••• political research
Measuring campaigns for campaigns
Real-time ad measurement for politicians and their opponents
Mountain View, Calif., research company Ace Metrix has launched Ace Metrix POLITICS, a real-time measurement of the effectiveness of campaign, issue and advocacy ads. Ace Metrix POLITICS is designed to deliver politicians insight into the performance of their own campaigns, as well as their competitors, allowing clients to determine what ad to invest in, what competitor messages to respond to and what messages are resonating with voters.
The data is accessed via a Web-based platform, through which clients can watch the ads; see the entire ad landscape via scatter plot; search and filter results by age/gender, political affiliation and other key attributes; and access verbatim consumer commentary.
Further, the company’s mobile applications ensure data availability out on the campaign trail, whenever an ad breaks.
www.acemetrix.com
••• mobile research
A mix of methods
Research Now debuts broad platform of DIY mobile survey apps
Research Now, Plano, Texas, has launched Research Now Mobile, a platform designed to offer full survey functionality for quantitative research studies and qualitative surveys. Additionally, the Research Now Mobile platform offers mobile behavioral data collection via Research Now Mobile+, which collects permission-based mobile and tablet behavioral data. By automatically capturing a variety of data points, the Research Now Mobile+ platform aims to enable researchers to couple passive behavioral data with survey data.
The Research Now Mobile platform offers native app, Web app and tablet surveys that are compatible with iOS, Android, BlackBerry and feature phones. The platform also offers support for quantitative and qualitative question types, advanced survey logic, QR and bar code scanning, multimedia capture and questions using multimedia.
The Research Now Mobile platform offers more than 10 ways to launch a survey, including geo-fencing, geo-targeting, venue triggering, push notification, QR code trigger, diary studies, self-opted-in via short code SMS, SMS invites, in-app and mobile Web intercepts. Through its integration with foursquare, the Research Now Mobile platform enables venue-based survey triggering at approximately seven million venues worldwide. Furthermore, it has background location capture, providing the ability to automatically trigger surveys when panel members enter a specific location.
Ideal for surveys of 10 minutes or less in length, surveys are delivered directly to the user’s handset and can be completed online or offline. Data is then delivered to clients in formats consistent with traditional online research. Developed for DIY research, the platform provides access to its Web-based iControl panel, which facilitates project execution.
www.bethemobilebigkahuna.com
••• ad research
More than impressions
Ad measurement tool takes visibility into consideration
The GfK Group, a Nuremberg, Germany, research company, has launched DeliveryControl.dx, an instrument designed to measure the delivered ad impressions alongside the visibility of an ad by tracking browser activity (browser window or active tab); the position of the advertisement on the Web site; the user’s screen resolution; and any scrolling by the user.
The reporting displays the different levels of visibility of the advertisement – whether it was fully displayed (100 percent) or if at least 90 percent, 75 percent, 50 percent or 1 percent were visible on the user’s screen – and the average view time for each of these visibility levels. Furthermore it can be segmented by site, channel, placement, ad format and creative. To measure the visibility and view time, GfK applies nurago’s tagging system.
DeliveryControl.dx aims to provide a measurement of the actual view time an ad receives, plus immediate reporting.
www.gfk.com
••• mobile research
VOC for iOS
Verint expands offline mobile survey offering
Verint Systems Inc., a Melville, N.Y., research company, has released an offline mobile app for iOS, in addition to its Android solution. Available through its Vovici Enterprise Feedback Management solution, it is intended to offer integrated, offline mobile surveys and allow users to gather survey results offline, then sync them with the Web-based survey application when an Internet connection is available; view and test surveys directly from an iOS or Android device; run the same survey simultaneously on the Web and offline; access statistics on all surveys, including status and response rates, survey question responses and campaign distribution statistics, such as sent, open and completed rates; and establish permissions-based access with multi-workgroup capabilities.
Vovici mobile products are available through the iTunes Store and the Android Market on Google Play.
www.verint.com
••• media research
Promo power
Promo OptimiXer aims to evaluate viewer and listener follow-through
Columbia, Md., research company Arbitron Inc. has unveiled its Promo OptimiXer service, a single-source, cross-platform ratings tool designed to help broadcast and cable networks evaluate the return on investment that radio and television tune-in campaigns deliver in terms of audience ratings to the programs being promoted.
Based on the viewing and listening behavior of the approximately 69,000 Portable People Meter (PPM) panelists in 44 top U.S. media markets currently measured by the Arbitron PPM service, the Promo OptimiXer service provides evaluation metrics of program episode reach, program promotion reach, conversion percent, program promotion impressions and projected audience reached by program and promotion. It also answers questions about the promotion effectiveness, including: Who was exposed to the promotion campaign? On what media? And how often? Unduplicated reach and frequency can be estimated separately by each component of the campaign (e.g., radio tune-ins, DJ chatter, in-house promos, paid commercials on other channels), as well as for the entire campaign.
Promo OptimiXer also assesses how many of those exposed to the promotion campaign watched the measured episode. This is the key ROI measure for each component of the promotion campaign and for the campaign as a whole.
www.arbitron.com
••• social media research
All about the ME Statement
PhaseOne debuts suite of four solutions
Los Angeles research company PhaseOne has rolled out a suite of social media solutions designed to analyze how a brand’s messaging plays to consumers across multiple social media disciplines, including brand communications, competitive communications and social media engagement, to provide the insights in crafting strategies and messaging platforms. The four different social media solutions can be used together or independently of one another.
PhaseOne’s social media services focus on a key driver or ME Statement (the idealized self embodied by the brand) that exists among the most socially-engaged brands. PhaseOne’s ME Statement development and monitoring service aims to assist in mining consumer data, mapping it against the brand’s equities within its category to identify relevant and distinctive ME Statements; ensure that a company’s chosen ME Statement is effectively expressed across all touchpoints; and offer social media monitoring to track the target audience acceptance of the brand’s ME Statement.
With the Social Media Brand Communications Audit, PhaseOne determines whether a brand’s messages are influencing online conversations and if the conversations are reinforcing or damaging brand equities (i.e., sentiment, likes and dislikes). Based upon this analysis, PhaseOne provides recommendations on how to shape and influence future brand messaging strategies.
The Social Media Competitive Communications Audit monitors competitive conversations and determines whether they are reinforcing or damaging brand equities. Based upon this analysis, PhaseOne provides recommendations on how to shape and influence future competitive messaging strategies.
Finally, ongoing monitoring and insights of social media sentiment track messages being played out in the social media space and analyze a brand or competitor’s sentiment, likes or dislikes. PhaseOne then examines events, issues or other topics being circulated online to determine their impact on a brand’s social media presence. These findings can be reported on a daily, weekly or monthly basis or on a custom delivery schedule.
www.phaseone.net
••• social media research
Turning conversation into dialog
Listen & Act allows companies to use social media data for CRM
Oslo, Norway, research company QuestBack has introduced Listen & Act, a social engagement tool that aims to allow organizations to transform social media messages into dialogs and integrate these insights into customer relationship management (CRM) data.
Listen & Act is designed to enable businesses to quickly sift through messages, view levels of influence and utilize engagement tools, such as surveys and communities, to create unique experiences for their customers based on inquiries and preferences. Additional features include feedback management through keyword monitoring and grouping of common themes; integration with the QuestBack feedback and social engagement platform; integrated sentiment analysis and Klout score; and a single view of the customer with the QuestBack people data hub, which combines unstructured social media data with structured CRM data.
www.questback.com
••• mobile research
Multiplatform for mobile
Lumi releases DIY tool
Lumi Mobile, a London mobile technology company, has launched Lumi SURVEY, a self-service mobile survey tool created specifically for market research and deployable across all major mobile operating systems, including iOS, Android, BlackBerry and Symbian.
Lumi SURVEY’s apps work with Internet-enabled feature phones and smartphones and offer online and offline survey completion. Lumi SURVEY is also available as a customizable white-label solution.
Market researchers can create surveys using a variety of question types and displays, with more than 35 languages supported. Real-time data and completed surveys are viewable on Lumi’s online dashboard, while final results may be exported direct from there in industry standard formats (SPSS or CSV).
www.lumimobile.com
••• text analytics
From clouds to Trees
Text visualization and search tool to give greater context
Portland, Ore., research company Revelation has debuted Word Trees, a text visualization and search tool, which is integrated with the Revelation Project online qualitative research platform. Word Trees is designed to save researchers the need to export their data to another tool to conduct content analysis. Going beyond word clouds that show frequency of mentions, Word Trees reveal all the different contexts in which a word or phrase appears within a body of text, showing the difference between apple the fruit and Apple the brand. Researchers can tune Word Trees by participant, activity, segment and other search filters.
www.revelationglobal.com
••• physician research
Scoring with docs
New offering to track real-time physician response to pharma marketing
Des Moines, Iowa, marketing consultancy RMi has introduced IntelliScore, an engagement quotient that aims to provide clients both a real-time snapshot of how physicians are engaging with their marketing efforts and an assessment of the quality of that engagement. This scoring algorithm tracks physicians’ receptivity to and engagement with marketing methods and brand messages across a variety of channels, which can include e-mail, direct mail, surveys, sales calls, speaker events and more. The effectiveness of each effort is scored by weighing the value of actions taken, information provided, channel preferences, preferred messages and how they correlate with the physician’s sales or prescriptions.
www.rmarketing.com
••• online research
Intercepting visitors
Qualtrics offers IT-free solution to target Web site visitors
Provo, Utah, research software company Qualtrics has released Qualtrics Site Intercept, an online tool designed to allow brands to alter Web site content on the fly – without tapping IT resources – to deliver custom content and gather visitor feedback. Using a variety of criteria such as time of day, geo-location, visit history or shopping cart content, Qualtrics Site Intercept lets brands display custom messages, surveys, promotions and other content to Web site visitors in real time.
The interface requires no programming and marketers can use Qualtrics Site Intercept to create the content, choose how they want it to display on the site and implement rules for when and where it appears.
www.qualtrics.com
••• eye-tracking research
The missing link
New technology to determine when ads are actually seen – and how they perform
New York research company EyeTrackShop has debuted its realCPM technology, an offering designed to allow advertisers and agencies to audit their online branding campaigns and optimize their spending by breaking down the results on different sites and ad placements by calculating online brand campaigns across various online advertising platforms.
The realCPM is intended to serve as the missing piece between technical measures and traditional post-testing. By using eye-tracking technology to confirm which ads are seen the most and then saving information on ad content, the solution can tell if a specific campaign is visually over- or underperforming compared to similar campaigns in the same industry, while indicating what creative content works best on different media placements.
This sort of performance measurement will also allow companies to put a real-time price tag on the ads they produce as the amount of eyes that land on ads are monitored and comparative percentage-based stats record the results. These success rates are then assessed against different options for placing an ad on the page, as well as factors like time of day, gender and media outlet focus.
www.realcpm.com
••• ad research
Hybrid copy-testing
Ad Assess combines quant and qual
The Pert Group, a Farmington, Conn., research company, has introduced Ad Assess, an approach that integrates quantitative and qualitative research for screening creative concepts. Ad Assess is designed to hardwire the two disciplines together to conduct qualitative interviews with the same consumers who did the quantitative.
Ad Assess can be used to test multiple ad concepts, for multiple media at any stage in the creative process and typically takes three-to-four weeks to complete.
www.thepertgroup.com
••• reporting software
E-mail for Beacon
Solution adds e-mail campaign management
Fresno, Calif., research company Decipher Inc. has launched an e-mail campaign manager tool as part of its Beacon market research software suite. The feature is intended to allow users to create and customize e-mail campaigns to potential research respondents.
The e-mail campaign manager can be programmed to send invitations to e-mail lists at scheduled times, while also sending reminders to those lists and automatically filtering out respondents who have already completed the surveys. Opt-outs are automatically managed and can be reviewed by the senders. Other features include reusable campaign content and design templates; accessible field reporting that includes statistics on bounce-backs and open rates; list uploads from Excel or tab-delimited formats; and a campaign-specific drop-down menu with actions for editing, uploading, sending and reminding.
www.decipher.com
••• Briefly
New York research company Ipsos InnoQuest has released Vantis*Optimize, a new product development optimization solution. Vantis*Optimize is designed to help maximize innovation potential for clients introducing non-FMCG products by identifying the optimal feature and price configuration for new product or service concepts. The result is a simulator which provides clients with their potential sales, revenues and profit levels under different marketing scenarios, along with price elasticity, feature utilities and targeting indicators.
www.ipsos.com
Chicago research company CarbonSix has released Over the Shoulder, a smartphone-enabled, digital ethnography tool. The technology connects market researchers with recruited respondents, who are paid to download its app via iTunes or the Android Market. After downloading, the app lives in the respondent’s pocket, establishing a presence for market researchers to send questions and receive answers as text, multiple choice, photos or as full audio or video.
http://c6research.com
Cincinnati research company Ascribe has bundled its analytics and visualization tools Ascribe Coder, Ascribe Accelerator, Ascribe Inspector and Ascribe Illustrator into one platform, dubbed Ascribe Intelligence. The suite of tools is intended to gather, classify, code and visualize verbatim feedback, regardless of industry, channel or language.
www.goascribe.com
New York research company Ipsos Loyalty has debuted Wallet Allocation Optimizer (WAO!), a solution designed to help turn customer relationship management into increased share-of-wallet. WAO! aims to provide executives with a customer relationship metric and system of understanding related to financial performance and business success.
www.ipsos.com/loyalty
Fresno, Calif., research company Decipher has developed a transition plan for companies seeking to license its market research platform, Beacon. The plan allows companies in existing research software contracts to license and begin using Beacon without paying licensing fees until their existing software contract expires. The Beacon licensing contract will begin when any incumbent contract ends. Training and help desk access are included in the conversion program at regular rates.
www.decipher.com
Harpeth Marketing, a Franklin, Tenn., marketing firm serving the market research industry, has added marketing and sales audits to its service offerings. During an audit, Harpeth evaluates a company’s marketing and sales efforts and makes recommendations on what needs to be done to improve efficiency and effectiveness. Level 1 Audits address a company’s marketing and sales initiatives, revenue history and client base. Level 2 Audits build on Level 1 by surveying a company’s clients and ex-clients and secret shopping key competitors.
www.harpethmarketing.com
Chicago research company Ipsos ASI has debuted the next generation of its Brand Value Creator, a tool designed to fuse advertising research experience and global databases to improve brand monitoring and tracking.
www.ipsos.com/asi
San Francisco research company userlytics has launched a feedback offering designed to allow users to conduct up to seven free Web site tests per month by registering for the Basic Plan with an e-mail address and name.
www.userlytics.com
Boston product development company Halexi LLC has developed PanelFinder.com, a quote management application designed to streamline the RFQ process between full-service market research firms and panel providers.
www.panelfinder.com
Seattle research software company Survey Analytics has launched LifeMetrix, a service designed to allow clients to collect passive data from panelists’ mobile devices.
http://lifemetrix.com
Shelton, Conn., research company SSI has rolled out a U.S. wireless screening service. SSI Wireless Screener is a stand-alone, post-production process designed to identify U.S. cell phone numbers with activity within an RDD cell phone sample. The process maintains the integrity of SSI’s probability methodology and complies with the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. SSI Wireless Geo ID is a stand-alone, post-production process used to identify the billing zip code of the U.S. cell phone number.
www.surveysampling.com
New York research companies Scarborough Research and GfK MRI have partnered to combine GfK MRI’s attitudinal data points with Scarborough’s local and national consumer databases. Dubbed Scarborough/GfK MRI Attitudinal Insights, the offering is designed to examine consumer attitudes in conjunction with media consumption and purchasing behavior.
www.scarborough.com
Wilton, Conn., research company Toluna has launched Toluna Mobile Omnibus, a service designed to allow companies to ask up to 10 questions of 500 U.S. mobile respondents via mobile devices. Data is reported by age, gender, region, marital status, income, education, employment status, household size and the number of children in the household.
www.toluna.com
Mapping Solutions, Detroit, has released version 3.0 of its MapperG offering, combining Google Maps with Pitney Bowes MapInfo Professional, featuring international street-level geocoding. MapperG Basic includes unlimited Street, Arial, Hybrid and Terrain maps from Google Maps and single-address geocoding. MapperG Premium features international street address batch geocoding for up to 1,000 records per day, in addition to automatic map refresh.
http://mapperg.com
New York researcher The Nielsen Company has debuted Nielsen Online Audience Segments – TV Viewing, an offering that uses Nielsen’s data assets and TV knowledge to correlate how people watch TV with how they behave online. Nielsen uses a unique, representative sample of both TV and online panelists, providing a privacy-protected source for segment models based on viewers, rather than households.
www.nielsen.com
Reston, Va., research company comScore Inc. has launched comScore TabLens, a monthly syndicated service intended to provide insights into U.S. tablet ownership and usage.
www.comscore.com
Oslo, Norway, research software company Confirmit has launched Confirmit Voices, a voice-of-the-customer (VOC) engagement model built around a six-stage process: define, design, implement, analyze, act and review. It aims to help organizations to develop clear objectives and design a VOC program mapped to the customer journey. Confirmit Horizons powers the platform using multichannel data collection, including Web, mobile, telephone and paper, as well as analysis and reporting tools.
www.confirmit.com
Copenhagen, Denmark, research company iMotions has added emotional insights from Waltham, Mass., research company Affectiva’s Q Sensor to its eye-tracking software solutions. The addition of Affectiva’s Q Sensor, a wearable, wireless biosensor to measure electrodermal skin activity, aims to expand the real-time emotional insights provided by the iMotion’s eye-tracking platform.
www.imotionsglobal.com
Cambridge, Mass., research company MarketSight LLC has released MarketSight 9.1, the latest version of the company’s survey analysis software. In addition to supporting the Google Chrome Web browser, version 9.1 features the ability to export dashboards to PowerPoint; batch create charts from crosstabs; and add a dashboard to the home page within the solution.
www.marketsight.com
New York researcher The Nielsen Company has expanded its Nielsen TV Brand Effect service to China and Germany. The solution is designed to monitor consumer response in real time by delivering metrics on a TV ad’s breakthrough or resonance, enabling in-flight or post-campaign optimization.
www.nielsen.com
Research companies Millward Brown, New York, and Affectiva, Waltham, Mass., have added facial coding to Millward Brown’s Link ad copy evaluation and optimization solution for emerging markets.
www.millwardbrown.com
Irving, Texas, research company Epsilon has added a data dimension, Market Trend, to its TotalSource Plus consumer database. This sixth dimension aims to expand targeting opportunities for marketers based on an individual’s propensity to engage or purchase.
www.epsilon.com
Austin, Texas, research company Bazaarvoice and London consulting company Booz & Company have launched the Digital Customer Centricity Profiler, a service designed to help companies pinpoint the digital capabilities of their organizations compared with those of leaders in their market and in other industries. The Profiler combines Booz & Company’s strategy expertise with the social insights derived from the 330 billion customer conversations served from the Bazaarvoice social platform.
www.bazaarvoice.com
Portland, Ore., research company Webtrends has released a free app for iPad designed to enable marketers to view trending data from Web sites, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. The app is available via iTunes. For current Webtrends customers, the app also accesses and integrates data from Webtrends’ Analytics 10 platform.
www.webtrends.com
Reston, Va., research company comScore Inc. has received accreditation for elements of its validated Campaign Essentials platform from the Media Rating Council, New York; the Audit Bureau of Circulations U.K.; and the Información y Control de Publicaciones, a Spanish industry body that verifies circulation and audits Web analytics and online audience measurement solutions.
www.comscore.com
The Learning House Inc., a Louisville, Ky., online education solutions company and Aslanian Market Research, Hoboken, N.J., have published Online College Students 2012, a study that details the results of surveys with 1,500 prospective and current online students nationwide.
www.learninghouse.com/study
Kinesis Survey Technologies LLC, Austin, Texas, has published a white paper, titled Online Survey Statistics from the Mobile Future. The white paper includes statistics about Kinesis’ online survey platform usage. It is available for free download at www.kinesissurvey.com/whitepapers.
Paris research company Ipsos has launched its Online Audience Panel Data in Jordan.
www.ipsos.com
Needham, Mass., research company in4mation insights has launched a new Web site as part of its rebranding at www.in4ins.com.
Encino, Calif., research company MMR Strategy Group has launched a new Web site at www.mmrstrategy.com.
C+R Research, Chicago, has expanded its YouthBeat study to offer YouthBeat Jr.: The Preschool Edition, a syndicated study of preschoolers ages two-to-five and their parents.
www.youthbeat.com
Honeoye Falls, N.Y., research company KJT Group Inc. has debuted a new company logo and tagline: Insight By Design.
www.kjtgroup.com
Butler, Pa., research company D. M. Harris Associates celebrated its 30th anniversary in July.