••• trends research
New book looks ahead to a digital future
‘What happens when everything is digital?’
The Consumer Electronics Association, Arlington, Va., has released its third book, Digital Destiny: How the New Age of Data Will Transform the Way We Work, Live and Communicate. In it, author Shawn DuBravac, CEA’s chief economist, explains why the world’s mass adoption of digital technologies portends the beginning of a new era for humanity, one that will rival the invention of the printing press for its transformational effects on every person, country and institution in the world.
“Most consumers perceive the digital age as simply the accumulation of sleeker and more powerful gadgets,” said DuBravac in a press statement. “My aim is to answer the question, ‘What happens when everything is digital?’ I hope to broaden readers’ views to include an understanding that in the not-so-distant future mankind will have thoroughly replaced analog for digital in every corner of our lives, and as a result everything from business to health care to travel and down to the foundation of culture itself is changed.”
••• ad research
Google adds DoubleClick tool
Watched or skipped over?
Google, San Francisco, has a new tool to report if a video ad delivered via DoubleClick ad services has been watched or skipped over. The viewability measurement is available to all marketers and publishers using the DoubleClick platform or the DoubleClick Ad Exchange. Google is utilizing the industry standard for video viewability of 50 percent of the video being on screen for two seconds or longer. The viewability reporting will soon expand to reserved inventory on YouTube and all of Google Preferred, across desktop and app views.
••• television research
Canvs tracks Twitter’s response to TV shows
Traces shifts in emotion
New York advertising firm Mashwork has launched Canvs, a social TV analytics tool which analyzes Twitter postings about a TV show. Using a keyword and phrase database, Canvs searches for emotional reactions and sorts them into categories such as “terrible,” “love,” “beautiful,” “clueless,” etc. The summaries follow the timeline of the TV show, allowing analysts to trace shifts in emotion according to moments in the broadcast. The Canvs audience insights tab also provides ethnic, income, location, gender and age demographics. Mashwork is marketing its product entirely on the TV market, charging on a per-series rather than per-month basis.
••• neuromarketing
HCD Research brings neuro MR to China
Aimed at CPG firms
HCD Research, Flemington, N.J., has launched its integrated Chinese-based cognitive and applied neuroscience market research services. The company is focusing on applications for CPG companies studying packaging, fragrance and flavor and other sensory research as well as testing communications including print, broadcast and online. HCD Research uses mobile neuroscience laboratories which can be used throughout the country and can collect data at malls, corporate facilities and market research/focus group facilities.
••• ad research
Segmentation targets Japanese consumers
Product of Nielsen/INTAGE joint venture
New York researcher Nielsen and Japanese research firm INTAGE have formed a joint venture company, Nielsen-INTAGE DigitalMetrics, to develop cross-platform advertising effectiveness solutions. The new firm will utilize the Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings platform along with INTAGE’s i-ssp consumer panel data to enable clients in Japan to analyze consumers by several segments such as brand ownership, purchase intent, lifestyle, residential area, age and gender, in addition to analyzing the impact of online advertising on purchase behavior and brand switching.
••• media research
ComScore adds video measurement service
Tablet, OTT, smartphone
ComScore Inc., Reston, Va., announced the U.S. launch of Video Metrix Multi-Platform, which will provide unduplicated desktop, smartphone, tablet and over-the-top (OTT) video audience measurement for content owners, agencies and advertisers. This evolution of Video Metrix is designed to enable clients to sell, plan and buy digital video – at the video media property and show level – using TV-comparable metrics for both video content and advertising. Video Metrix Multi-Platform uses the methodology and inputs from Media Metrix Multi-Platform, Mobile Metrix and Video Metrix to deliver a single, unduplicated metric for digital video audiences across all platforms for those who participate in measurement. Video Metrix Multi-Platform is part of comScore’s Total Video Initiative, which will ultimately account for all video viewing behavior across screens.
••• Briefly
The Media Rating Council, New York, has granted Meetrics accreditation for its Viewable Ad Impression measurement in its Ad Attention Monitor product, for both display and video ads.
Rentrak, a Portland, Ore., research company, was granted a patent for its software which detects and corrects TV viewership levels affected by missing or dropped set-top box information.
BrainJuicer Group PLC has launched the Global FeelMore50, a global ranking of world advertising, and has named “Oh Emma,” made by Leo Burnett Paris for Le Trefle, a French bathroom tissue, as the top ad of 2014. Separately, the firm celebrated its 15th anniversary in January.
Map publisher SpatialTEQ Inc., Lowell, Mass., has released MapBusinessOnline.com 4.4 business mapping software for sales, marketing and territory planning professionals in the U.S., Canada and the U.K. With MapBusinessOnline.com 4.4 MBO users can overlay vector layers of cities and roads on top of sales territory maps, demographic maps or business planning maps. In addition, 4.4 provides a series of enhanced account management tools controlling the setup of map editing teams and groups of annual subscribers interested in sharing map-editing capabilities.
Salt Lake City researcher MaritzCX has been granted a patent by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for the technology underlying its Spotlight data mining tool.
Chicago research firm Technomic has launched Consumer4Sight, a suite of tools which tailor survey design methodology, sensory testing and qualitative research for the food-service industry. It can examine taste preferences, attitudes, cravings, loyalty and other consumer influences.
Millward Brown Digital, New York, is partnering with Snapchat, Venice, Calif., to provide analysis of advertising campaigns on the Snapchat social media site. Snapchat has released two advertising formats, the “Brand Story” and the “Our Stories.” Millward Brown Digital measured the first six advertising campaigns, using a behaviorally-representative group of users who were surveyed with an online panel before and after the campaigns were launched.
TranslationCloud, New York, creator of the ConveyThis Web site and TranslateThis plugin, has released an updated version of each, with almost 15 additional languages included. Both platforms now offer 90 different languages, with Burmese, Sinhala, Kazakh, Chichewa and Uzbek added with this update.
42 market research, a Dubai health care specialist, has expanded its panel coverage to include Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines.
Twitter, San Francisco, has added mobile analytics to its iOS app, available through the detail page of any tweet. The analytics include information on impressions, engagement, the percentage of readers who favorited the tweet and the number visiting your profile through the tweet. Information on an Android version was not released.
Facebook has begun a soft launch of its long-rumored Facebook at Work product. The work-oriented version of Facebook provides messaging, groups, event planning and a work profile which can be kept apart from users’ personal profiles. Free iOS and Android apps, simply called Work, are now available. Employers cannot access the product for their company, although they can request information via the Facebook Web site. Currently only specific companies have been invited to try the product, which is aimed at companies with 100 or more employees.
Google Translate has been updated in both its Android and iOS apps to include real-time voice and sign translation. The voice translation can be used between two people conversing in two languages, with each person talking in his own language and the app delivering text-based translations of each side in real time. The visual translation is activated when the user points the camera inside the app at a road sign, storefront, etc. The app then translates the writing on the sign into the desired language. Currently the instant translation only works for English to and from French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.
App Annie, London, has launched Usage Intelligence, a product providing app usage metrics, including active users, time spent, usage frequency and retention.
BirdEye, a Sunnyvale, Calif., firm specializing in online reputation management, has expanded its platform to include an enterprise analytics component. The tool uses natural language processing and machine learning to pull insights from customer feedback and also provides a dashboard offering reputation heat maps for locations or products.
New York research firm Ipsos Innoquest has modified its concept testing procedures to allow surveys to be completed on a computer, smartphone or tablet and to utilize swipe technology. Its research found that consumers spent over 50 percent more time reading concepts in the new format than in the traditional one.
London-based researcher Tonic Insight has released Tonic Express, a qualitative research platform that utilizes automated sampling and a template research design to reduce both time and cost.
Reston, Va., researcher comScore has introduced Video Metrix Multi-Platform, designed to provide a single measure of video viewing across platforms, including desktop, smartphone and tablet. As part of the company’s Total Video Initiative, it will provide clients with TV-comparable metrics for video content and advertising.
Lightspeed GMI, a Warren, N.J., research firm, has expanded its online respondent validation tool, Honesty Detector, to 27 markets across the Americans, EMEA and Asia Pacific. The product analyzes respondents’ answers to identify dishonest panelists and is used both at the panel level and the study level.
Point of Purchase Advertising International, Chicago, will launch the Journal of Shopper Research, previously known as the Journal of Marketing at Retail, in early 2015. The Journal of Shopper Research is a double-blind peer-reviewed journal, designed to stimulate and encourage research on marketing at retail and shopper marketing. Special themed issues are planned on benchmarking the shopping experience, omnichannel retailing and shopper analytics.
www.journalofshopperresearch.com
Summit, an online retail specialist in Hull, U.K., has launched a predictive analytics platform, Forecaster, developed by a team of statisticians led by David Wooff of Durham University. A feature of Forecaster is the wide scope of data and buying triggers considered, including weather, location, transaction history, available stock and television.
Innubu has updated its software platform for creating surveys which are engaging and easily shareable via e-mail or any social network. The tool includes analytic and segmentation tools. Creating and sharing a survey through the Innubu tool is free, with an unlimited number of responses and the option of an incentive sweepstakes.
Millward Brown and ZappiStore have launched LinkNow for TV, which allows brands to quickly assess the effectiveness of TV ads. LinkNow is designed to predict how well an ad will perform and allows companies to evaluate individual ads or to compare and choose between different options.