••• advertising research
ANA measures female celebrities’ role-model potential
Looking for a good influence(r)
SeeHer, the Association of National Advertisers’ initiative for gender equality in advertising and media, has launched GEM Influencer, which enables brands to quantify how well female celebrities perform as role models for women and girls. It marries its Gender Equality Measure, which identifies the level of gender bias in ads and programming, with MVP-GEM index, an algorithm created by SeeHer’s research partner MVPindex that identifies “role model” celebrities. These are women who have high social media influence and speak positively about women, girls and women’s issues on social media. The GEM Influencer rankings from MVPindex measure the top 100 influencers in 12 categories: internet content creators (general influencers), TV hosts, TV personalities/reality TV stars, musicians, actors, models, athletes (active and former/retired), tennis players, soccer, WNBA, Winter Olympics and Summer Olympics. The categories were chosen based on the most popular sponsorship areas for brands that feature women and girls.
••• entertainment
Comscore upgrades theater management system
Adds automations, hosting options
Comscore has launched the next generation of its theater management system software, Comscore Cinema Auditorium Control Engine (ACE). Cinema ACE, a part of Comscore’s Hollywood Software suite of solutions, is designed to help exhibitors connect auditoriums, centralize content management and automate the transfer of features, trailers and encryption keys. Cinema ACE features a more-user friendly interface, new automations to expedite weekly task completion and a simplified web browser-based user interface. The upgraded solution also features more flexible hosting options for circuits of all sizes as well as an SQL database that can be hosted on-site in the projection booth or from the cloud, with full data encryption at rest and in transit.
••• research software
Decipher gets enhanced
Upload questionnaires from Word
Survey and insights software company FocusVision has added enhancements to its Decipher survey platform, including the ability to upload a Microsoft Word questionnaire straight into Decipher. Teams can create and collaborate on their questionnaire in Word, then upload the document to Decipher without any additional formatting or specialized syntax. Once the Word document is uploaded, Decipher’s AI-driven technology suggests the right question types and format to deliver the best results from survey questions. Also included are new survey templates in common areas such as NPS, employee satisfaction and brand and the addition of Sample Marketplace within Decipher.
••• shopper insights
Path-to-purchase as story
Method tracks consumers’ decision journeys
RealityCheck Consulting has launched HXi or Human Experience Insights, which uses story elicitation techniques to explore consumer experience with brands, track decision journeys and understand touchpoints. Story arcs map the emotional flow of stories, tracing the action from opening scene to climax to resolution. Mapping – and aggregating – different story arcs across different consumer segments reveals that, for human beings, the path to purchase is not just a clearly delineated set of steps from trigger to exploration, consideration, purchase and so on. It is a mash-up of experience, expectations, emotions, beliefs and values expressed in story form. The company says the HXi method is most commonly used for customer experience initiatives, shopper experience exploration and home use testing.
••• Briefly
PRS IN VIVO, a researcher based in Teaneck, N.J., has expanded its Luxury Practice and has introduced Happiness Science. The Luxury Practice serves luxury brands and retailers in fashion, jewelry, cosmetics, fragrances and spirits.
Marketing software company Affinio launched its product ATON, an augmented analytics platform designed to analyze data across an enterprise’s first-party infrastructure, including website data, purchase transactions, data lakes and other data sources.
SugarCRM has launched Sugar Discover, an analytics solution acquired from Corvana, a CRM analytics technology provider. The solution will be available within the SugarCRM platform.
Insights firm Maru/Matchbox has launched Brand Emotion, a visual semiotics tool built on its Maru/HUB platform. Brand Emotion is designed to analyze images to understand the emotions that brands evoke in consumers.
TripAdvisor has launched TripAdvisor Connect on Facebook and Instagram. The solution uses traveler and diner data to enable advertisers to reach audiences beyond TripAdvisor’s website and app.
Qualtrics has launched CoreXM, which includes the capabilities previously found in Qualtrics Research Core with additional functions for experience management professionals such as data quality checks, the ability to customize XM workflows, upgraded governance controls, conjoint analysis and others. All existing Research Core customers will be automatically transitioned onto the new solution.
Kantar has expanded its audience activation offer. The restructured offer is designed to enable marketers to identify and engage target consumers and deliver better ROI for data-driven advertising campaigns. Clients will be able to access audiences across key verticals with additional specialty categories such as beverage and B2B launching shortly.
Bazaarvoice Inc., a company specializing in product reviews and user-generated content solutions, has launched its Insights and Reports applications. These solutions are designed to help brands utilize customer feedback drawn from customer ratings, reviews and questions.
Dynata, a first-party data provider, has launched its Insights Platform, which offers tools for audience selection, survey programming, data visualization and reporting. Additionally, the platform allows connectivity to clients’ data or third-party data assets; can be used holistically or programmatically; and can be connected to existing in-house tools.
Media monitoring firm Burrelles is relaunching as a tech company with new digital products and services. Along with an updated visual identity and corporate brand, Burrelles has announced new product offerings such as analytical research, data services and custom reporting, in addition to its media monitoring services.