••• online qualitative
Pin this
Service helps brands use Pinterest for MR
Civicom Marketing Research Services, Greenwich, Conn., now offers Civicom Pinterest to help clients use Pinterest for marketing research projects. Civicom Pinterest services are designed for conducting qualitative research studies where respondents engage in projective techniques, self-expression activities, online photo diaries, or in creating collages related to brand or idea association. Clients can get a visual understanding of thought processes and perceptions within the mind of the respondent as a result.
Civicom provides a Pinterest account for each respondent then introduces each respondent to the Pinterest site and provides guidance for how to complete the Pinterest assignment. Respondents create boards or Civicom creates the boards for the respondents. Respondents then pin images and provide descriptions based on the research activity required. Civicom then archives the completed boards.
Respondents are provided with a Civicom Pinterest Coach to reference for technical assistance throughout the project. Civicom educates respondents on making sure their pins are be well thought-out and clearly illustrate the study objectives and include useful descriptions that relate to the study.
With the exception of secret boards, activity on Pinterest can potentially be viewed by anyone looking through the Pinterest site. Civicom provides release forms stating this understanding. Civicom also reminds respondents to pin images from the source site, rather than downloading images and then uploading them to Pinterest as their own. These guidelines help avoid copyright violation.
Once an assignment is completed and has been archived, Civicom deletes the respondent boards and pins from Pinterest. The company shares archived boards only with the project research team. Launched in 2009, Pinterest introduced secret boards in 2012 and data analytics tools in 2013.
www.civi.com/marketingresearch/pinterest_marketing_research.html
••• online qualitative
Know now
Real-time translation tool for online qual
Nashville, Tenn.-based 20/20 Research is now offering QualTranslate, a real-time human translation tool for online qualitative research. It can instantly translate any of 24 languages and offers higher-quality, native-speaking human translations within a few hours, when requested. This improvement helps researchers in multiple parts of the world immediately follow discussions in another language, analyze insights more quickly and adjust research protocols while the project is in process.
The technology uses language algorithms to produce translations in under 60 seconds. A human native-language translator can audit the translations to capture language nuances, typically within three to six hours of each respondent’s post.
QualTranslate is delivered as a part of the company’s QualBoard: Global service, which includes a threaded bulletin board for online discussions, a mobile journaling platform, a concept/image markup tool, a smartphone app for inclusion of external images in discussions, Webcam responses and a hybrid integration of quantitative-to-qualitative research.
www.2020research.com
••• financial services
A bird’s eye view for banks
Mystery shopping identifies compliance vulnerabilities
To help financial service providers comply with changing industry regulations, Maritz Research, St. Louis, has launched CrowsNest, a mystery shopping solution that detects potential noncompliance and reduces the risk of incurring penalties or fines.
CrowsNest offers an independent assessment to help banks, credit card providers and mortgage servicers/originators proactively monitor compliance with regulatory processes and procedures when dealing with customers and prospects. For customer-facing situations during which employees explain a credit card application process, open a checking account, handle a customer complaint about credit card terms or respond to a question about overdraft fees, CrowsNest alerts management to risks. Within the CrowsNest program, mystery shoppers can audit for compliance vulnerabilities and give financial services providers the opportunity to make immediate improvements.
CrowsNest specializes in tracking regulatory issues related to the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Truth in Lending Act, the Truth in Savings Act, mortgage reform and investor protections. It offers different assessments for specific needs, which are tracked and managed through an online reporting portal, including: reviews of disclosures in various communications and marketing materials, including Web sites, direct mail, statements, etc.; and audits of employees’ customer service, including in-person mystery shopping visits to branch staff, telephone calls to customer call centers and online communications.
The CrowsNest online dashboard is designed to provide: timely access to mystery shopping results; quick identification of non-compliance issues through “hot alerts;” customized, personalized results to share with various levels, including compliance officers, individual branches, call centers or regional managers; and the ability to view trends over time and segment the data by regulation, location, situation, level of the organization or expected behavior.
www.maritzresearch.com/crowsnest
••• mobile research
Self-serve on-the-go
Eki launches Survelytics for mobile MR
Mumbai-based Eki Communications has introduced Survelytics, a digital market research self-service product. Survelytics is designed to enable researchers to capture in-the-moment responses from consumers through smartphones, tablets or computers. Responses may be captured online as well as offline and uploaded to the cloud.
Researchers can create mobile surveys as well as online surveys using the same tool. It also provides a range of question types and options with geolocation, time stamp, multilingual support, routing logic, randomizations, media questions and other features for mobile CAPI, mobile diaries and mobile qualitative surveys.
www.survelytics.com
••• customer satisfaction
Hear all the voices
Tool automates online VOC data
Toronto-based IntelliResponse has launched VOICES, a voice-of-the-customer technology designed to help enterprises visualize and derive actionable insight from customer questions posed on digital channels. This tool captures and automates voice-of-the-customer data from client interactions across Web, mobile, agent and social channels.
VOICES captures customers’ questions in their own natural language, through any self-service interaction channel. Using linguistic and statistical native language processing, in combination with data visualization technology, VOICES lets marketers identify and compare customer trends over specified periods. The data is structured into organized and intuitive themes via a highly visual format, so marketers can explore trends or drill down to the originating questions to help them understand how a customer expressed a need or problem. On a larger scale, VOICES helps marketers identify changes in behavior and the marketplace to build a better, more detailed profile of customers.
www.intelliresponse.com
••• eye-tracking
A more complete look
Firms marry their eye-tracking technologies
Psychology Software Tools (PST) and SensoMotoric Instruments (SMI) have integrated E-Prime, PST’s psychology research software, with SMI’s line of eye-tracking equipment to create SMI’s iView X MRI, an in-magnet eye-tracking solution. The integration within E-Prime will allow for gaze-contingent stimuli, dynamic fixations and feedback, the ability to pause and restart the eye tracker and other features. This fMRI eye-tracking integration completes PST’s Suite of products in the fMRI environment. E-Prime can also be used for behavioral research in combination with SMI’s line of remote eye-tracking devices. The SMI RED-m is a fully portable remote eye-tracker for laptop use at a sampling rate of 120Hz.
www.smivision.com
••• online research
Use them properly
Sheet offers best practices for sliders
Fresno, Calif., research firm Decipher has released best practices for the use of sliders in market research surveys. The best practices fact sheet illustrates how to get the best responses from this emerging question format. Sliders are often used to keep respondents engaged but can skew study results if used improperly. This sheet shows how to use this tool effectively to collect actionable data.
Several basic guidelines for the use of sliders are explored in the factsheet, including topics like: starting values for the initial state and slider starting position consistency; input ergonomics; use of imagery; data distribution; and slider formats and sizing.
Decipher’s best practices fact sheet provides practical and implementable guidelines into using sliders to not only engage respondent but to also collect accurate results. It recommends when and where sliders are most appropriate for use in market research. Download the document at http://decipherinc.com/n/uploads/images/pages/decipher_slidersdesignbestpractices.pdf.
••• online research
Update of Kinesis Survey
Adds nested loop capabilities, gamification elements
Kinesis Survey Technologies, Austin, Texas, has released an updated version of its online survey solution Kinesis Survey. Kinesis Survey 5.7 is designed to streamline online survey programming tasks and provide new capabilities to enhance the survey participation experience for respondents. Benefits of the new version include faster, easier programming and on-the-fly modifications to complex, nested quotas; advanced nested loop capabilities, with automated control for randomization sequences across lists and faster time-to-launch for large lists; image-based radio and check-box questions that support gamification elements; and improved mobile support for BlackBerry 10, Windows 8 and Google Chromebook devices.
www.kinesissurvey.com
••• health care research
Hall & Partners Health launches PatientPulse
Offers a framework for evaluating the patient experience
Hall & Partners Health, a specialist division of London researcher Hall & Partners, has launched a patient experience framework, PatientPulse. PatientPulse enables the patient experience to be broken down into three distinct stages – before, during and after treatment – facilitating an understanding of the patient experience at each step of the journey. It is designed to reveal moments of truth that may detract from or reinforce disease and brand engagement and help create a plan for when, where, how and with whom to interact with to optimize patient engagement and prescriptions.
www.hallandpartners.com
••• b2b research
Charting the future
Walker studies the customer experience industry
Indianapolis, Ind., customer intelligence firm Walker Information has released a study of the future of the business-to-business customer experience industry, Customers 2020. The study reflects Walker’s view of the future based on input from customer experience professionals from large, multinational, B2B organizations representing a range of industries, and is designed to reveal the customer experience industry of the future.
Customers 2020 explores how customer expectations will evolve, what companies must do to adapt, and how companies can capitalize on the emerging customer revolution. Customers 2020 was conducted by Walker Information over the period of nine months, and the research is reflective of a combination of four initiatives, including roundtable discussions, in-depth interviews with executives, a quantitative survey and a review of the findings by a panel of chief customer officers.
www.walkerinfo.com/customers2020
••• in-store research
Get in their face
Method melds demos with digital
Schaumburg, Ill., shopper marketing firm PromoWorks has rolled out INTER:FACE Insights, a consumer survey technology that combines the influence of live brand interaction (sampling/demos) with the connectivity and speed of digital.
INTER:FACE Insights adds a digital touchpad survey device to in-store engagements to capture shopper feedback at the point of trial, from product attribute rankings and flavor preferences to brand awareness sources and purchase intent.
Brands can view a full survey report within 72 hours. In addition, the digital touchpad adds 30+ seconds to each shopper engagement, which can translate into more time to convert shoppers into buyers.
www.promoworks.com
••• data analysis
MS Office + MR
New survey analysis menu for Microsoft Office launches
Copenhagen, Denmark-based software maker OfficeReports has debuted OfficeReports, a software tool that embeds full market research data analysis and reporting capabilities within the Microsoft Office suite. OfficeReports converts PowerPoint and Word into fully functional survey analysis and reporting programs capable of reading raw survey data and producing crosstabular and statistical analysis.
OfficeReports is provided as a simple download which adds data analysis capabilities as a new menu in both Word and PowerPoint. This includes creating new variables and crosstabs, defining filtering, weighting and statistics and refining the output formats. Licenses for professional users cost the equivalent of $12.50 per month. OfficeReports outputs, which are standard XML Office documents (.docx and .pptx) can be shared freely with any other Microsoft Office user. A free plug-in means other users can also perform some basic additional analysis on any OfficeReports-created documents they receive. A 14-day trial version of the complete software can be downloaded from www.officereports.com/download.
••• mobile research
Now ready for iOS
Cluetec updates mQuest
German software firm Cluetec has updated its mQuest survey software. Release 9.0 includes the migration of the software to the iOS, allowing mobile surveys and market research to be conducted on the iPhone, iPad and iPad Mini.
In addition to the iOS migration, the 9.0 includes the following new features: interview review allows users to review, check and, if necessary, correct the conducted interviews on the device, including the change report; question type freehand recording allows recording fields to be integrated in the questionnaire, allowing, for example, the writing of signatures directly on the device; and customers now have the option to provide views in the QuestReport and the reporting tool of the mQuest software with the read-only attribute. In this way, researchers can provide their customers with live insights into the current project.
www.cluetec.eu
••• emotion research
Smartphone as emotion detector
Android app tracks user’s emotions
A free app called Emotion Sense has been launched and is available for Android. Emotion Sense combines data from a wide range of smartphone sensors with the user’s own report about their mood, which is entered through a system designed by psychologists.
First, the user is asked to mark how they feel using an on-screen matrix called an emotion grid. Based on their response, the phone then conducts a brief survey to clarify their emotional state. By cross-referring both sets of data, the app’s designers hope that it will accumulate a very precise record of what drives people’s emotional peaks, showing, for example, when they are likely to be at their most stressed or when they feel most relaxed.
Emotion Sense is also a live research project led by a team at the U.K.’s University of Cambridge. The group previously carried out lab-based investigations in which participants were asked to record their feelings in a diary. The new system allows them to gather data about both the drivers of people’s moods and how far smartphones can record this in a real-world setting. By combining the data from the GPS, accelerometer and microphone with a log of the user’s calling and texting patterns, a study of a person’s smartphone can offer a record of their habits, activities and routines.
When Emotion Sense is opened for the first time, only one sensor is unlocked. The app spends roughly a week collecting data from this sensor and testing it against the user’s emotional state. At the end of this, the user is asked to complete a short life-satisfaction survey, which unlocks a new sensor. After about eight weeks, a full range of sensors has been tested. This systematic approach provides the researchers with data for study but it is also designed as a journey of discovery for the user, giving them a step-by-step insight into what might be influencing their own mood swings.
Mood itself is registered through a system designed by psychologists within the research team. At different times of the day, the app sends the user a notification, rather like receiving a text message, asking them about their mood. These can be set to pop up on the phone as little as twice a day, and assess the user’s mood using a custom-designed emotion grid, followed by a survey.
The code which is used in Emotion Sense to collect sensor data from people’s phones is also being made available on an open-source basis so that other researchers can conduct their own experiments. It can be found at http://emotionsense.org/code.html.
••• customer satisfaction
From NPS onward
Market Probe offers advocacy study of six sectors
Milwaukee research firm Market Probe has launched a national consumer survey of 6,000 households to compare the advocacy profiles with the top brands in six major industry sectors including banks, investment companies, credit card companies, auto manufacturers, casual dining chains and major retailers. The national survey will ask customers to evaluate their recent customer and brand experiences to assess their impact on satisfaction, Net Promoter Score and advocacy. Over 80 U.S. companies will be included in the national study. Market Probe will present the results of the 2013 Customer Advocacy Monitor at the IQPC 2013 Digital Marketing Exchange in San Francisco in September.
www.marketprobe.com
••• ad research
Match the ads with the audiences
NCS launches AdVantics On Demand
Nielsen Catalina Solutions, Cincinnati, has launched a single-source software offering, AdVantics on Demand, to enable CPG marketers, their agencies and media companies to better match advertising with desired “buyer-rich” audiences based on actual retail purchase data. Initially covering national TV media, AdVantics On Demand is a Web-based platform that enables media decision makers to determine which media vehicles best deliver buyer-based audience segments, including television networks, dayparts, genres and programs. In addition, the product provides “buyergraphic” post-buy analyses, reach and frequencies and can be integrated with most third-party planning, buying and housekeeping systems.
From nearly 60 million frequent-shopper data households and 2.7 million TV viewing households, AdVantics On Demand accesses the largest single-source database of shopper data and television viewing in the U.S. With approximately 664,000 anonymous U.S. households, it is the only single-source data that incorporates the Nielsen People Meter panel data used by the industry for national TV advertising transactions, and Nielsen Set Meter panels, plus Cable Set Top Box tuning data, providing both panel-based national projectability and “census” data scale.
www.ncsolutions.com
••• ad research
The view from above
App helps maximize reach and frequency
Telmar Group Inc., New York, a supplier of advertising media information software and other services, has introduced AD Giraffe, a media performance app for iPhone and iPad devices. The app, available for download from the Apple App Store, is designed to help advertisers and ad agencies better reach their desired consumers. Users of Telmar’s eTelmar platform will receive access to AD Giraffe free of charge. International versions of AD Giraffe are coming soon.
AD Giraffe lets users access stored demographics native to the app or input their own consumer market, audience and cost data from media vendors, research suppliers and media exchanges. AD Giraffe then uses Telmar’s methodologies and algorithms to convert audience and schedule preferences into reach and frequency estimates for every medium in an ad schedule. The app also weighs the impact of a user’s message and media vehicle type and demonstrates the results of switching money or advertisements from one medium to another.
www.telmar.com
••• online research
Take your Cue
DIY app for site usability
Usability Sciences Corp., Irving, Texas, has launched a new do-it-yourself Web site research application, OnCue. The tool allows sites to deploy behaviorally-targeted surveys from SurveyMonkey and SurveyGizmo, forms from 123ContactForm and Wufoo, online usability tests from Loop11, card-sorting and tree-testing from Optimal Workshop and session replay from ClickTale, along with many other supported tools without the need for IT involvement.
OnCue features rules to manage multiple research projects: a testing mode before going live, the ability to build customized, cross-browser, opt-in dialogs, and respondent sampling based upon browser, OS, geolocations or IP addresses.
www.oncueresearch.com
••• customer satisfaction
Five key pieces
Report outlines tech’s role for customer service firms
San Francisco-based Constellation Research Inc. has published Compelling Investments for Extraordinary Service, by Constellation Vice President and Principal Analyst Elizabeth Herrell. This report helps customer service organizations identify quantifiable value for deploying emerging technologies and steps to build a business case for justifying new investments.
The report (available at http://constellationr.com/research/compelling-investments-extraordinary-service) highlights five key technologies that all customer service organizations should evaluate as these technologies create new revenues, lower service costs and positively enhance customer experience. Emerging customer service applications include: mobile Web (to deliver customer support directly from a mobile app); automated Web chat (uses advanced natural language speech for Web support); real-time analytics (mines data from all types of customer interactions for insight); big data (collects and analyzes customer data for informed decisions); and video mobile (supports visual communications to support smartphones and tablet service).
••• Briefly
Portland, Ore., research firm Revelation has added 15 available languages to its Revelation | Next Web-based platform: Portuguese, simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese, German, European Spanish, Latin American Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Dutch, Polish, Russian, Swedish, Turkish.
www.revelationglobal.com
Kinesis Survey Technologies, Austin, Texas, has published a second update to its white paper Online Survey Statistics from the Mobile Future. This latest version includes detailed Q1 2013 statistics about Kinesis’ online survey platform usage and specifically the incidence at which various traffic metrics now occur on mobile devices versus desktop devices. Q1 and Q3 2012 data published in the previous versions of the white paper remain and are provided for comparative analysis.
www.kinesissurvey.com
Singapore-based consultancy TapestryWorks is now offering BehaviourWorks, a new framework for evaluating shopper behavior for point-of-sale, Web site design and promotional materials, building on advances in neuroscience and behavioral economics. BehaviourWorks will be available in Singapore, Bangkok and Hong Kong.
www.tapestryworks.asia
Lexington, Mass., research firm Forbes Consulting Group has released MindSight DIY, a new applied neuroscience technology that allows a qualitative moderator or quantitative researcher to configure, customize and execute a MindSight study. The technology allows for complete customization of MindSight with a wizard-like process that walks researchers through the configuration, with recommendations each step of the way to let them tailor the research to meet the specific needs of the project.
www.forbesconsulting.com
Myers Media Business Network, which offers information tools for media, advertising, marketing and entertainment professionals, and research firm Vision Critical, Vancouver, B.C., have launched Media Village, a social knowledge network. Using the Vision Critical Insight Community technology platform, Media Village (www.mediavillage.com) will provide executives in media and entertainment with a portal for shared insights, practices, knowledge, ideas and social connections.
Wilton, Conn., research firm Toluna can now make available purchase, preference and media consumption data from the Experian Marketing Services’ Simmons National Consumer Study (NCS). Joint clients of Toluna and Experian Marketing Services with a license to the Simmons NCS will be able to view custom survey questions and/or custom segmentations through the Simmons NCS.
www.toluna-group.com
Cincinnati-based ThinkVine, a marketing mix optimization software company, has released an updated version of its eponymous software. The new version includes interactive forecasts, a redesigned user interface, additional SmartMix features and improved secure collaboration.
www.thinkvine.com
The Learning House Inc., a Louisville, Ky., provider of online learning solutions, and Aslanian Market Research, Hoboken, N.J., have released the second annual Online College Students report, based on surveys with 1,500 recent, current and prospective online students nationwide. To download the report visit www.learninghouse.com/resources/whitepapers/ocs-report (registration required).
VideoMining Corporation, State College, Pa., announced that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) awarded a patent to the company for measuring the effectiveness of product packaging to attract, engage and influence purchase decisions of shoppers in a retail store. The invention enables quantitative analysis of the behavioral and emotional responses to different packaging concepts. The use of video analytics software allows the capture of “natural” behavior of a very large sample of shoppers relative to product packaging in actual stores.
www.videomining.com
Christopher Hiller, a market research software developer with Fresno, Calif., research firm Decipher, has written a new e-book entitled Developing an AngularJS Edge. It explains basic AngularJS concepts, components and applications by providing examples, answering frequently asked questions and correcting common misconceptions. The book is designed to assist programmers in becoming proficient with the use of AngularJS in order to create new applications.
www.decipherinc.com
The Center for Pricing and Revenue Management at Columbia Business School and Chicago-based Information Resources Inc. have teamed up to present “Pricing Analytics: the Art and Science of Profitable Growth,” a two-day educational program to be held Oct. 2-3 on the Columbia University campus in New York. Attendees will learn new perspectives and methodologies on linking promotion and pricing decisions to strategy and execution. For more information visit www8.gsb.columbia.edu/execed/program-pages/details/590/PA.
Nuremberg, Germany-based GfK has established a social media intelligence center. Key to this expansion is the company’s recent acquisition of Sensemetric Web & Social Media Mining GmbH, a company that has developed a crowdsourcing digital platform for conducting social media analysis. By integrating information from Sensemetric’s Web crawling and crowdsourcing technology with other GfK data sources, GfK aims to develop insights about the connection between social media effects and sales.
www.gfk.com
Nielsen has commenced public beta trials for its Cross-Platform Campaign Ratings service in the U.K. The service takes the commercial exposures from an advertiser’s TV ads and its online ads and reports on the combined audience for the campaign.
www.nielsen.com
The New York-based Brand Activation Association has announced the creation of the Licensing Council to inform and educate marketers about the use of licensing as a marketing discipline and brand activation strategy.
www.baalink.org
Los Angeles research firm Kelton is celebrating its 10th birthday this year.
Kinesis Survey Technologies, Austin, Texas, announced the 10th anniversary of its founding and the launch of a new corporate brand identity and Web site.