorporates seven of the psychographic segmentation strategies on Baby Boomers and their elders developed by Strategic Directions Group, Inc. These psychographic segmentation strategies include health, health compliance and health information, travel, food, lifestyle and finance. For more information visit www.attitudebase.com .
New online product for CPG marketers
New York-based NetRatings and ACNielsen U.S. have launched Homescan Online, a new service designed to improve the effectiveness of online marketing for consumer packaged goods (CPG) marketers and Web publishers. Homescan Online will utilize 12,000 members of the ACNielsen Homescan consumer panel who have opted in to the service, allowing their Internet behavior to be monitored with Nielsen//NetRatings technology as they record their offline buying behavior with ACNielsen’s proprietary in-home UPC code scanners.
Homescan Online will show CPG marketers the Web sites that category or brand buyers are visiting, giving them a better understanding of consumers’ online behavior and helping them place more efficient media buys. Then it will help evaluate the effectiveness of online advertising campaigns by measuring actual offline purchasing behavior among consumer groups who were exposed to the advertisements. The service will also enable Web publishers to market themselves to the CPG community by helping consumer product marketers target Web site audiences by their specific brand consumption.
Homescan Online will integrate consumer retail purchasing of up to 12,000 CPG brands and online visits to more than 1,000 Web sites. Initial custom analysis from Homescan Online is expected to be available in January. Full reporting through 2004 will include quarterly Web surfing data with annual all-outlet purchasing data. For more information visit www.nielsen-netratings.com .
Automated conjoint product from InsightExpress
Stamford, Conn.-based research frm InsightExpress is now offering an automated conjoint analysis solution. Using InsightExpress’ technology, marketers and researchers can create their first conjoint survey in minutes, field the survey online, and make business decisions through a browser-based “what-if” simulator driven by consumer preferences. In addition to the “what-if” preference simulator, the product identifies the attributes of the top 15 most- and bottom 15 least-preferred products — enabling marketers and researchers to quickly identify winning products. For more information visit www.insightexpress.com .
Briefly…
SMG/KRC Millward Brown Poland has launched Double Agent, a new methodology based on a combination of mystery shopping and human resources experience, to provide professional advice to clients on how to resolve customer relationship problems. For more information visit www.millwardbrown.com .
Q Research Solutions, Inc., Old Bridge , N.J. , has opened its second consumer product testing facility. The new facility, which is owned and being operated by Focus & Testing, Inc., is located in Woodland Hills , Calif. Focus & Testing will duplicate the Old Bridge, N.J. consumer product-testing site. The new 3,500-sq.-ft.. facility includes: six testing rooms; fragrance exhaust; multiple product placement rooms; and a local consumer panel. For more information call Laurel Moller at 732-952-0000 or visit www.whoisq.com .
Reston, Va.-based comScore Networks has launched comScore Survey Solutions, a new business unit offering survey-based research services via a panel of more than 1.5 million consumers.
Minneapolis-based Modern Survey has introduced the i-measure Suite, a set of self-service survey modules that enable businesses to self-manage employee or customer survey projects. The first i-measure modules center on both employee and customer survey solutions. Employees, current customers and market research customer panel members are offered unique and anonymous access to online surveys. Interim participation rates and real-time results can be monitored, analyzed and reported. For more information visit www.modernsurvey.com .