••• online research
Webtrends heats up
Heatmaps add-on assists with site analytics
Portland, Ore., research company Webtrends has released Webtrends Heatmaps, an offering designed to provide insight into online visitor interactions and site activity. Heatmaps aims to help interactive marketers test the effectiveness of buttons, links, menus, widget positions and site layouts; identify and monitor conversion effectiveness; improve content availability and accessibility; analyze user behavior to improve usability and information architecture; and present site activity trends to non-technical audiences.
Available as an add-on for Webtrends Analytics On Demand customers, Webtrends Heatmaps are integrated into the Analytics 10 platform, providing dashboard access to mobile site and Web site visualization overlays. Using architecture designed for scale, Webtrends Heatmaps are intended to analyze click data for brands of any size, without limitations on the number of domains or pages and can be deployed anywhere across sites and pages.
www.webtrends.com/heatmaps
••• data analysis
Getting a BrandEdge over the competition
Companies partner to offer cloud-based consumer analytics
Bangalore, India, IT consulting company Infosys; London communications group WPP; and Fabric, a WPP research technology company, have released Infosys BrandEdge, a cloud-based consumer analytics offering designed to help large-scale organizations simplify digital marketing measurement. BrandEdge offers integrated marketing and technology support on a single platform to address digital marketing activities, including creation and management of digital properties, data management, coordination with multiple partners and campaign execution.
The platform comprises four modules (build, listen, understand, engage) to allow marketers to build digital assets; listen to and understand target segments; and engage consumers across various digital channels.
Build: BrandEdge helps marketers create, manage and reuse digital properties and brings together internal and external stakeholders for collaboration, reducing costs and time-to-market.
Listen: The solution integrates owned and earned digital asset data with customer relationship management data and other third-party data sources to allow organizations to set measurement, privacy and security standards.
Understand: BrandEdge also provides intelligence to analyze consumer behavior across multiple digital channels. The reports enable marketers to improve targeting of existing consumers and the analytics help identify new segments.
Engage: Finally, BrandEdge helps marketers maintain homogeneity in communication across digital channels by providing a common gateway to a catalog of pre-integrated marketing tools to connect with consumers across digital channels.
www.infosys.com
••• ad research
Mapping the Genome
Yahoo! solution to measure and manage online ad campaigns
Yahoo!, Sunnyvale, Calif., has launched Genome, an online advertising solution that combines Yahoo! data; New York technology company interclick’s third-party data; advertisers’ first-party data; and a premium media footprint. Genome is the result of a display ad agreement with Microsoft and AOL, as well as Yahoo!’s December 2011 acquisition of interclick, to create an audience-buying solution with greater targeting and personalization capabilities.
Genome is designed to use data to improve advertiser ROI and provide marketers with actionable insights to overcome industry challenges, such as the proliferation of data, fragmentation of technology and outdated planning and buying techniques.
Key features include a data set that comprises Yahoo!’s proprietary registration, search and behavioral data, advertiser information and data from partners; a premium media footprint that allows marketers to access Yahoo!’s guaranteed and non-guaranteed premium inventory, as well as inventory available from the Yahoo!, AOL and Microsoft partnership; an insights and analytics suite that uses campaign and user analytics to anticipate, optimize and measure audience performance; audience technology designed to work with massive data volumes, real-time marketplaces and multi-vendor solutions; and privacy-enhancing tools, such as a global opt-out, Ad Interest Manager; and Do Not Track.
www.genomeplatform.com
••• audience research
Guaranteed results for mags
GfK risk management offering promises total-readership measurement
New York research company GfK MRI has launched its Audience Risk Manager system, a syndicated solution designed to allow magazine publishers to offer performance guarantees based on a publication’s total audience, total advertising audience or actions-taken audience. Audience Risk Manager aims to enable magazines to leapfrog over performance metrics offered by other media by guaranteeing on audiences further down the purchase funnel.
Audience Risk Manager is a Web-based system that uses historical GfK MRI magazine data to generate metrics showing the probability that a given advertising schedule will achieve a given audience level. It allows buyers and sellers to use historical performance data of magazine titles, magazine genres or advertised brands as the reference point when building a custom guarantee, such as guaranteeing how many people will read given issues of a magazine; guaranteeing how many people will recall a specific ad appearing in given issues of a magazine; and guaranteeing how many people will take an action as the result of seeing a specific ad in given issues of a magazine.
www.gfkmri.com
••• ad research
Express delivery
Phoenix debuts 24-hour insurance ad testing service
Phoenix Marketing International, a Rhinebeck, N.Y., research company, has made available its AdPi (Advertising Performance Indicator) Express scorecard, a tool for insurance companies to measure the effectiveness of print and television advertisements.
AdPi Express works with a national sample of at least 200 qualified purchasers to test four finished television/print ads from client insurance companies or their competitors. The results are available within 24 hours and are designed to include quantitative and qualitative insights on several attributes, including effectiveness of the message; degrees of cognitive and emotional connection; brand portrayal and recall; and likelihood of the consumer to take action.
www.phoenixmi.com
••• ad research
Target for TV
Ace Metrix enhances its ad effectiveness platform
Ace Metrix, a Mountain View, Calif., television analytics company, has debuted Ace Metrix Target, an addition to its analytics platform that is intended to allow advertisers to identify specific key audiences and access creative ad performance data for their ads and their competitors.
Ace Metrix’s approach features a method for systematically scoring every nationally-breaking TV ad, as well as a mechanism for delivering results to advertisers within hours of an ad’s debut.
Ace Metrix Target is designed to allow marketers to measure ad effectiveness using the largest targeted sample sizes based on specific demographic, ethnographic or psychographic criteria; view comparable ad results against the competitive landscape; access and assess results within hours of scoring; and compare and contrast targeted ad results for the same ad scored by general population.
www.acemetrix.com
••• text analytics
Measuring the margins
Companies partner to take text analytics to niche sites
Reston, Va., research software company Clarabridge Inc. and New Brunswick, N.J., research company Connotate Inc. have partnered to combine Clarabridge’s text and sentiment analytics with Connotate’s online data to allow financial services, pharmaceutical and market research professionals to collect customer feedback data from niche online platforms. The partnership is designed to help manage and measure unstructured data, such as online customer reviews and social media feedback. The partnership aims to improve cross-departmental collaboration and enterprise-wide voice of the customer initiatives.
www.connotate.com
••• research services
Need assistance? Use the LifeLine!
Polaris service aims to make research more affordable, accessible
Polaris Marketing Research Inc., Atlanta, has launched Research LifeLine, a Web-based service designed to provide marketing research assistance to businesses of all sizes. Research LifeLine offers three basic services:
1. A help center featuring white papers, questionnaire samples, calculators, Webinars and video tutorials to answer questions about marketing research. Most resources are available at no cost.
2. Simple answers to simple questions. Many questions about marketing research are relatively simple to answer and Research LifeLine’s experts can answer them quickly and easily. These answers are provided at no cost.
3. Professional marketing research backup. Research LifeLine’s staff of marketing research professionals will take over any part of any project for an hourly rate.
www.researchlifeline.com
••• qualitative research
Online meets mobile?
House of Marketing Research integrates online focus groups with mobile devices
House of Marketing Research, Pasadena, Calif., has updated its online focus group offering to provide access to participants from both computers and mobile devices. Computer users can access forums via a Web-based system that works within all newer browsers and on any type of computer, without installing additional software. Focus group moderators can engage with participants in groups or individually and participants can post responses at their leisure, including video, chat, images, audio or Web links.
Participants can also get involved in research sessions using mobile devices with text capabilities. Through two-way SMS integration, researchers can send notifications or questions to participants who can text back their responses. IPhone users can share images and videos via the iPhone library or on the fly.
Moderators can conduct discussions in group, individual or blinded/masked modes to reduce group bias and can segment participants into subgroups as desired. The system provides user activity reports and transcripts available in text, Microsoft Word or Microsoft Excel.
www.hmr-research.com
••• mobile research
Revamping Mobile Metrix
ComScore updates browser and app audience insights across smartphones
Reston, Va., research company comScore Inc. has launched Mobile Metrix 2.0, the latest version of its mobile behavioral measurement service. Mobile Metrix 2.0 brings comScore’s Unified Digital Measurement to smartphone devices, combining passive on-device measurement with census-level data to provide a view into actual U.S. mobile media usage across apps and mobile browsing.
Mobile Metrix 2.0 is designed to enable reporting of unduplicated audience sizes across app and browser usage. Mobile Metrix 2.0 also allows segmentation of consumer activity across iOS, Android and RIM platforms.
www.comscore.com/mobilemetrix
••• social media research
Preventive brand maintenance
Updated tool examines how brands are reflected in social media
Evolve24, a Maritz Research Company, St. Louis, has introduced Mirror 2.0 to help businesses use social media intelligence to gain insights, problem-solve and anticipate risk. Mirror 2.0 uses emotional index scores to prioritize social media data and surface unseen risks and future trends in the data. This allows companies to identify issues related to reputation, consumer opinion, brand and public perception.
Mirror 2.0 includes an interactive dashboard; social and traditional media from around the world, available in over 30 languages; proprietary emotional drivers, such as trustworthiness, dread and uncertainty; algorithms for mining and indexing the social media landscape; Discover 24, a search designed to provide related material for context; and the ability to incorporate offline research methodologies. In addition, evolve24’s research analysts recommend steps that brand managers, reputation stewards and corporate officers can take to respond to customer perceptions.
www.maritzresearch.com/mirror-2.0
••• panel research
Automotive access
SSI debuts platform analyzing the global car market
Shelton, Conn., research company SSI has introduced SSI Automotive, a panel designed to provide market researchers targeted access to car owners and buyers across the world’s largest car markets, including the U.S., China, Germany, Japan, Korea, Brazil and China. Researchers can identify and recruit customized audience segments or choose from 10 standard selection options. In addition to sampling and data collection, SSI Automotive also provides programming and hosting, survey translations, data processing and appending, weighting, coding and tabulations.
www.surveysampling.com
••• reporting software
A more mobile-friendly Beacon
Deciper adds mobile reporting to survey software suite
Fresno, Calif., research company Decipher Inc. has added a mobile field reporting function to Beacon, its market research platform. The mobile field reporting tool aims to offer nearly all the functionality of Beacon’s standard field report module, including screens for completions, campaigns, terminates, drop-outs and quotas. Users can apply sorting and filter options to project lists for fast access and can e-mail field reports to clients or partners for on-the-go updates directly within the new tool.
www.decipherinc.com
••• Briefly
Focus Pointe Global, a Philadelphia research company, has developed a Web-assisted recruiting software program for focus groups. With improved data collection and virtual interface capabilities, the program is designed to allow for automated online screening and access to a marketing research online community.
www.focuspointeglobal.com
Radius Global Market Research, New York, has added Menu-Based Choice Modeling to its suite of quantitative approaches for building custom research solutions for marketers. Menu-Based Choice Modeling is designed to offer a purchase simulation in cases where customers select a group or bundle of products or services from a menu of options.
www.radius-global.com
Encino, Calif., research company uSamp has announced the next generation of SampleMarket, its self-serve panel access platform. The latest version features the ability to purchase respondents from around the world and pay for those respondents in their home currency.
www.usamp.com
Aubertin Publishing Ltd., a London research and consultancy company, has launched Post MR report, a site designed for small market research companies to list their research on a dedicated site. Users can 1) list the report (free); 2) list the report and have it featured ($25); or 3) list the report and have it featured and hosted on Post MR Report’s server for immediate purchase ($55).
www.postmrreport.com
Accelerant Research, Charlotte, N.C., has released BlogNog 3.0, the latest version of its online qualitative research platform. Improvements are designed to allow moderators to place all types of questions anywhere within the study, providing public and private probing capabilities and control over when participants can see subsequent questions. Accelerant will continue to offer BlogNog free of charge to students and faculty for academic-related purposes.
http://blognog.com
New York data solutions company SocialGuide has launched its Spanish-language Social TV tracking via the SocialGuide Intelligence (SGI) platform. SGI is designed to analyze the social activity for networks, programs and individual episodes to identify social trends and discover new opportunities for clients to engage with the social audience for linear TV. New York broadcasting company Univision is its first partner.
http://sgi.socialguide.com
Informa Research Services Inc., Calabasas, Calif., has released its Informagic Mortgage Plus (IM+) module, designed for retail mortgage originators to monitor competitor pricing for any loan scenario daily. The IM+ tool provides rates, points, APR, fees and loan-level pricing adjustments, in addition to mass data-export capabilities.
www.informars.com
Columbia, Md., research company Arbitron Inc. has added tablet measurement to its UK Arbitron Mobile Trends Panels service.
www.arbitron.com
Reston, Va., research company comScore Inc. has launched its validated Campaign Essentials measurement solution in Spain.
www.comscore.com
D3 Systems, a Vienna, Va., research company, and the Afghan Center for Socio-economic and Opinion Research have released the third wave of Afghan Futures, an ongoing national survey of public attitudes in Afghanistan, with analysis by Langer Research Associates, New York.
www.d3systems.com
Catalyst Healthcare Research, Nashville, Tenn., has released What’s Reasonable? Patient and Clinician Perspectives in Provision of Service, a national study based on feedback from 400 Baby Boomers and a group of patient experience professionals.
www.catalysthealthcareresearch.com/whatsreasonable-publicstudy
The Natural Marketing Institute, a Harleysville, Pa., research company, has released Strategic Trends and Insights in Health and Wellness. The study addresses healthy lifestyle behavior from the consumer’s point of view.
www.nmisolutions.com
Surrey, U.K., research company EasyInsites and Mom365, the U.S. sister company of U.K. parenting club Bounty Ltd., have launched the Mom365 panel, which will comprise approximately 40,000 expectant and new moms. The panel will be available via Cint Access from Stockholm, Sweden, research company Cint.
www.mom365.com
Stockholm, Sweden, research company NORM has launched a subgroup of expectant mothers as part of its TalkToParents.se research panel. At least 4,000 pregnant Swedish women are committed to joining the panel evenly over the next year. The panel also includes a monthly omnibus that targets 300 pregnant Swedish women, half of whom will be expecting their first child.
www.norm.se/family
New York research company WorldOne’s panel of medical professionals in Japan has exceeded 100,000 members.
www.worldone.com
London research company YouGov has launched Citibus, a specialist omnibus service that aims to reach nationally-representative and specialist samples in major cities in the U.S. and internationally.
www.yougov.co.uk
The CASRO Institute for Research Quality, Port Jefferson, N.Y., has awarded Cincinnati research company Burke Inc. the ISO 20252 certification for quality. ISO 20252 establishes quality standards for market, opinion and social research organizations.
www.cirq.org
Perception Research Services International, Fort Lee, N.J., celebrated its 40th anniversary in April.
www.prsresearch.com