••• mobile research
Smartphones equipped for qual
Research app takes bulletin board focus groups to mobile devices
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, research company itracks has launched itracks Mobile, an app for conducting qualitative research. Building on the addition of video response and reporting capabilities to the discussion board software in July, itracks’ latest offering is a fully-integrated mobile app allowing researchers to conduct research in the field and capture respondent insights in-the-moment.
The app features capabilities such as the ability to post text, video or dictated responses to discussions; mobile notifications that link to the application; customizable interfaces; and private client and moderator communication. Even without Internet connectivity, users can review responses and reply offline. Reply posts are automatically uploaded to the discussion board once users reconnect online.
Itracks Mobile is accessible by over 90 percent of smartphone users on both iPhone and Android devices and is available for download free from the respective app stores.
www.itracks.com
••• hybrid research
Omnibus goes qual
Toluna and iModerate partner for qualitative take on omnibus research
Wilton, Conn., research company Toluna has debuted the Quali MultiMind Omnibus, which combines Toluna omnibus data with professionally-moderated, real-time respondent conversations, powered by Denver research company iModerate.
Companies can ask as many as 30 questions of up to 5,000 U.S. respondents. In addition to quantitative data, clients receive qualitative feedback from 10 or more individuals, generated by conversations led by a professional moderator. Transcripts of each interview supplement data tables and are available within three days. Toluna’s Quali MultiMind Omnibus uses SmartSelect, Toluna’s methodology for ensuring sample representativeness and data accuracy.
www.toluna.com
••• eye-tracking research
A more effortless eye tracking
SMI updates tools with gazes on-the-go and a gaze-mapping algorithm
Berlin, Germany, research company SensoMotoric Instruments (SMI) has launched SMI RED-m, a portable, high-performance remote eye-tracking device. At a size of 24cm x 2.5cm x 3.3cm and weighing 130 grams, it can be used with desktop, laptop and tablet PCs. The plug-and-play design aims to enable researchers to study visual perception wherever participants are.
SMI RED-m is intended to facilitate market research studies at public sites, research in clinical environments, test interactive learning technologies at educational institutes or conduct in-home research. The device runs via a single USB port of a desktop, laptop or tablet computer and needs no additional power supply. The system can be combined with SMI Experiment Suite 360° software for experimental design and analysis.
Additionally, SMI has introduced its Semantic Gaze Mapping, a patent-pending technology for analyzing visual data gathered from real-world studies using SMI Eye Tracking Glasses. Semantic Gaze Mapping is intended to provide consolidated eye-tracking data taken from multiple participants, making visualizing and quantifying data from mobile device screens, supermarket shelves, cockpits or various objects simpler.
The SMI Semantic Gaze Mapping technology is built on SMI’s fixation detection algorithm, which takes into consideration smooth pursuit and vestibulo-ocular reflex eye movements. As a result, Semantic Gaze Mapping aims to reduce the data analysis effort by a factor of 10-to-50x, compared to conventional frame-by-frame video-coding methods.
www.smivision.com
••• ad research
Scanning the creative
Ad agency uses eye tracking and focus groups to optimize campaigns
Clash Group, a New York advertising agency, has launched a market research initiative to track the eye movements of digital ad respondents and to research which ads garner the most response from differing demographic groups. The service is designed to enable advertisers to optimize their creative by identifying which color scheme, positioning and placement works best for acquiring positive responses to digital advertisements.
The market research technology will be provided by Mirametrix, a Westmount, Quebec, research company, and will be used on focus groups. Subjects are presented with several digital ad creatives, such as mobile and Web advertisements, and their eye movement is tracked to establish where attention is focused. Demographic information is also gathered to identify the different habits between men, women and different ages. The optimization algorithm uses a conventional camera sensor that relays information to software.
The initiative uses a non-verbal and passive approach, allowing focus group subjects to carry out the research at home or in public areas such as shopping malls and sports venues.
www.clashgroup.com
••• brand research
Start with a Blueprint
New strategy development process aims to improve brand communications
Los Angeles research company PhaseOne has launched its Communications Blueprint Generator, an analytical service designed to help clients improve positioning, communications and messaging.
Companies can use the Communications Blueprint Generator to analyze the competitive communications landscape to understand the concentration of messages in the category and to identify untapped messaging opportunities. This learning is then layered on their targets’ attitudes and opinions to ensure that a business or brand’s communications are capitalizing on the right messages for the specific target audiences.
www.phaseone.net
••• marketing-mix
Trio of updates
Optimization software updated to improve forecasts, pricing functionality and collaboration
Cincinnati research company ThinkVine has released a new version of its marketing-mix optimization software. The enhancements aim to give marketers better decision-making information with improvements to what-if scenario planning, including faster simulations of consumer behavior, more information as part of each forecast and the ability to test absolute and relative price changes as part of a scenario.
ThinkVine customers run what-if scenarios that simulate the results of marketing plans and provide forecast results in terms of sales, ROI and other key measures. Engine performance improvements of the underlying ThinkAhead Technology in this release are designed to improve speed to insight and enable a more granular, in-depth understanding of what has and hasn’t worked in the past, as well as guidance to maximize cross-channel marketing dollars. The information delivered with each scenario is also improved via a combination of enhancements to existing tables and charts and new chart types.
New pricing functionality enables marketers to evaluate the impact of price changes on sales volume or other metrics for each marketing plan scenario for a more holistic view of the short- and long-term effects of price and promotions. This is also analyzed in the context of competitive drivers so marketers can prepare for whether the competition mimics the price change or remains the same.
Collaboration is improved via a new chart that summarizes the marketing plan; advanced group-level security features; and a repository of subscription documents, presentations and administrative information accessible to all team members.
www.thinkvine.com
••• survey software
Keeping up with quotas
Kinesis Survey platform upgrades quota management tool
Kinesis Survey Technologies LLC, Austin, Texas, has added advanced capabilities for using nested quotas within market research surveys to the latest version of its Kinesis Survey platform. The Quota Manager tool is designed to facilitate wizard-based creation of complex nested quotas, enabling users to specify relations between various quotas. It also auto-sums quotas as they are entered and allows for direct upload/download of an unlimited number of quotas (both nested and non-nested) with a CSV file.
Additional features include a watch-list function to collect and display specific quotas when potentially thousands are in use; adjustment of individual and bulk quotas; and the ability to set e-mail alerts and auto triggers as quota parameters are met.
www.kinesissurvey.com
••• research applications
Real-time updates
Invoke unveils two updates to its Engage platform
Waltham, Mass., research company Invoke Solutions has introduced Instant Insights and Client Labs to its suite of real-time market research applications using the Engage Technology Platform.
The Instant Insights application is designed to give clients real-time qualitative consumer insights in three days or less. It uses both the Invoke LIVE! experience and its speed-to-answer methodology to gain tactical and strategic directional answers quickly, at a low cost and with easy implementation.
Client Labs is intended to provide an ongoing source of insights from the people who matter the most to a brand. Client Labs is a private cloud, which encourages a dedicated sample, fast turnaround on any subject and up to 60 percent savings on panel costs. Client Labs works on the Invoke LIVE! platform and provides interactive analytics software.
www.invoke.com
••• competitive intelligence
Get a leg up with the SBA’s SizeUp
Small-business comparison tool helps businesses find their place in the market
The U.S. Small Business Administration, Washington, D.C., has debuted SizeUp, an online tool designed to help small businesses identify new customers and compare businesses against one another with data from hundreds of private and public sources.
The site provides small-business owners with geographic information, recommendations for where to advertise and other market research. SizeUp provides data analysis in three ways: benchmarking an existing business to see how it sizes up by comparing performance to all other competitors in the same industry; mapping competition to see where competitors, customers and suppliers are located; and finding the best places to advertise by choosing from preset reports to discover areas with the highest industry revenue and the most underserved markets. Custom demographic reports can also be created.
www.sba.gov/sizeup
••• ad research
Ignite your mobile measurement
Panel-based service analyzes cross-platform campaign performance
Stamford, Conn., research company InsightExpress has launched Ignite Mobile, a cross-platform campaign measurement service designed to advance media measurement by linking mobile ad exposure to consumer attitudes and behavior. Ignite Mobile captures mobile ad exposure across a 250,000-member panel, a subset of the Ignite Network, and offers access to Android, iOS and WP platform users.
The technology behind Ignite Mobile’s panel-based approach aims to alter the media measurement landscape in three ways. First, it enables mobile ad effectiveness and cross-platform measurement to be conducted while adhering to the same experimental design approach used when measuring online campaigns. As a result, the media measurement community is no longer beholden to the traditional pre-/post-campaign research methodology when conducting mobile ad effectiveness and cross-media research.
Second, recruiting respondents via e-mail reduces the need for pop-up or on-device surveys and reduces the need for advertising inventory from media partners, which aims to improve the experience for users. This development allows mobile publishers to focus on content creation and collecting more survey data without worrying about the impact of ongoing research on their site’s visitor experience.
Third, Ignite Mobile allows for the tracking of mobile ad exposure on iOS devices which, up to this point, have been elusive to measurement across browsing sessions.
www.insightexpress.com
••• shopper insights
A Pathway to insights
Radius develops approach for following the purchase process
Radius Global Market Research, New York, has debuted Decision Pathway Analysis, an approach to identifying and dissecting the various components of the consumer purchase process. Through a data-driven process, Decision Pathway Analysis aims to identify the various decision pathways that shoppers follow to a brand, as well as the frequency with which these pathways occur. The Radius team will also determine the impact of brand touchpoints on each pathway relative to how they drive the final purchase decision.
Decision Pathway Analysis is designed to help guide marketer decisions as they prioritize initiatives aimed at influencing the purchaser experience. Specifically, marketers can determine which touchpoints are most effective at motivating potential customers; understand the various decision pathways that may exist in a category to help manage nuances and tailor marketing strategies and tactics; and influence the decision process to attract customers as they hit critical points along the pathway.
www.radius-global.com
••• government/social media research
A key to the city (issues)
Social media mining from IBM aims to guide city decisions
IBM, Armonk, N.Y., has unveiled a social sentiment capability based on sophisticated analytics technologies to help cities around the world better measure and understand public opinions on key city issues and services such as public transportation or education.
IBM’s analytics and natural language processing technologies, used to analyze large volumes of public social media data to assess and understand citizen opinions, are now available to city governments around the world. The social media analytics capabilities aim to help city officials make more informed decisions by looking at unfiltered citizen attitudes and actions, distinguishing between sincerity and sarcasm and predicting trends as they surface online.
www.ibm.com
••• benchmark research
Poll meets Surveys
Harris Interactive and Google partner to launch self-service benchmarking service
Rochester, N.Y., research company Harris Interactive Inc. and Google, Mountain View, Calif., have collaborated to combine the Harris Poll with Google Consumer Surveys to develop a product designed to allow businesses to compare themselves to industry benchmarks. The partnership aims to deliver results at a fraction of the cost of traditional market research. On an ongoing basis, industry benchmarks will be collected and delivered, free of charge, within the Harris Poll and Google Consumer Surveys platform.
The first benchmark study offered within the Harris Poll and Google Consumer Surveys platform investigates customer satisfaction in the banking industry, covering Bank of America, Chase Bank, Citibank and Wells Fargo. Results of this Harris Poll benchmark study are available at www.google.com/insights/consumersurveys/harrispoll/banking.
••• mobile research
Come one, come all
Survey tool to deliver consistent surveys across all devices
Global Market Insite Inc., a Bellevue, Wash., research company, has launched a multiplatform interactive survey tool designed to provide clients and panelists with a seamless survey experience across all platforms and all devices. The new GMI device-agnostic solution allows surveys to be deployed independently across multiple platforms while retaining the same look and feel, regardless of how respondents access them.
By creating a unified design and question library for all popular Internet browsers and device platforms, studies can be run automatically across multiple devices, including desktops, laptops, tablets, mobiles and smartphones.
www.gmi-mr.com
••• Briefly
Stamford, Conn., research software company FocusVision has launched InterVu Usability, a service that uses Webcams to allow researchers to conduct usability testing on all mobile devices and tablets. The system comes with an on-site technician.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcA0xLzdG-c&feature=g-all-u
San Francisco research company Topsy has released Topsy Pro Analytics Public Sector, a real-time social analytics solution for government agencies, offering instant access and multi-year analysis of hundreds of billions of public Tweets, posts and pages gathered from millions of socially-active Web sites worldwide via a browser-based user interface.
http://about.topsy.com
Boulder, Colo., research company Market Force Information Inc. has unveiled Check-it, an age-verification system. Using Market Force’s nationwide team of 20,000+ 18-to-21-year-olds, businesses can monitor and understand if staff members asked approved Check-it shoppers for ID; when and where during the visit the shopper was asked for ID; and how they were asked for ID and the effect this had on the shopper and their overall experience.
www.marketforce.com
Portland, Ore., research company Webtrends has updated the social measurement capabilities for its Analytics On Demand product, as well as the availability of comprehensive social measurement solutions. Existing Facebook reporting from Webtrends has been enhanced to include insight into the nature, influence and success of Facebook Page posts. Additionally, it offers the ability to measure engagement and success of YouTube and Twitter channels.
www.webtrends.com
Olson Zaltman Associates, a Pittsburgh research company, has introduced the Implicit Association Evaluator (IAE), an online tool designed to quantitatively measure the strength of unconscious associations in the minds of consumers. IAE is a complement to the company’s patented qualitative methodology, ZMET.
www.olsonzaltman.com
Miami research company Geoscape has released the latest version of its Geoscape Intelligence System, which combines data and technology at national, local and micro-neighborhood levels.
www.geoscape.com
Portland, Ore., research company Revelation Global has updated its services. It has expanded its support hours; added the capability to allow participants to save a draft of their work and come back and finish later while auto-saving participant responses as they are working; and allowing researchers to schedule participant invitations in advance.
www.revelationglobal.com
Phoenix research consultancy Cambiar has announced four new training offerings via its partnerships with The Burke Institute, Aaron Field and the Market Research Executive Board. For a full list of course offerings visit www.consultcambiar.com/consulting-services/training.
Mindwave Research, Austin, Texas, has introduced its Technology Advertising Planner (TAP) research study. TAP is a large-scale syndicated tracking study that aims to measure Web site visitation, social media interaction, publication readership, TV viewership and trade show attendance among business IT decision-makers.
www.mindwaveresearch.com
Harpeth Marketing, a Franklin, Tenn., marketing firm serving the market research industry, has released Marketing & Sales for the Market Research Firm: Part 2 – How to Build an Effective Business Development Structure, a 14-page e-book. The e-book is available as a free download at www.harpethmarketing.com/ebook.
San Ramon, Calif., research company eQuest has started a blog, dubbed Floating Point, which focuses on big data.
www.equest.com/news/floating-point
Reston, Va., research company comScore Inc. has introduced its Video Metrix online video measurement service in Taiwan, Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines.
www.comscore.com
Research Now, Plano, Texas, has launched its U.K. Healthcare Panel and Canada Healthcare Panel.
www.researchnow.com
Polaris Marketing Research Inc., Atlanta, has redesigned its Web site (www.polarismr.com) to improve the user experience, allow for easier navigation and provide information via its Research LifeLine portal (www.researchlifeline.com).
New York researcher The Nielsen Company’s National People Meter, an electronic metering system for TV ratings delivered overnight, celebrates its 25th anniversary this year.
www.nielsen.com