Techneos debuts mobile panel app
Vancouver, B.C., research software company Techneos has released the SODA 1.1 Mobile Access Platform, a mobile panel application featuring capabilities such as GPS/location capture; photo capture; and compatibility with Google Android mobile devices. The SODA system aims to provide the infrastructure required to create, deploy and manage multilingual wireless survey and engagement applications on mobile devices. The suite also provides an infrastructure for automating research methods, such as face-to-face interviewing, diary studies, digital ethnographies and mobile feedback panels. The SODA Mobile Access Platform downloads applications to mobile phones that run even when devices are offline and then connects to a wireless network as required to fetch projects and submit data. For more information visit www.techneos.com.
Vision Critical enhances technology platform; launches shopping solution
Vancouver, B.C., research company Vision Critical has rolled out its globalization expansion pack for Sparq, the company’s online research platform. The update includes expanded language support for surveys and multilingual support for communities; increased user control during the survey authoring and translation process; and a multilingual reporting feature designed to allow users to choose the languages for report viewing.
In addition to the global language expansion, Vision Critical has continued its creation of interactive visual question types, namely the scale slider grid and two visual grid question types.
Separately, Vision Critical has launched ShelfsetPlus, an overhaul to the company’s virtual shopper technology. ShelfsetPlus will be offered as a standardized visualization tool for product, category and shopper marketing, which aims to provide more options and faster execution. ShelfsetPlus combines interactive fly-throughs and shelfset exercises. Fly-throughs, which are intended to allow shoppers to feel like they are entering and moving around in a store, are available across 10 retail environments. Fly-throughs can also be enhanced with clickmaps, hot spots and advertising signage as respondents are at the shelf or point of purchase.
Shelfset exercises have been enhanced with couponing, two-for-one and other discounting options; multisided 2-D or 3-D product inspection; and a shopping cart that remains visible to the shopper throughout the journey. Participants can zoom in and out, read product labels, compare prices, buy items or return them to the shelf. The interface is intended for respondents to move around the aisles and add items to their cart without explicit written instructions, reducing survey length and visual clutter. All data is collected and integrated into Sparq. For more information visit www.visioncritical.com.
E-Poll dives into respondent Character
E-Poll Market Research, Encino, Calif., has launched E-Score Character into MediaSYNC, E-Poll’s online interface designed to provide subscribers with access to and control of the data from E-Poll’s E-Score research products.
E-Score Character aims to offer an in-depth look at the drivers of appeal as measured across various media, such as television, video games, packaging, apparel and toys. The database contains scores and rankings for hundreds of real and rendered characters. Each character receives assessments of awareness, appeal and character attributes, as well as measurements of character extendibility and affinity.
Along with the launch in MediaSYNC, the E-Score Character family of products, including E-Score Character Kids (targeting audiences ages 6-12) and E-Score Character Tots (ages 2-5), will be fielded monthly. For more information visit www.epollresearch.com.
ComScore debuts measurement tool; expands global reporting
Reston, Va., research company comScore, in conjunction with Chicago research company Information Resources Inc. (IRI), has debuted a solution that aims to measure the effectiveness of online advertising campaigns in building sales of consumer packaged-goods brands in supermarkets, drug stores, mass merchants, convenience stores and other retail channels. The solution uses IRI’s Consumer Network household purchase panel to measure retail sales and comScore’s ability to understand which panelists were exposed to online advertising. The solution will be integrated into comScore’s AdEffx suite of products.
Separately, comScore has expanded its reporting on consumer Internet usage to include Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam. For more information visit www.comscore.com.
U.K. firms introduce Word of Mum panel
EasyInsites, a Surrey, U.K., research company, and Bounty, a U.K. online parenting club, have launched the Word of Mum 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 aims to include 30,000 consumers, representative of young families, from those in the first trimester of pregnancy through to those whose youngest child is age 4. Along with standard demographics, profiling will include time-sensitive data, such as the expected due date of pregnant women and the age of children in the household. At sign-up, panelists will confirm their willingness to participate in research via Webcam and mobile phone to include services such as EasyMobile, EasyVideo and EasyQual via Word of Mum. For more information visit www.easyinsites.com.
Index aims to rank WOM-recommended products and brands
Chicago marketing agency Zócalo Group and M/A/R/C Research, Irving, Texas, have launched the Recommendation Index, a tool intended to identify what products are being most recommended. The index measures both online and offline recommendations and takes into account how often people recommend individual brands, as well as how each brand compares with an overall category. In addition to providing an overall ranking of both positively- and negatively-recommended brands, it is also designed to create a score that marketers can use to compare against other brands in the same category. The first report generated from the index explores casual-dining restaurant recommendations. California Pizza Kitchen, Texas Roadhouse and Outback Steakhouse are the most-recommended casual-dining restaurants by U.S. consumers. For more information visit www.marcresearch.com.
Ipsos looks at gaming industry in 3-D
San Francisco research company Ipsos MediaCT has introduced a research practice focused on the needs of game developers, marketers and console manufacturers. The gaming practice is designed to provide life cycle support to gaming companies and focus on the three business dimensions of gamer understanding, game development and game marketing. The new tools to support the practice include market segmentation initiatives; co-creation tools with Ipsos InnoCreation; qualitative concept development using Ipsos GameStorm Ideation or GamerLink Workshops; concept screening, database development and volumetric forecasting; advertising research; loyalty and satisfaction programs; and ad hoc/custom approaches. For more information visit www.ipsosmediact.com.
New tool promises QuickVu of panelist insight
QualVu, a Golden, Colo., research company, has released QuickVu, a solution designed to provide access to Webcam-enabled panels for face-to-face qualitative insights. QuickVu clients must first select a Webcam-enabled panel, either creating their own private group or accessing one of QualVu’s. Then, clients can access their panel(s) remotely at any time with assignments for panel members, delivered online. Panel participants log in to view pre-recorded video questions and then use Webcams to record their insights. QuickVu clients can also view video responses online at any time during data collection. Clients receive a VideoReport with highlight reels within three days. For more information visit www.qualvu.com.
Geoscape to measure multicultural European markets
Geoscape, a Miami market intelligence company, has debuted a product to examine multicultural consumer behavior for mainstream European markets. The Geoscape Intelligence System (GIS) Europe is an online platform intended to aid in marketing, media, distribution and strategic planning. Highlights of the GIS Europe include: detailed geodemographic, retail and consumer data for 40+ European countries; target location and group profiles; market potential measurement from country level down to neighborhood level; color-coded maps displaying roads, land mass, terrain and satellite views; multidimensional database for detailed reports; ROI analytics; and worldwide access via standard Internet browsers. For more information visit www.geoscape.com.
IRI updates platform with digital media solutions
Chicago research company Information Resources Inc. (IRI) has expanded its consumer and shopper insights platforms with a series of digital media solutions that integrate IRI’s core consumer network (panel) purchase data, predictive modeling techniques and analytics with online research and advertising capabilities. The digital media solutions are designed to allow consumer packaged-goods, retail and health care companies to identify high-potential consumers online to target their digital media campaigns and evaluate the actual sales impact of those programs.
In a typical campaign scenario, IRI will work with customers to identify consumer and shopper segments by category/brand purchasing, retailer-specific shopping behavior, demographics and attitudes/behaviors. IRI partners and advertising agencies will then serve ads based on the customer’s media strategy and plan to reach these specific target segments. IRI will track consumer buying behavior through offline sales data using its panel and analyze the sales impact of households exposed to the ad versus those not exposed to deliver an ROI success metric calculated for the specific campaign. For more information visit http://us.infores.com.
Briefly
San Francisco research company Peanut Labs has launched a gamers sample, consisting of 194,000+ U.S. gamers who play console, PC, handheld and online games. Gamers are recruited through social media channels. For more information visit www.peanutlabs.com.
New York researcher Dynamic Logic has launched AdIndex Connects with IRI, a solution powered by Chicago research company Information Resources Inc. (IRI). The offering is part of DLConnects and is designed to answer questions surrounding campaign effectiveness. The solution is built on the foundation of Dynamic Logic’s AdIndex. For more information visit www.dynamiclogic.com.
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, research company Itracks, has released version 1.5 of Populis, the company’s market research online community (MROC) offering. The release includes functionality developed to increase member participation, a new reporting utility and a module designed to allow community managers to communicate with members via SMS. Itracks has also integrated its online qualitative, online quantitative and concept-testing tools with its MROC platform and added a points system that allows managers to track member activities. For more information visit www.itracks.com.
Medimix International, a Miami research company, has launched a platform for life-sciences companies to monitor online mentions of their brands and products in the social networking arena, dubbed Scanbuzz. Scanbuzz aims to discover, listen and manage feedback and develop relationships with social network users. Scanbuzz tracks the top-200 pharmaceutical products and 100 corporate brands in various therapeutic areas. The offering is available through a monthly subscription fee, based on the number of simultaneous users and the number of brands tracked. For more information visit www.medimix.net.
The Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth has released a study on the usage of social media in fast-growing corporations. The study revisits the Center’s study of Inc. 500 companies’ social media usage for the third consecutive year and compares adoption of social media from 2007-2009. Respondents are questioned about their familiarity with six social media tools and about their usage, level of success and intention to adopt the social media technologies they were not currently using. For more information visit www.umassd.edu.
London research company Experian has launched a German version of Experian Mosaic, the company’s panel profiling and segmentation tool. The German version identifies 10 main lifestyle groups in Germany and is intended to provide an understanding of Germany’s aging population, recent changes in household composition, the growth in ethnic diversity and the impact of the Internet on society. For more information visit www.smrb.com.
Dallas research company Toluna has released Toluna QuickSurveys in North America. QuickSurveys is an online self-service tool designed to enable organizations to create their own survey of up to five questions, launch it live to Toluna’s online panel of community consumer and business professionals and receive responses quickly. For more information visit www.toluna.com.
Rochester, N.Y., research company Harris Interactive has launched Advanced Strategy Lab (ASL) in Europe and Asia. ASL is a qualitative research technology that aims to provide simultaneous, anonymous input from up to 24 participants from any location. Using dedicated facilities, mobile and Web-based labs, ASL is intended to facilitate brainstorming, idea generation and solution development through networked computers in a moderated group setting. For more information visit www.harrisinteractive.com.
Research Panel Asia Inc., Tokyo, has added a voting feature to its online panel service in China. The feature includes a point incentive designed to maintain high activity rates. For more information visit www.researchpanelasia.com.
Mediamark Research and Intelligence has begun beta testing a syndicated product designed to improve the quality of magazine data for marketing mix modeling, which uses sales and marketing information to determine the impact of media allocation and promotional tactics on sales. The software is expected to hit the marketplace in the first quarter of 2010. For more information visit www.mediamark.com.
OTX, a Los Angeles research company, has released its Silverlight study, which showcases how OTX’s sample technology OTXCortex examines and routes users to a relevant range of surveys in its system while also noting what types of software programs users have installed on their computers. The study analyzes penetration of Microsoft’s Silverlight multimedia software. For more information visit www.otxresearch.com.