••• data analysis
Big data for the little people
Self-service platform to make big data more accessible
Data analysis companies Kognitio, New York, and NeutrinoBI, Birmingham, U.K., have partnered to release a solution designed to allow business end-users to engage in data discovery using natural language, powered by the in-memory Kognitio Analytical Platform. In addition, the companies will implement a complete business intelligence infrastructure, making it available on a self-service basis through Kognitio Cloud, implemented via Amazon Web Services.
The Kognitio-NeutrinoBI partnership is intended to democratize big data capabilities, allowing small and midsized firms, which have wanted the ability to perform in-depth business analytics on their data like those conducted by much larger companies, to accomplish these tasks with less time, money and technical experience.
NeutrinoBI enables users to perform Internet-like searches on structured data, using queries based on natural language. In addition to this freeform search capability, NeutrinoBI also aims to allow users to explore data associations and uncover information as needed. With the ability to create dynamic dashboards in minutes, these self-service insights can be shared to support day-to-day decision-making across teams and organizations.
www.kognitio.com
••• diy research
Taking control
Beta tool helps owners manage Web site research
Usability Sciences, an Irving, Texas, research company, has released Warp, a market research application designed to allow Web site owners or researchers manage the sampling, targeting and intercepting of site visitors. Warp also allows users to build opt-in dialogs or floating feedback buttons, as well as show the survey or tool directly to visitors on behaviorally-targeted pages.
Warp supports many tools and has partnered with DIY vendors SurveyMonkey, SurveyGizmo, ClickTale, 123ContactForm and Wufoo to facilitate running surveys. Additionally, users can incorporate any existing survey or research tool that can be distributed by a URL with Warp. Warp is currently in live beta and open to the public.
www.warpresearch.com
••• data visualization
Visual verbatim
Ascribe adds several features to analytics platform
Cincinnati research company Ascribe has released Ascribe Intelligence Version 7.0, the latest edition of its verbatim analytics platform. The platform upgrade aims to offer improved navigation and additional features for reporting, crosstab functionality and graphical display.
The primary focus of Version 7.0 is the introduction of Ascribe Illustrator, a data visualization tool. Initially, Illustrator will be accessible by users of Ascribe Inspector but the firm plans to offer the product for Ascribe Coder in the coming months. Ascribe Inspector uses text analytics (or natural language processing) to enable users to explore comments to detect themes and concepts and sentiment. With it, companies can automatically categorize any textual data using automation and human expertise.
The update also includes several Ascribe pages that have been ported from the old ASP technology to the new ASPX technology. These changes aim to allow for more flexibility in technology for the future. Core functionality works as it did previously with some styling changes to areas such as property dialogs for appearance impact only.
www.goascribe.com
••• online research
One free, one fast
Crowdsourcing and Webcam tools aim to make research faster, more affordable
Seattle research company AnswerTap has released MagicMarkup, a DIY feedback-gathering tool intended to let agencies and researchers get free consumer feedback on their visuals, including marketing collateral, logo designs and proposed ads, through project automation.
To begin using MagicMarkup, a company must upload an image. MagicMarkup will then recruit from the company’s existing fan bases on Twitter and Facebook, ensure that they’re in the proper target market and solicit their feedback. Then, fans directly mark up the image, crossing out things they don’t like, circling things that should be bigger and writing comments to the company. MagicMarkup aggregates all feedback into a comment heat map that visually displays what is and is not connecting with the audience, all free of charge.
In addition, for a fee, companies looking to expand their market research beyond their social media fan bases can also tap into AnswerTap’s community of over nine million respondents, made available through a partnership between AnswerTap and Encino, Calif., research company uSamp.
AnswerTap has also debuted its Consumer Webcam Interview Service (CWIS), an online, face-to-face interview service. The offering is designed to allow marketers and researchers to participate in real-time Webcam interviews with targeted respondents from AnswerTap’s pool of respondents. Users must define their desired demographics and a respondent matching the specified criteria will appear within minutes. Both MagicMarkup and CWIS are in a public beta.
www.answertap.com
••• mobile research
Heat m‘app’s
App uses heat mapping technology to optimize apps
Warsaw, Poland, software company Heatma.ps has debuted a touch-based analytics service for iOS designed to show every possible interaction mobile users have with a particular device. The service aims to reveal hidden issues with an app’s user experience that developers would otherwise not know about.
Some of the discoveries include where people touch first, what functions are never used, what gestures people make, scrolling depth, device orientation and interface layout problems.
Heatma.ps can be installed on any iOS device. As users interact with the device during app usage, the data is sent to a data center where it’s aggregated and converted into formats such as heat maps and gesture and device statistics, which are viewable inside of the app itself. Additionally, this data is translated into custom PDF reports.
https://heatma.ps
••• new product research
Framework for success
Ipsos details nine drivers to maximize innovation marketplace performance
New York research company Ipsos InnoQuest has developed an Innovation Performance Framework that identifies nine drivers critical to innovation success. The Innovation Performance Framework aims to serve as a guide for marketers to use to focus on and control the factors most likely to impact the success of their innovations.
An analysis of Ipsos’ Designor database revealed that only 35 percent of innovations achieve a winning trial level in their first year. From there, Ipsos researchers took a more in-depth look at what makes for truly successful innovation, taking into account consumer perceptions, marketing realities and the impact of real-world competition.
The Innovation Potential Framework was specifically designed to help clients understand their drivers of innovation success and use them to their advantage and is built on three pillars: consumer demand, market and execution and marketing force.
www.ipsos-na.com
••• data analysis
Analytics go Universal
More comprehensive data collection and analysis with Google
Google, Mountain View, Calif., has debuted Universal Analytics, a set of features designed to improve the way data is collected and organized in a user’s Google Analytics account. With Universal Analytics, users can use the Measurement Protocol to integrate data across multiple devices and platforms; improve lead generation by syncing offline and online data; design custom dimensions and custom metrics to collect data that Google Analytics doesn’t automatically track; and understand how well mobile apps perform.
Universal Analytics is currently available for a limited number of beta users.
www.google.com/analytics
••• ad research
Live|Test before going live
Digital ad testing solution aims to simulate in-market performance
New York research company Ipsos ASI has debuted Live|Test, a solution designed by the company’s digital advertising research team to help marketers test digital ads in a real-world situation prior to executing a broad media buy.
The ultimate goal of Live|Test is to determine which creative is working the hardest to achieve a brand’s objectives; how marketers and advertisers can optimize creative before a launch; and how creative should perform across top Web sites.
Live|Test is designed to use the technology advances inherent in the online medium to ensure consumers are exposed to a brand’s content during natural navigation and within a real context. Combining behavioral Web analytics with survey data, Live|Test is intended to provide a holistic measure of real brand effects and media effects.
www.ipsos.com/asi
••• brand research
Meta4 for smartphones
Researchers partner to bring metaphor elicitation to mobile
Boston research company Protobrand and Research Now, Plano, Texas, have collaborated to release a smartphone version of Meta4 Insight, Protobrand’s online metaphor elicitation tool for brand research. Meta4 Mobile was created by transferring Protobrand’s proprietary tool onto the Research Now Mobile platform to put Protobrand’s methodology into the field along a shopper’s journey.
Metaphor elicitation is a technique for tapping into consumers’ deep-seated perceptions and goals. Ensuring data saturation, Meta4 conducts this technique in an online setting, using a proprietary image database to encourage non-literal thinking and reveal a respondent’s unconscious mind.
www.protobrand.com
••• data analysis
A more seamless MarketSight
Confirmit and Kinesis users benefit with DataSync
Cambridge, Mass., research company MarketSight LLC has released MarketSight 9.2, the latest version of the company’s crosstabulation software. MarketSight 9.2 features DataSync, a new capability designed to connect MarketSight directly to a client’s survey tool and automatically update charts and dashboards with new survey data. In this release, MarketSight supports platforms from research companies Confirmit, Oslo, Norway, and Kinesis Survey Technologies LLC, Austin, Texas, with more survey platforms to be released on a rolling basis with every major product release.
Additional enhancements include the ability to export multiple charts per slide to PowerPoint and enhanced support for non-Latin characters. MarketSight’s Key Findings users will also have a clearer indication when an export is complete by viewing a new progress bar whenever they export crosstabs, charts, dashboards and other data from Key Findings.
www.marketsight.com
••• online research
Become a BrainSleuth
Research companies partner to probe for respondents’ thoughts
Leominster, Mass., research software company Jibunu has partnered with Brookfield, Conn., research company Qintuit to release BrainSleuth, a survey tool designed to build on social science research to measure respondents’ implicit attitudes through reaction time-based measures, including use of the implicit association test. Through the use of Jibunu’s survey methodology, users can uncover what respondents are thinking and then incorporate these response-time methodologies into any online research study.
Jibunu has also released an enhanced suite of capabilities for mobile device survey research, including the ability to text survey invitations, reminders and diary prompts directly to respondents.
www.jibunu.com
••• Briefly
Wabash, Ind., research company 3rd Screen Insights has launched a full-service mobile survey system. 3rd Screen Insights mobile survey features emotional response modeling, through association with Gainesville, Fla., research company AdSAM. The system can also be used as a sales promotional device by offering specialized coupons with custom responses for each individual, dependent on their responses.
www.adsam.com
London research company Dub has introduced a keyword search feature for IdeaStream, its research communities platform. The keyword search is designed to allow clients to search community participants’ responses and blog posts, as well as moderator probes and comments left by other members of the community. Searches include posts and responses, post titles, tags, comments and probes and open-ended survey question responses.
www.dubstudios.com
Cincinnati research company ThinkVine and Bangalore, India, IT company Wipro Technologies have partnered to provide consumer goods companies a package of solutions and services intended to improve forecasting of marketing spends, tactics and timing across consumer groups, products, channels and geographies.
ThinkVine’s marketing-mix modeling solution aims to connect predictive analytics and data with behavioral insights to allow organizations to better understand and predict where and how their consumers respond to marketing across multiple marketing touchpoints and purchase products.
www.thinkvine.com
San Mateo, Calif., Pinterest analytics solution company Pinfluencer has integrated with Web analytics systems such as Adobe Omniture, Coremetrics and Google Analytics to help marketers discover which pins drive revenue and clicks and measure true social ROI. Pinfluencer’s Pin-to-Purchase tracker treats pins as hyperlinks and tracks actions throughout the entire sales funnel via these comprehensive third-party integrations.
www.pinfluencer.com
Reston, Va., research company comScore Inc. has debuted Brand Survey Lift Pulse (BSL Pulse), a campaign branding effectiveness product for measuring the breakthrough and impact of campaigns in real time. BSL Pulse is designed to enable agencies, publishers and brands to optimize campaigns in-flight. BSL Pulse includes up to five questions and offers survey setup and in-flight optimization with a single tag (employed throughout the AdEffx suite) in a single study through a single partner.
www.comscore.com
Vancouver, B.C., research company Vision Critical has released The Quick and the Dead, an e-book by Ray Poynter that addresses the changing nature of speed in society and how this change has placed increased pressure on market research professionals to make faster business decisions based on readily-accessible consumer insights. The e-book is available for download at www.visioncritical.com/quickandthedead.
Harpeth Marketing, a Franklin, Tenn., marketing firm serving the market research industry, has launched its Lead Nurturing Program. Lead nurturing is the ongoing process of building relationships with prospective buyers who are not quite ready to buy, with the goal of earning their business when they are ready. The Lead Nurturing Program is driven by a dedicated program specialist who manages a variety of activities for their clients, including phone calls to targeted contacts, e-mail campaigns, posting on the client’s social media sites and monthly reporting.
www.leadnurturingprogram.com
Portland, Ore., research company Revelation Global has added three languages – Polish, Dutch and Swedish – to its Revelation Project platform.
www.revelationglobal.com
Tokyo research company AIP Corporation has launched AIP Asia Omnibus Online, a tool created to ask a limited number of questions across many Asian markets. AIP Asia Omnibus Online is designed to provide access to 1,000 respondents per country in up to 12 Asian countries.
www.aip-global.com
St. Petersburg, Fla., research company HealthFocus International has launched a study to explore how to make a processed food or beverage more natural and in which food and beverage categories natural is most important. Study sponsors can enter their brands for proprietary evaluations to determine how natural shoppers perceive their brands to be and how to improve them.
www.healthfocus.com
Chicago research company Mintel has launched a consumer research report series examining the Brazilian consumer market landscape. The reports, published in English and Portuguese, have been developed by Mintel’s analysts in São Paulo, Brazil.
www.mintel.com
Scarborough Research, New York, has expanded into Puerto Rico with a new insights service. Dubbed Scarborough Puerto Rico, the service will include attitudinal data, as well as an array of consumer behavior-based measures.
www.scarborough.com
Market Analyst, a Falls Church, Va., distributor of market research reports and business information, has begun offering market research reports in an e-book format from its Web store at www.marketanalyst.net.
The CASRO Institute for Research Quality division of the Council of American Survey Research Organizations, Port Jefferson, N.Y., has awarded certification to Philadelphia research company National Analysts Worldwide for compliance to the ISO 20252 standard for market, opinion and social research. Processes outlined in ISO 20252 are designed to produce transparent, consistent, well-documented and error-free methods of conducting and managing research projects.
www.casro.org
Thoroughbred Research Group, Louisville, Ky., has been conditionally approved by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA), Washington, D.C., as a HEDIS Medicare Health Outcomes Survey (HOS) certified survey vendor. Upon execution of a certification agreement with NCQA and successful completion of survey vendor training in February, Thoroughbred Research Group will be fully certified as a NCQA HEDIS Medicare HOS Vendor. The company is initially certified for a maximum of 100 surveys.
www.torinc.net
Manchester, U.K., research company AdInsight has rebranded as ResponseTap. The company is online at www.responsetap.com.