Ipsos ASI debuts ad-testing tool
New York research firm Ipsos ASI has launched Next*Connect, an advertising research solution designed to measure and test communications across the advertising spectrum, from emerging digital media to traditional. With Next*Connect, consumers are screened and recruited to take part in research to assess client messages and advertising creative. Respondents complete an online survey where they are exposed to a variety of media, and results are compared against a control group that was not exposed to any advertising.
By showcasing ads as they are experienced in media and creating an abundance of noise and masking the actual test ad(s), Next*Connect aims to offer a more accurate impact assessment. Next*Connect also measures recall the day after initial exposure to determine if and how well the ad is remembered. For more information visit www.ipsos-asi.com.
ThatSaid.com aims to get users sharing opinions
Ipsos in North America, a New York research company, has launched ThatSaid.com, an online opinion community driven by user-generated content that seeks to enhance the way people share opinions online. On ThatSaid.com, users can create polls to find out what their friends and the community think; share these polls on any social network; add their favorites to their profile and see what their friends like; write and read reviews about any product, service, place or topic and incorporate Google images and YouTube videos; earn activity badges, user levels and virtual goods exchangeable for Visa gift cards and gift certificates to 200+ merchants; and connect with users with similar interests.
ThatSaid.com will introduce full market research surveys to its community members in early 2010. ThatSaid.com was developed in conjunction with Livra.com, a research technology company based in Argentina. For more information visit www.ipsos-na.com.
SPSS offers certification to validate PASW users
Chicago research software company SPSS Inc. has debuted PASW Statistics Certification, a standard that confirms an individual’s level of expertise with PASW Statistics, the company’s predictive analytics software solution. The certification program is designed to provide a body of statistical knowledge to advance the skills of analysts, statisticians and business-line managers and give organizations greater confidence in hiring those with proficiency in statistical software.
Testing is conducted at Pearson VUE computer-based testing centers worldwide. SPSS also offers a comprehensive training program to become PASW certified. For more information visit www.spss.com/certification.
Two new offerings from comScore
Reston, Va., research company comScore Inc. has launched in the U.S. market comScore Plan Metrix Mobile, the latest version its media planning tool for use with mobile consumer segments. ComScore Plan Metrix Mobile is designed to improve data quality by combining reported mobile behavior measurement and mobile device ownership characteristics with attitudinal, lifestyle and product usage information. The offering allows mobile marketers to identify a set of mobile Web properties that meet target demographic and psychographic requirements across 5,000+ variables, including purchasing habits and media consumption.
Additional product highlights include access to audience attributes across 18 different consumer profile segments, including demographics, traditional media consumption, usage of telecommunications, electronics/computers and apparel and other behavioral segments; access to mobile-device ownership characteristics in nine categories, including cell phone brand, operator, price of handset, length of current subscription, cell phone use, ownership of current handset, monthly payment tier, payment option and type of additional plan; and access to mobile content consumption with reporting at the category, subcategory and individual brand levels.
Additionally, comScore has released GamePlan, an audience targeting tool for gaming publishers and developers. GamePlan, which is part of the comScore Plan Metrix product suite, is designed to allow game publishers and developers to quantify, validate and improve their digital gaming strategies, including the ability to allocate advertising and marketing expenditure, enhance understanding of one’s target audience and retool games on the fly to increase their appeal to the right audiences. For more information visit www.comscore.com.
Feedback collection solution gives clients more control
Allegiance Inc., a South Jordan, Utah, research software company, has released Allegiance Engage 6.3, a system intended to collect feedback from multiple channels into a central database. Engage 6.3 incorporates Inquisite Survey, a survey solution acquired by Allegiance, to provide clients with a single platform to perform surveys and gather, analyze and act on feedback.
With Engage 6.3, customers can conduct transactional and engagement surveys, as well as gather unsolicited feedback (e.g., comments, questions, concerns, suggestions, etc.) through a single log-in. Using the survey campaign management functions, users can execute and manage full-survey campaigns, including sample sets and strategies. The upgraded system also includes Google translation capability, which can detect the language used in submitting feedback and translate it into the language of choice.
Engage 6.3 also features advanced reporting to create custom dashboards. Reports can be arranged by dragging and dropping them into views specific to a user’s area of responsibility. Users can share dashboards with others in their organization and set up threshold alerts for meeting specific criteria. Incorporating Pixel Perfect Design capabilities for questionnaire design, the system gives the user control over the look and feel of a survey, including Survey Tree View, copy/paste functionality, offline desktop builder and internationalization. For more information visit www.allegiance.com.
EasyInsites launches mobile polling service; teams with Bounty to create family panel
Surrey, U.K., research company EasyInsites has launched EasyMobile, a tool designed to conduct rapid polling via mobile phones. The process begins by sending a text message invitation directly to the mobile device (the recipient has agreed in advance to be contacted in this manner) or promoting the poll via a keyword presented on a Web site or other broadcast medium that is texted in to a free text number to enable participation. The EasyMobile polls are made up of short surveys, typically of three to five questions.
EasyMobile will be available in 193 countries across the world and offered at prices comparable to standard online omnibus products. Custom panels will be used to target EasyMobile polls, since panelists have provided their mobile numbers and given consent to participate, along with profile information.
Separately, EasyInsites has partnered with Bounty, a U.K. online parenting club, to act as the full-service agency responsible for Bounty’s bimonthly research and to build a fully-profiled, globally-accessible young-family panel. The panel will be built and maintained on the EasyExchange platform (also known as the Cint Panel Exchange), where researchers can have direct access to panelists for their own research projects.
The panel will comprise 30,000 consumers, representative of young families from those in the first trimester of pregnancy through to those whose youngest child is age 4 for less. Expanded profiling will include measures such as on- and offline media consumption and engagement with brands.
EasyInsites will provide sample access to this panel with or without other research services. Sample buyers can also go directly to the Exchange platform by establishing an account with Cint AB, the company that manages the Exchange. The panel is set to be live and accessible by the start of 2010. For more information visit www.easyinsites.com.
Qualitative research gets live note-taking capability with NoteClipper
InterClipper Inc., a Stone Ridge, N.Y., research software company, has introduced NoteClipper, a free solution designed to let researchers make notes live for DVDs of qualitative sessions at research facilities. Researchers can take timed notes at their PCs during the session and later merge the notes into the facility DVD. This allows researchers to view the video at the exact time of the session when the note was made. Notes are merged using InterClipper’s updated and free DVD Clipper program.
To edit and export video clips, the DVD can be unlocked with a code ordered from www.dvdclipper.com. No special equipment or reservation is required, and NoteClipper is compatible with all standard DVD recordings. NoteClipper can also be used as a stand-alone note-taking program. Notes can be sorted by topic or rating during or after the session and then be exported to Excel for use in other programs. NoteClipper and DVD Clipper are available for free download at www.interclipper.com.
MarketTools launches TrueSample 3.0
MarketTools Inc., a San Francisco research company, has released version 3.0 of TrueSample, its online data quality solution. TrueSample is designed to improve data quality by removing fake, duplicate and unengaged respondents from research samples and to measure the quality of survey instruments with SurveyScore. TrueSample 3.0 includes the following features: cross-platform compatibility; real-time sample validation; and advanced panel validation tools, including the TrueSample.net portal, where suppliers can upload any panel file for validation, and an application programming interface for proactive panel validation.
In addition, MarketTools has filed a provisional patent application for TrueSample. For more information visit www.markettools.com.
Mercury ad comparison tool sets out to test ads fast
In the U.K., Horsham, Pa., research company TNS has launched Mercury, a tool designed to test new TV ads as they launch and allow clients to take action on their own and competitors’ campaigns. Clients subscribe for a period of time, during which all ads that debut in a given sector or competitor-group are tested. Results are stored for other subscribers to purchase, enabling comparisons with named ads and brands. Mercury alerts the team the day after an ad launches on air. New ads are tested with TNS panelists who are assigned ads at random during a seven-day interviewing period. For more information visit www.tnsglobal.com.
Clarabridge releases social media mining solution
Reston, Va., research company Clarabridge has launched Clarabridge Social Media Analysis (SMA), a software solution that aims to use advanced text analysis to turn social media content found across global social media platforms into actionable customer intelligence in conjunction with analysis of internal customer feedback sources.
Clarabridge SMA accesses social media content from New York business consultancy Alterian’s TechrigySM2, a social media database that houses nearly 3 billion pieces of data from blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, MySpace and other social media sites. SMA then removes unwanted content, sorts actionable from non-actionable topics, and applies meaning and context to conversations using natural language processing, classification and sentiment-scoring engines. Clients can create Web-scraping routines to access product-review sites, discussion forums and subscription sites, as well as integrate with internal data sources.
Clarabridge SMA can be used as a stand-alone solution, accessing only social media content, or as an add-on to existing Clarabridge text mining software offerings. For more information visit www.clarabridge.com.
Briefly
Washington, D.C., research company Carma International has introduced Carma PR Tools, a suite of online public relations software designed to allow subscribers to complete tasks such as journalist/media list creation, press release distribution and media measurement. Measurement results can be viewed in the same portal through Carma NewsAccess and Carma Social Media Access, or through Carma’s analysis dashboards. For more information visit www.carma.com.
Research Now, London, has partnered with London research company Experian to offer Mosaic, Experian’s panel profiling and segmentation tool, on its panels. Mosaic is a consumer classification tool available in 29 countries and classifies 1 billion consumers. For more information visit www.researchnow.co.uk.
U.K. event management company Richmond Events has launched a U.S. research panel to glean feedback from U.S. business clients. The panel will be conducted bimonthly as a free service to the market. For more information visit www.richmondevents.com.
Copenhagen, Denmark, research company iMotions has released Attention Tool 3.0, a new version of its eye-tracking software platform. The updated version is intended to improve eye tracking by adding reading metrics to traditional eye-tracking and emotion metrics. Attention Tool 3.0 also features study sharing, which enables the users to run large-scale studies on multiple locations simultaneously. For more information visit www.attentiontool.com.
The Operandi Group, a Portland, Maine, research consultancy, has launched Podus Operandi, a new podcast featuring interviews with marketing research industry technology innovators. The podcast is available for free on iTunes at http://tinyurl.com/podusoperandi; at the iTunes Store (search “Podus Operandi”); and directly at www.podusoperandi.com.
Surrey, U.K., insights group Added Value has debuted Character Creation, a brand marketing development tool that uses a Jungian model of human archetypes to help define and develop a brand’s character. Added Value has also developed a board game based on archetypes to guide clients through the beginning of the process. For more information visit www.addedvalue.com.
Port Washington, N.Y., research company The NPD Group has enhanced its Retail Insight Service, which allows customers to view market share and causal factors side-by-side. The update is designed to quantitatively assess how assortment, promotion and pricing affect market share. For more information visit www.npd.com.
London research company GfK NOP Media has debuted rate it!, a panel that consists of 1,500+ 8-15-year-olds. The panel delivers daily feedback on the top TV programs, Web sites and radio stations among teenagers. The panel will also issue results on press and magazine readership. With daily measurement of media consumption, weekly targeted surveys and a regular dialogue with young consumers, rate it! is designed to identify and understand influencing factors. For more information visit www.gfknopmedia.com.
Reston, Va., research company comScore and New York business software company Omniture Inc. have partnered to deliver a digital audience measurement system designed for the digital advertising world. The offering will combine Omniture’s Web analytics with comScore’s Media Metrix 360 hybrid audience measurement to help provide publishers and advertisers with a unified and comprehensive view of online audiences. For more information visit www.comscore.com.
Hansa Marketing Services USA, Evanston, Ill., has launched its India Data Collection and Processing services for North American and European companies seeking market opportunities in the region. India Data Facts is designed to manage all data collection needs through a network of 17 offices across India and 1,000+ in-field interviewers. Services include sampling; language translations; briefing; data collection and processing; quality control; coding, North America-based project management; and final data delivery in any format. For more information visit www.hansa-marketing.com.
Research Panel, Japan, and data reporting service partner Trend Monitor, a Korean research firm, have extended their Asian-market panel (China, Korea and Taiwan) to include Japan. For more information visit http://global.research-panel.jp.