American Marketing Association
The 2017
AMA Gold Top 50 Report
JUNE 2017 No.
5
ama.org
June 2017
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table of contents AMERICAN MARKETING ASSOCIATION
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Seen on aMa.orG
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anSWerS in aCtion • Snapshot • Core Concepts
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aMa intelliGenCe • The Middle Market • MBA Perspectives
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eXeCutive inSiGhtS • Gordon Wyner • J. Walker Smith
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Career advanCeMent • On the record
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#offiCeGoalS
22 The 2017 AMA Gold Top 50 report
The AMA’s semi-annual report on the leaders in market research and the health of their organizations.
72 Cover: Photographer: Lisa Predko; Assistants: Jacqueline Ayala, Tom Michas; food stylist & Catering: Andrea Donadio; Model: sarah uchison; retouching: Tom Michas
FInD OuT MOre AT
aMa .org
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The Friendship That Changed Marketing Forever
Label Mates
How a 55-year friendship and intellectual partnership made marketing larger than life.
The packaged food industry is finally embracing standardized labels.
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Top of the Class and the Industry
Marketers are constantly looking for ways to improve their skills or gain certifications. we explore three options.
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June 2017
Vol. 51 | No. 5
Letter from the Editor
Some Things Never Change
Valarie Zeithaml Chairperson of the AMA Board 2016-2017 Russ Klein, AMA Chief Executive Officer rklein@ama.org
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n a swiftly changing marketing landscape, one thing is sure: Market research will remain vital to the work of the marketing industry. In this issue, Diane Bowers of the Insights Association gives us a deep dive into the state of the market research industry—its leaders, its growth and its projected future. Bowers, in a nutshell, gives us undoubtedly good news. “Given that the U.S. economy in 2016 was ‘tepid’ (as some economists termed it), the U.S. research industry in 2016 maintained a strong year-over-year growth rate, even when adjusted by a higher inflation rate.” With research at its core, one of marketing’s greatest strengths is in its diversity of talent. Staff writer Hal Conick dives into the long, storied friendship between marketing legends Sidney Levy and Philip Kotler. “Over five and a half decades, Kotler, Levy and other faculty members at [Northwestern University’s] Kellogg [School of Management] studied, explained and thought about marketing in ways no one had before. ‘We actually wanted
American Marketing Association
Andy Friedman, AMA Chief Content Officer afriedman@ama.org Editorial Staff
Phone (800) AMA-1150 • Fax (312) 542-9001 E-mail editor@ama.org Molly Soat, Editor in Chief msoat@ama.org Michelle Markelz, Managing Editor mmarkelz@ama.org Zach Brooke, Staff Writer zbrooke@ama.org Hal Conick, Staff Writer hconick@ama.org Sarah Steimer, Staff Writer ssteimer@ama.org
to hire people who were not trained in marketing,’ Kotler says. ‘Not that it was a prejudice. It was that we would go further if we had different social sciences in our group.’” Marketing is all about evolution—in research methodologies, talent pools and creative processes. How has your work evolved? Molly Soat Editor in Chief @MollySoat
Vince Cerasani, Associate Art Director vcerasani@ama.org Advertising Staff
Fax (312) 922-3763 • E-mail ads@ama.org Sally Schmitz, Production Manager sschmitz@ama.org (312) 542-9038 Michael Gay, Account Executive mgay@yourmembership.com (727) 329-4421 Nicola Tate, Account Executive ntate@yourmembership.com (727) 329-4437 Jordan Berthiaume, Media Sales Representative jberthiaume@YourMembership.com (727) 497-6565 x3409 Marketing News (ISSN 0025-3790) is published monthly except April/May and November/December (pending) by the American Marketing Association, 130 E. Randolph St., 22nd Floor, Chicago, IL 60601. Circulation: (800) AMA-1150, (312) 542-9000 Tel: (800) AMA-1150, (312) 542-9000 POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: Marketing News, 130 E. Randolph St., 22nd Floor, Chicago, 60601-6320, USA. Periodical Postage paid at Chicago, Ill., and additional mailing offices.
Contributors
Canada Post Agreement Number 40030960. Opinions expressed are not necessarily endorsed by the AMA, its officers or staff. Marketing News welcomes expressions of all professional viewpoints on marketing and its related areas. These may be as letters to the editor, columns or articles. Letters should be brief and may be condensed by the editors. Please request a copy of the “Writers’ Guidelines” before submitting an article. Upon submission to the AMA, photographs and manuscripts will not be returned unless accompanied by a self-addressed, adequately stamped envelope. Annual subscription rates: Marketing News is a benefit of membership for professional members of the American Marketing Association. Annual professional membership dues in the AMA are $220. Annual subscription rates: $35 members, $145 nonmembers and $190 libraries, corporations and institutions. International rates vary by country. Nonmembers: Order online at amaorders.com, call 1-800-633-4931 or e-mail amasubs@ebsco.com.
Advertisers and advertising agencies assume liability for all content (including text, representations and illustrations) of advertisements published, and also assume responsibility for any claims arising therefrom made against the publisher. The right is reserved to reject any advertisement.
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Diane Bowers
Andrea Donadio
Diane Bowers is a consultant for the Insights Association, the trade association of market, social and opinion research organizations that represents and advocates for the U.S. research industry nationally and globally.
Andrea Donadio had a balogna sandwich every day for 10 years in elementary school. She didn’t like carrots until college and prided herself on being able to survive off a diet of popcorn and bodega bagels. Following a traumatic brain injury in 2012, Andrea is now a renowned cook. She lives with her daughter, Bunny Baby.
Copyright © 2017 by the American Marketing Association. All rights reserved. Without written permission from the AMA, any copying or reprinting (except by authors reprinting their own works) is prohibited. Requests for permission to reprint—such as copying for general distribution, advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works or resale—should be submitted in writing by mail or sent via e-mail to permissions@ama.org. Reprints in quantity are available by contacting Kristy Snyder at Sheridan Reprints: (717) 632-3535. Printed in the U.S.A.
Donadio Photo by Brooke Hummer
Single copies $10 individual, $10 institutions; foreign add $5 per copy for air, printed matter. Payment must be in U.S. funds or the equivalent. Canadian residents add 13% GST (GST Registration #127478527).
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Why Addressable TV Must Be a Part of Your Marketing Mix in 2017 Addressable TV is opening up the hyper-targeted media-buying experience for brands big and small The number of people cutting the cord in the U.S. is staggering: One-third of American adults have a subscription to Netflix. In 2015, 400,000 people ended their cable contracts. These numbers force the traditional TV media buyer to find new ways to reach the same audience. With things like addressable TV, media buying is becoming a much different process than buying audience-based inventory on gross rating points (GRPs).
What Is Addressable TV? According to Google, addressable TV advertising is the ability to show different ads to different households watching the same program. With the help of addressable advertising, advertisers can move beyond largescale traditional TV ad buys to focus on relevance and impact. Google pushed this addressable TV tactic when it launched the much-hyped, poorly received Google TV. Consider the season finale of the critically acclaimed show “This is Us.” While Amazon and Netflix’s original programming is winning many awards, “This is Us” dominates viewership and buzz. According to Nielsen, 12.84 million people tuned into the season finale. This audience can be diverse with different brand profiles, income levels and needs, yet we market to them with the same creative, promoting the same message. Doesn’t this feel clunky just saying it out loud? Our typical bet is to just bank on the primary audience and hope for the best.
medium-size and local business. Small advertisers who have a product that does not appeal to the general population are usually boxed out of TV due to cost restraints and the lack of available niche targeting. By introducing a way to buy TV ads that is inclusive of targeting that advertisers know and love from Adwords/ YouTube ads, advertisers could extend their message across channels and devices, thus delighting the consumer and giving themselves a true way to improve reach and frequency. Even in its current state, buying ads on TV is significantly different than it was a few years ago. The strategies and methodologies to buy TV ads remain the same while the need for more advanced skill sets is present. Search marketers, who were historically considered fluent in keywords and feed management, could be the same people employing
their targeting-first mindset to a cordcutting audience bored with irrelevant ads and increasing commercial breaks. Focusing on that audience and serving them ads relevant to their geographic market and interests could be an answer to the disinterested, binge-watching consumer who is drunk on ad blockers. -JUSTIN EMIG
The Ultimate Omni-channel Marketing Mix Addressable TV could make TV advertising more palatable for small,
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7 of the Top Activation Strategies Driving Brand Engagement You can rebrand and relaunch, but can you activate your brand? Every brand runs marketing campaigns, but not every brand knows how to engage with its consumers. This is where brand activation comes into play. At the 2017 ANA Brand Activation Conference in Chicago, some of the biggest U.S. brands—Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Ford, CocaCola and others—discussed their strategies for brand activation.
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in the last two quarters of 2016 and gaining shares in important markets. The campaign also saw 1.1 million interactions through the national sweepstakes. “As you think about activating your own brands, think about what change [you are] trying to make and add value,” Katz says. “We can get better at this as a brand. Anybody can pay for a sponsorship, but it’s the great brands that can deliver something to the consumer that they can appreciate.”
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Leverage partnerships for something bigger. When Ford became the official truck of the NFL during the 2016 season, people weren’t surprised. Ford has trademark rights with 13 teams in local markets, is affiliated with Fox Sports and its “FOX NFL SUNDAY” pregame show and has stadium naming rights with the Detroit Lions and Dallas Cowboys. Chantel Lenard, Ford’s executive director of marketing, says by leveraging this
existing partnership, Ford was able to build something bigger with the NFL. Ford used a 360-degree campaign to lock in the 62 million people the NFL reaches each month both on game day and throughout the week. Ford used influencer marketing, promoted through Bleacher Report and held sweepstakes for game tickets. In the sweepstakes, 88% of participants signed up for more information on a Ford truck model, 90% of whom were not already Ford owners. By the end of the campaign, Ford was able to tie a sales increase of 2,000 trucks at $50,000 per unit to the campaign.
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Stay in the customer’s hands and minds to become their preference. Coca-Cola is a brand that seems to be ever-present throughout American history. There’s a reason for this, according to Ivan Pollard, senior vice president of strategic marketing at Coca-Cola. The company always tries
Image courtesy of Dos Equis.
Think: Are you adding customer value? Dos Equis’ “Most Interesting Man in the World” campaign is likely one of the best-known U.S. campaigns. So why did the company relaunch the campaign with a new “interesting man”? Andrew Katz, vice president of marketing at Dos Equis and Heineken, says the company wanted to appeal to the average man in his 20s. The company found the average man’s biggest fear was being boring. “Our logic was, we have a franchise not dissimilar to James Bond or Batman where they constantly reboot themselves,” Katz says, adding that the old campaign wasn’t bringing in as many new, young beer drinkers. The company began focusing on social occasions and showcasing the beer in the ads with the new “Most Interesting Man in the World.” After finding that 60% of Dos Equis drinkers watch sports while drinking, compared with 40% of all other beer drinkers, Katz says the company decided to become the first national sponsor of the NCAA College Football Playoff. The brand activated by launching its rebooted “Interesting Man” commercial on ESPN. Katz says this was one of Heineken’s best campaigns as a company, adding new beer drinkers marketing news | June 2017
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to sneak into the background of the customer’s mind. “It’s better to do something constantly in the background than one big thing in the foreground, but the ideal is to do both,” he says. Pollard says the average U.S. attention span is down from 12 seconds in 2000 to 8.25 seconds in 2016. He knew Coke needed a way to break through this paucity of attention, so he looked to involve the consumers’ hands, which he says can coalesce active learning and implicit learning. Coca-Cola held events with celebrity chefs such as Aaron Sanchez, held a March Madness festival and tried to use a “light touch” to get the drink into people’s hands via presence on social media. Pollard believes that many people walked away with “a memory implanted in their brains.” While technology will eventually bring experiences that feel real to the living room, Pollard says brands need to bring consumer heads and hands together to build brand preference. He calls this “A.D.D.vertisng,” or building a brand despite a lack of attention.
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Create for the human, forget the device. Marketers who can’t get an engagement rate of 85% should retire, or so says Life in Mobile CEO John Lim. But how is this possible in a market where the standard engagement rate is somewhere between 40% and 60%? “Create for the human,” says Lim, who claims he has an 87% or better engagement rate across all brands he works with—including Heineken and NBC Universal. One campaign his company ran, a survey for Heineken, received a 90.4% engagement rate from 485,696 consumers. Lim claims the survey was so popular that 200,000 people took it twice. Lim says there are four principles he uses in every campaign that can
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help any brand get engagement rates of 85%. The principles are: 1. We live in an “I need it now society,” he says, so move at the speed of the customer. Have consistency over time. 2. Follow “the platinum rule,” which is to treat others the way they want to be treated, not how you’d want to be treated. 3. “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should,” i.e., be careful not to overreach on data and show just how much you know about the customer. 4. The mobile device is the customer’s sixth sense. To show this, Lim had attendees pull out their phone, unlock it and hand it to the person to their left. Noting the panic in the room, he says marketers must keep that feeling in mind. “When you communicate to that consumer, understand that you’re communicating to one of their senses.” Lim says these principles can help marketers regain what he believes is a lost sense of humanity in marketing.
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Be transparent and let employees be your brand. Air travel in America went from fun in the 1990s to a hassle-ridden experience after 9/11. Airlines merged, security got tight and customers were hit with baggage fees. In an effort to ease customer frustration with fees, Southwest Airlines introduced “Transfarency.” This allowed the company to put any charges in the price of a ticket with no surprise baggage fees tacked on. Marianne Malina, president of GSD&M, an advertising agency that has worked with Southwest for 37 years, says the company used “Transfarency” to show customers that their fares were staying low as other airlines were tacking on fees. Southwest also featured executives and employees in ad campaigns, according to Helen Limpitlaw, director of brand communications and partnerships for Southwest
Airlines. The company gives employees more autonomy for serving customers than the average airline, she says. As a member of the audience noted, this could help save the company from a nightmare PR event such as the one United Airlines had in April.
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See what your customers sees. For years, eyewear customers were treated more like patients than customers. John Roberts, a partner and strategy lead at Truth Collective, was working with Lenscrafters, a brand that he says needed to change its approach to win over millennials, a key segment choosing its first set of eyeglasses. For this demographic, Roberts says Lenscrafters flipped from “vision correction” to “vision enhancement.” They also knew millennials wanted to do good things, so Lenscrafters worked with BuzzFeed to make a commercial showing random acts of kindness, such as giving people flowers and paying for their drinks. From this campaign, which is called “See Good Daily,” the company received 14.6 million engagements, a 14.3% brand lift and a 23% lift in purchase intent. “Activation without emotion is price promotion,” Roberts says, adding that customers most often feel something, do it and then try to post-rationalize their decision.
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You can’t fake authenticity. When a company tries to fake authenticity, customers will know it, according to Steve Gross, founder of Life is Good Kids Foundation, a clothing company that helps children in need. Being authentically optimistic is the “most powerful force in the world,” Gross says. “It’s your ability to see the good. When you give authentically, you get more than you give for business, too.” However, faking authenticity defeats the whole purpose, Gross says. A brand can’t simply push a campaign; it has to believe in it. -Hal Conick
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The Birds and the Bees and the Baby Baby food brand Plum Organics shows it’s not afraid to discuss a problem that gives many new parents anxiety: their love life By Zach Brooke | staff writer
zbrooke@ama.org Goal “We’re in a crowded category. We’re not a huge brand. We don’t have $10 million to spend on media, so we have to grab attention.” That’s the unvarnished rationale offered by Victoria Fiore, director of brand strategy and mission at baby food company Plum Organics, to justify
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the company’s latest eyebrow-raising campaign, “Do Your Part(ner).” Equal parts shocking and suggestive, the campaign delves into the very real issues of stress and fatigue that plague new parents. It also happens to embrace a line of thinking that Fiore finds deeply funny. “A baby food brand wants you to have more sex to have more babies
to help the bottom line. I think that’s hilarious,” she says. The seeds for “Do Your Part(ner)” were planted two years ago when Plum Organics launched a separate initiative, “Parenting Unfiltered,” which was meant to reflect the raw reality of raising a newborn. The campaign conveyed that it’s an amazing time to grow as a person and a family, but there are also many challenges that create a lot of negative feelings people are often afraid to express. Plus, there’s a ton of messaging about parenthood that can make first-timers feel like poor providers. The insight that Plum Organics gained with “Parenting Unfiltered” was that new parents are guilt-ridden, Fiore says. “There’s this constant sense of falling short because of our Instagram culture and everything that’s out there.” The resounding success of “Parenting Unfiltered” convinced Fiore’s team to
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continue with the theme for their next big campaign. They decided to go where no baby food company had gone before: the bedroom. It was a big risk, but one that suggested the possibility of a big reward. Or, as Fiore says, “If we do this tastefully, tactfully and in a way that is really insight-driven, we definitely have a green light to start this conversation. And it’s great for the brand. It’s memorable. It’s ownable. It’s quoteunquote emote-able.” Action The project began by polling parents about their relationships through a survey developed on the advice of their PR firm, Hunter Public Relations. What they found confirmed their suspicions that, for many new parents, intimacy is a concern. Seventy percent of millennial parents, for instance, said they feel guilty when they’re away from their child for a night out with their partner, while nearly 70% of all parents with a significant other talk about their kids the majority of the time they’re alone together. More than one-third of parents reported the thing they do most in their bed besides sleeping is catching up on news or social media. Using that data, Plum Organics patterned a digital campaign to address these pent-up feelings. “The idea was to have a celebrity go from room to room narrating an experience that we’re all so familiar with of what really happens behind closed doors when you’re a parent in the evening,” with a playful non-shaming tone, Fiore says. Through their agency of record, Something Massive, they were able to bring aboard actress Katie Aselton for the ad, which was hosted on the microsite doyourpartner.com and pushed out through social media. Not all of the campaign conversation revolved around sex, however. While physical intimacy was clearly the hook in the Aselton spot, it was supported by exclusive videos featuring prominent psychotherapist Esther Perel talking about the need for intimacy and freedom in relationships.
“On the long list of what your children need, parents who attend to their relationship as adults and as a couple should feature prominently,” she says in the video. “This is not about adding another thing to your list. This is about giving yourself the permission to care about yourself.” After going through all the campaign content, viewers were asked to take a pledge affirming they would prioritize their own well-being and relationship health. Visitors who click the pledge are then directed through a series of prompts that help them carve out personal time in their life before contacting their significant others via e-mail to make a similar commitment. Finally, Plum Organics enlisted a network of influencers, including mommy bloggers and relationship experts to personalize the experiences shown to be common in the survey and reflected in the campaign content. This brought a deeper layer of realness to the message that was lacking at the brand level.
CoMPanY
Plum Organics FoUnDeD
2007 HeaDQUarTers
emeryville, California CaMPaiGn TiMeLine
Feb. 7, 2017 to present resULTs
11.8 million total video views and 66% completion rate for form utilizing e-mail capture.
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result Timed to launch around Valentine’s Day, the campaign went live on Feb. 7. Surpassing the team’s expectations, it generated 11.8 million total video views, widespread industry recognition and overwhelmingly positive feedback from parents on social media. Sample comments ranged from, “this is so us!” to, “best ad ever, I’ll be sure to remember it in six months when I start buying my now-newborn food.” The pledge, which took several steps to finish, had “incredible completion rates,” Fiore says. More than two-thirds of visitors who started it completed it, and more than one-third of all pledge-takers finished it more than once. “There’re obviously lots of conversion statistics, but it’s also nice to use your marketing dollars to make somebody’s life a tiny bit better as opposed to just sell a product,” Fiore says. The provocative campaign also proved to be largely free from controversy. While “Do Your Part(ner)” was being developed, Fiore’s team agonized over how to present the content in a way that was suggestive without being offensive. “I was worried about striking the right balance,” Fiore says. “The truth is we were constantly stressed about it. We knew we wanted to be real, but sometimes in being real, you can say things people aren’t ready to hear.” To that end, they largely succeeded, according to Bonnie Ulman, chief insights and planning officer and director of branding at PR agency M Booth. “I tip my hat to the brand’s courage and commitment to expanding the conversation with parents beyond just baby food,” Ulman says. “They have boldly gone beyond messaging about organics and nutrition by addressing a pain point for parents wholly unrelated to food. “The balance is always that line between how far we can push creative to disrupt and engage without leaning so far over the line that the consumer loses the thread and can’t find their way back to the product or brand.” m June 2017 | MArkETInG nEWS
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Multicultural Social Listening Helps Marketers Reach a Broader Audience Brands are listening to various languages on social media to better meet consumer needs and expectations By Sarah Steimer | Staff Writer
ssteimer@ama.org
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ocial listening is a common practice for many organizations. It’s defined as monitoring digital conversations to determine what consumers are saying online about a brand, company and industry. Some organizations, however, may be missing a large audience by limiting themselves to
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social listening in only one language or to only one cultural group. More companies are now realizing the benefits of engaging in multicultural social listening. This attempt to broaden the organization’s ear to hear more conversations opens the opportunity to gain a wider audience, new influencer
opportunities and more nuanced customer feedback. It also proves the company’s interest in giving the audience what it often expects: a very personalized and immediate response. The importance of social listening “I like to think of social listening as the technological version of active listening,” says Sarah Patrick, senior content strategist at Clutch, a company that identifies leading software and professional services firms. “It’s not only checking to see when people are tweeting at your company or messaging you on Facebook, but actively searching for people who are using terms that your business addresses or discussing your company without necessarily using your handle. It’s also a way for a company to seek out areas where they can improve their business or where they can attract new customers, and
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then taking the next steps by offering information of value.” Patrick authored a 2017 report on why businesses should engage in social listening, based on a survey of 300 medium and large businesses that use social listening tools. The survey found 25% of respondents undertake social listening to improve products, 24% do so to attract customers and 21% do so to offer improved customer service. Companies listen to audiences on popular platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, but the report also found 71% listen on Instagram, 65% on YouTube and 27% on Reddit. There are a myriad of social listening options for those interested, ranging from simply setting up Google Alerts to track company and key term mentions to using specialized social listening tools and platforms. The goal is to monitor terms, products or concepts associated with the company or brand across multiple websites, social media channels, forums or news sources. Patrick says one of the greatest opportunities for organizations engaged in social listening is the ability to add value to a consumer’s experience. The way most brands use social media, in general, is to promote personal content, events or products. However, Patrick says social listening allows companies to use materials in a way that helps consumers and adds value. The Clutch report gives the example of an outdoor company that tracked the term “camping” with a social listening tool and came across a question on a forum asking the community for tips on the best tent for camping. The outdoor company has an opportunity to direct the person to a resource, perhaps a blog post on its own website that compares different tent brands—all of which are sold by the company. “People may not know how to use your website as a resource, so you can speak directly to that,” Patrick says. “It’s indirect self-promotion, but it’s done in a way that appeals to the audience because it’s not demanding that they buy a product. It’s showing how their product or resources will help the buyer.”
Listening to other voices Even if your company doesn’t have an in-house employee who speaks a variety of languages, there’s a platform for that. One such offering, Escucha from Boden, focuses on providing users with U.S. Hispanic social insights. The number of Spanish speakers in the U.S. is projected to rise through 2020 to between 39 million and 43 million people, according to a 2011 paper by the U.S. Census Bureau. A 2015 post by Nativa found approximately 9.6 million U.S. Hispanics on Twitter, 31% of whom prefer Spanish. Natalie Asorey, head of social at Boden, points to the $1.5 trillion in purchasing power held by Hispanics in the U.S. She says that while companies may capture a bilingual Twitter or Facebook user in English, adding a cultural nuance helps to drive a brand’s point home. “It really shows the brand understands who that consumer is,” Asorey says. “On Facebook, for example, there are about 20 million active monthly Spanishdominant consumers. That’s more than half of their monthly active users when you look at the entire Hispanic population on Facebook, which is about 31 million. It’s a prime opportunity for brands to engage them in a way that’s not only about the language, but also about being culturally relevant and tapping into what their passion points are.” Asorey says one of the benefits of cultural listening is in finding potential influencers who have already connected with the company’s desired audience. For example, one of Boden’s clients, McDonald’s, identified Johnny Lozada as a key influencer for the company’s Hispanic demographic. Lozada was a member of Puerto Rican boy band Menudo and is a talent on Univision. He previously partnered with McDonald’s for a McCafé coffee campaign, so there was an opportunity to reestablish that connection while also reaching some of his followers. For Lozada’s birthday, McDonald’s put together a gift of two bibs for his granddaughter, McCafé coffee and a
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mug that read “Para el abuelo más cool de la televisión,” or “For the coolest grandpa on TV.” Lozada took a photo of the package and posted it to Twitter, tagging McDonald’s—by way of its U.S. Spanish account @MeEncanta—and the post received numerous likes, retweets and responses. These interactions may have helped create or deepen a connection between McDonald’s and U.S. Spanish speakers following Lozada. Magda Urbaniak, global community manager at social media monitoring company Brand24, says this effort speaks to something that is key to social listening: learning the needs, problems and preferences of the audience a company aims to reach. A big piece of that attempt to understand a potential customer is having regard for a variety of cultures. “Communication is not just about speaking, but also about listening itself,” Urbaniak says. “As the definition points out, we are open to what our public wants to convey to us. Naturally, we respect that there are speakers of many languages. We’re showing other cultures that we not only hear them, but that we are also part of these conversations, ready to react and help. Of course, this allows us to reach the global market.” Urbaniak says communities are more demanding than ever before in terms of brand communication with expectations for a quick and personalized response. The up side of this, she says, is that consumers truly appreciate when their experience is particularly positive. “Social listening is not about reaching a particular cultural, social or linguistic group,” Urbaniak says. “It’s about reaching out to specific individuals. This is both the most difficult and beautiful aspect of social listening: It requires precision, patience and determination, but it is one of the highest-quality roads in which to reach a target audience. Multicultural listening might be challenging, but it is a worthwhile effort to create the highest-quality communication.” m June 2017 | marketing news
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ama intelligence
the middle market
How Marketing Can Make Mergers and Acquisitions Easy A smooth marketing plan can ease transitions and make brands stronger By Hal Conick | Staff Writer
hconick@ama.org
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hen AOL and Time Warner merged in 2000, it was a big deal—$165 billion big. Time Warner executive Ted Turner said the transaction was “better than sex,” words not likely uttered often about mergers and acquisitions (M&A). Most deals aren’t quite so sexy—and as it turns out, neither was AOL-Time Warner’s, as the conglomerate split up after nine years, losing $100 billion— but M&A occurs frequently, especially in the middle market. Investopedia cites common middle market industries, such as health care, technology and financial services, as those where companies are most frequently bought or sold. It’s an especially active time for M&A in the middle market. The Mergermarket Group, an M&A media company, reports
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that dollar volume and deal volume of middle market M&A were both “above their historical averages” in 2016. A report from Citizens Commercial Banking’s “Middle Market M&A Outlook 2017” says that this year will be even more active, as 53% of sellers are open to or currently making a sale, up from 34% in 2016. On the buyers’ side, 73% said they’re currently involved in or open to a deal, up from 60% in 2016. “Buyers are feeling increased pressure to show growth and sellers are eager to get the most for their business while valuations are still high,” writes executive vice president and head of corporate finance and capital markets at Citizens Commercial Bank, Bob Rubino, in the survey’s introduction. Why do so many middle market companies ache to buy? Access to new
industries is the top driver, moving 47% of companies to an acquisition, according to Capstone Strategic’s “State of Middle Market M&A.” Buyers and sellers may both be excited by the prospect of M&A, but how can they be sure they don’t make a mistake à la Turner and AOL? Proper marketing is the first step. Chris Slocumb, president of Clarity Quest Marketing, a company that helps middle market companies create M&A marketing plans, uses a four-phase approach when working on an M&A marketing plan.
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Schedule a pre-announcement meeting with the executive teams. At these meetings, executives
and the marketing team discuss the deal’s timeline, any necessary announcements, how branding will be handled—one important question to ask is which side will take over social media—and what actions each company will take before the first day as one company.
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Break the details apart and paste them back together into a schedule to be followed on day one of the merger. Slocumb says this can be
done by answering questions like: How will PR be involved? How will analysts and the media be informed? When will employees know? “On day one, it tends to be hectic; everyone is pulling their hair out,” Slocumb says. “Having a very precise
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the middle market
schedule from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. of what’s going to happen on an hourly basis is super important.”
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Look forward to the first 100 days of the merger, similar to how pundits look forward to a U.S. president’s first 100 days in office.
Slocumb says marketers should focus on communication, ensuring branding is consistent, the sales cycle is not dropping and teams get on the same page. Unfortunately, this may mean the dirty work of weeding out “bad apples,” or people who are toxic within an organization after a merger.
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Examine day 101 through day 365. Beyond this point,
there should be no more “us and them” language between brands, Slocumb says, unless the brands have purposefully been kept separate. “There should be some commingling of brand messaging by that point,” Slocumb says. An M&A marketing plan must be precise. There are enough moving pieces during M&A without worrying about scaring employees, repelling clients or creating a media frenzy. Slocumb says she has worked with private equity companies that don’t want to make any announcement about a merger, but she does not agree with this philosophy. After all, leaks happen and they can damage a company’s reputation in an instant. “Then it’s really tough, and it puts the sales people in a position to explain everything that’s going on,” she says. “Then the market controls the storyline for you, which could mean your partners, your vendor, or, of course, your competitors [are telling your story]. So we really try and control the story as much as we can.” The Do’s and Don’ts of M&A Five years ago, Carrie Majewski was involved in her first acquisition, which cost her her job. In October 2016, Majewski was working for an IT services firm, Atrion, when it was purchased by Carousel Industries, an IT consulting, management and
integration services company. This time, Majewski was kept on board after the acquisition and became Carousel’s director of marketing. “They did a really wonderful job,” she says. “[Carousel] had some incredibly smart people at the helm that are used to ensuring great success and an expedited yet quality controldriven acquisition process. It was really impressive—not only for the employees, but the clients and stakeholders involved—that Carousel had announced intent to acquire that June and then we were closed by October. It was a pretty fast process.” To ensure merger marketing goes as well as Carousel’s did, Majewski shares some do’s and don’ts. Do remember the customer. Most companies approach acquisitions from a business-centric point of view, Majewski says, which causes them to lose sight of the customer. Customers likely feel the greatest impact when a company they work with or buy from is acquired. In the M&A process, companies must ask questions about what the merger means for customer interactions with the brand, Majewski says, as well as how customers will feel about the brand when the process is finished. “You’ve got to keep your customers in mind and probably err on the side of being overly sensitive to what they’re experiencing,” Majewski says. “There are people who will view this news in an incredibly positive light and be so excited about the ability to work with you, [and there will be] those who are going to ask a lot of questions. Marketing should be providing multiple communication touch points so that you’re working in real time and not coming back to [customers] in a reactionary format.” Don’t wait until the last minute to plan. Slocumb’s four steps of marketing M&A take time, just as any M&A process will. Majewski says marketers must take advantage of having time on their side and begin planning early. Her advice is to start using aggressive
ama intelligence
deadlines; if due diligence typically takes six months, try to complete it in three. Early planning united Majewski’s teams even prior to the announcement of intent to acquire, she says. “We were able to unite as a team very quickly and understand how we were going to create a robust, integrated strategy that accounts for customers, partners, stakeholders and employees.” Don’t waste the opportunity to rebrand. M&A is a unique process that gives two brands a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to converge. Companies should not squander it, Majewski says, as coming together to create a new story, a new mission and new values can be a powerful marketing tool. “It doesn’t have to mean a substantial brand overhaul,” she says. “It can mean something more micro that has great impact. Don’t waste that opportunity to fix what you think was broken or to leverage the strengths of both companies.” Do introduce employees to one another. It may sound simple, but Majewski cites introducing employees to each other as an important moment in Carousel’s M&A process. “We had so many dinners and drinks. We really got our marketing team together first,” she says. “Our company really believed marketing needed to be the first department to be integrated. I couldn’t agree more. Marketing is creating the image and the persona that you want to put out to the market.” Introductions can quell concerns, give employees a sense of what they have to look forward to and cultivate internal communication. Majewski says employees should understand that both companies are moving forward as a united front. “The sooner you make those introductions, have the team break bread, understand what the new roles will look like and how you harness the strength of both of the teams, [the sooner] you’re going to be able to hit the ground running,” Majewski says. m June 2017 | marketing news
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scholarly insights
What’s it Worth to Treat Customers and Employees Well? Research Says $1.1 Billion. Long-term market valuation surges when both employees and customers are happy, but not one or the other By Lance A. Bettencourt
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hen people speak about their love for companies like Southwest Airlines and Chickfil-A, they often praise the companies’ achievements in the realm of customers and employees. Of course, achievements with these two groups need not be connected. Over the past several years, for example, Wal-Mart has been praised
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for leading a campaign to encourage use of long-life light bulbs while also facing allegations of gender discrimination and unsafe working conditions. A paper in the February 2016 issue of the Journal of Marketing Research, titled “Cross-Validation of Customer and Employee Signals and Firm Valuation,” shows that it does indeed
matter. Research reported in the paper demonstrates that achievements with customers have a stronger impact on stock market valuation when the firm also has achievements with employees. And lapses with one group have a bigger negative impact when paired with lapses with the other group. In fact, the research shows that the long-term market valuation of companies that experience publicly known achievements with both customers and employees is 11% higher than the valuation of firms with no achievements or achievements with one group but not the other. As the authors note, this percentage difference “translates into $1.1 billion, based on an average market cap of $10 billion for the S&P 2000.” How was the research done? And what is an “achievement”? To test their expectation that achievements and lapses directed at customers and employees have a bigger impact on market valuation when they are both present, the researchers gathered data on 4,643 firms from the Russell 3000 Index over a
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scholarly insights
ama intelligence
The long-term market valuation of companies that experience publicly known achievements with both customers and employees is 11% higher than the valuation of firms with no achievements.
17-year time frame (1994 to 2010). The researchers gathered financial data and other descriptive information on each company from Compustat. They obtained information on employee- and customerrelated achievements and lapses from the institutional investor research firm Kinder, Lydenberg and Domini (KLD). KLD tracks information about each company from a variety of sources— including a global network of more than 14,000 news sources, quarterly and annual company reports, government agencies, nongovernmental organizations and direct communication with company officers. From these sources, they annually catalog employee- and customer-related achievements and lapses for each company. Customer achievements fall into four areas: quality, research and development/ innovation, benefits to economically disadvantaged and other achievements. Customer lapses fall into four areas: product safety, marketing/contracting concern or controversy, antitrust and other lapses. Employee achievements fall into six areas: union relations, cash profit
sharing, employee involvement, retirement benefits strength, health and safety strength and other achievements. Employee lapses fall into five areas: union relations, health and safety concern, workforce reductions, retirement benefits concern and other lapses. Using the KLD scoring for achievements and lapses as independent variables and data from Compustat to create a market valuation dependent variable, the researchers ran a series of analytical models to test their expectation. The analyses revealed that the effect of customer achievements on market valuation is more positive when employee achievements are also present; the opposite was true for lapses. Further analysis demonstrated that this pattern of results is true for firms that operate in a single business segment (such as 1-800-Flowers) but not true for firms that operate in multiple business segments (such as GE). Investors do the best they can with the information available to them, but they are always faced with partial data as outsiders to a company. As such, they must make inferences about company priorities and value based on observable characteristics and activities. Two sets of these activities of critical importance to investors are employee- and customerdirected activities. As outsiders, investors have more confidence in observable activities when they are consistent with other things that can be observed about the firm. When a company has achievements directed at customers but not employees, this is inconsistent and therefore difficult to
interpret. In contrast, when a company has achievements directed at both customers and employees, investors take this as a signal that the firm takes these relationships seriously. This is especially true because of the cost and difficulty of simultaneously achieving excellence with both customers and employees. For companies, this research shows that the market is watching how customers and employees are treated, not only the immediate effect of these activities on sales and profits. In addition, this research highlights the importance of coordinating significant achievements directed at customers and employees. In isolation, the company may not see the return it envisioned. More broadly, this research reveals the importance of managing signals that the company sends to the market about its priorities and values. In particular, the market can be expected to react to actions the company takes that are costly or difficult to achieve because these are more likely to signal true priorities. The market is also more likely to respond to activities that are credible because they align with other actions and investments the company makes. m Lance A. Bettencourt is a co-founder and managing partner of LIFT PhD, a service that matches corporate decision-makers with the expertise of business school professors. Bettencourt is a distinguished marketing fellow in the Neeley School of Business at Texas Christian University, and author of Service Innovation: How to Go from Customer Needs to Breakthrough Services. June 2017 | marketing news
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mba perspectives
Disney and the Magic of Wearables Wearable technology can provide the seamless experience customers are seeking on their personal journeys By Abhishek Chand, Arjun Krishna, Shraddha Pradhan and Shervin Shahidi
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magine the following scenario: Rosa, an excited 8-year-old from Costa Rica, and her family have arrived in Orlando, Florida, to celebrate her birthday at the Walt Disney World Resort. Upon entering one of Disney World’s restaurants, they are greeted by wait staff who address her family by name. Delighted by this welcome, they sit at a table where their food promptly arrives. All this transpires without the wait staff asking the family where they would like
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to sit or what food they’d like to order. Rosa’s dad remarks that their rides were somehow conveniently timed. To craft this “magic,” Rosa and her family have been wearing MagicBands on their wrists. This wearable technology comes equipped with a radio frequency identification chip that broadcasts the wearer’s identity while at Disney resorts. The waitress at the Magic Kingdom’s Be Our Guest restaurant received Rosa’s name on a screen while Rosa was steps away. She alerted the kitchen staff, who
prepared the food that Rosa’s parents had ordered months ago. Similar receivers in the restaurant’s tables and ceiling triangulate a customer’s location. Without having to ask customers, the wait staff know their order and where they’re sitting. On every step of this customer’s journey, MagicBand facilitated transactions for its wearer. According to a study by Dan Ledger, principal at Endeavor Partners, and SyncStrength behavioral scientist Daniel McCaffrey, user experience is identified as a baseline criterion for ultimate adoption and utilization of wearables. The wearable user experience must seamlessly transcend the hardware and the app to the point of invisible and seamless experience. This closed cycle of real-time data collection and analysis of every step of the customer’s journey portrays an ideal case study for marketers who study consumer rituals. Future marketers should ask themselves how they can weave wearable technology into the customer’s lifestyle
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mba perspectives
ama intelligence
The future of customer experience design is about giving customers what they want, before they know they want it. Achieving this task, of course, comes paired with privacy concerns over data collection. environmental touch points to integrate frictionless transactions into customers’ lifestyles that would reduce waiting times at each stage, from opening doors to paying for food.
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to craft a more advanced customer experience. The following are some key considerations for companies looking to integrate wearable technology into customer experiences.
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In the world of wearables, the customer experience is invisible and seamless.
While wearables are becoming smaller, and companies such as HexoSkin produce biometric fabrics woven into shirts, the driving force of adoption should go beyond the imperceptibility of technologies. Marketers should recognize that wearable adoption can transcend an invisible experience when the technology, intertwined with fabric and body, act seamlessly to deliver utilization and transaction to customers. Customer expectations regarding waiting times are formed through accumulated experience. Marketers can learn from wearable convergence with
Personalization is key to a seamless customer experience.
Customer-centric businesses can enhance customer engagement by delivering a transparent and personalized experience. Strategic Horizons co-founders James Gilmore and Joseph Pine’s “Four Faces of Mass Customization” states that “transparent customizers provide individual customers with unique goods or services without letting them know explicitly that those products and services have been customized for them.” For example, customers are not privy to how Disney World’s staff locates their dining table or speaks their native language. Wearables allow businesses to deliver a transparent customization. Furthermore, wearables can create a customized cultural experience by lowering language barriers. For instance, Waverly Labs has created earpieces that seamlessly translates different languages spoken between two people.
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Invisible customer experience requires data analytics, but what about privacy concerns?
The future of customer experience design is about giving customers what they want before they know they want it. Wearables can collect massive amounts of data that can be used to analyze
consumer behavior from fitness to spending patterns, which can be used to provide customized promotions. Achieving this task, of course, comes paired with privacy concerns over data collection. A great way to overcome this is through experimentation within a controlled ecosystem. Take for instance the Nimb Smart Ring, which acts as an accessible SOS beacon, broadcasting one’s location to both loved ones and emergency response services in case of an emergency. When the benefits outweigh the consumer’s security concerns, a trade-off is facilitated.
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The future of wearables will be about dialogue.
Whether the customer taps a button or a waitress receives a broadcasted signal, today’s wearables limit customer experience to a one-way interaction from the wearer to the receivers and data servers. The customer experience can be elevated by significantly leveraging two-way communication where technology transforms the customer from a passive element to a dynamic player. Rosa is growing up in a world where wearable technology will shape every facet of her lifestyle. Not only will she enjoy an enhanced experience, but she will be able to personalize the environment around her. Perhaps one day, she can create magic in the real world; until that day comes, she can always fly to Orlando to get a glimpse of the future. m
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Research methods
The Uncertain Future of Market Research As sources of data increase and the window between data gathering and insight generation decreases, market research’s legacy methods must evolve
By Gordon Wyner
gordon@msi.org
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he future of market research is uncertain due to ongoing changes within marketing and the surrounding business environment. Research ought to continue to play an important role, but it might be quite different in the evolving marketing ecosystem with the increasingly complex mix of marketers, media, service providers, agencies, data, tools and technologies. Rather than being a separate activity, standing outside of the daily operation of the business, research may become more embedded within the business itself. The design of market research— the blueprint for data collection, measurement and analysis—provides a useful lens to frame the possibilities for the discipline. Three of the most important types of designs are the survey, observation and experiment. The popular business media might give the impression that Big Data (gathered through observation rather than surveys or experiments) will become bigger and drown out other approaches. There are reasons to question the desirability and inevitability of this outcome. Trends in current practices with each of these designs give some indication of their prospects in the future of market research. Surveys A key strength of the survey is its accurate representation of a population through random sampling selection. Other tools focus on narrower (e.g., current customers) and even sometimes
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artificially drawn populations (e.g., laboratory subjects). Surveys also enable measurement of a wide range of perceptions, intentions, attitudes and behavior that are not easily measured in other ways. However, the validity of measurement is always a challenge. The random probability sample has faded from use and been replaced by data-driven methods of “engineering” sample representativeness to achieve a predetermined balance. Declining completion rates have raised questions about the soundness of the new approaches. Validation tools, such as linking surveys to actual in-market behaviors, provide important support for specific applications such as ad testing. User-friendly questionnaire-building tools have enabled broader deployment of the technique by non-specialists. The result is not always good, such as when customer satisfaction surveys are conducted by sales and service representatives with an obvious, sometimes explicitly stated, vested interest in the outcome. Significant parts of the survey process can be conducted by robots. Continuation of these trends would lead to a mix of positive and negative outcomes. Once the mainstay of market research, the survey is no longer the preeminent tool. Observation Observation once required substantial human effort to see consumers in
their “natural habitat.” The big shift is to observation of many behaviors via computer-controlled sensors. The observation method is valued for its realism, requiring less intrusion on consumers than survey questionnaires and creating less opportunity for imposing biases through question construction. Passively observed behavior is expected to be a more accurate reflection than other methods. Observation generates a fast-growing source of data that can be used for research purposes. Consumer products increasingly have sensors that capture behavior in non-obtrusive ways—in cars, homes and appliances. Service interactions are routinely captured as data in doctors’ offices, phone calls, bank interactions and just about every place a consumer makes purchases with credit, debit or other electronic payment methods. Add to these examples the spreading array of apps that perform specific functions for the consumer—such as comparison shopping, making recommendations and issuing directions—all while generating time-specific data in the form of shopper journeys, consideration sets, reviews, opinions and locations. What makes this cornucopia of data useful as marketing information is the technology to capture and organize it and perform advanced, real-time analysis. The depth and granularity of information on consumers goes well beyond what could be imagined in the prime of survey methods. Traditional predictive analytics are being preempted by artificial intelligence capabilities that attempt to anticipate and deliver against consumer requirements, for example refilling recurring purchases of household goods based on inventory, usage rate and available offers; dynamically pricing offers based on real-time demand (e.g., Uber) or managing your health via real-time feedback on physiological metrics (e.g., Fitbit). The fact that early applications of these technologies don’t always operate smoothly doesn’t diminish their potential to improve over time as more data is gathered and software is upgraded. The 2017 Marketing Science Institute conference co-sponsored by UCLA,
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research methods
“Harnessing Marketing Analytics for Business Impact,” featured multiple instances of this pattern of increasing ability of analytics to help operate a business at scale. The abundance of data and tools put great pressure on marketing to perform. At the same time the obstacles to success are still substantial due to the size and complexity of the data and the inherent unpredictability of some of the phenomena of interest. Ironically, as pointed out by UCLA Professor Randy Bucklin, continued improvement and success in analytics could lead to a reduced need for human researchers and analysts due to automation. There’s no specific prediction of when this might happen, but the direction seems clear. Experiments Experimental methods have been available for a long time. However they’ve been limited in marketing applications, possibly due to the
difficulty and resource requirements to build controlled environments. The spread of digital technology to more aspects of life creates more ways to alter the environment via software for testing purposes. A test market need not be a physical or geographic location but a virtually defined group that is randomly assigned to alternative marketing such as ads, product concepts and prices. The vast volumes of traffic, purchase and consumption that flow through the internet create greater opportunities for systematically varying the relevant elements of the ecosystem. Experiments have the advantage of isolating cause-and-effect relationships, thanks to randomization of independent variables. Other methods can only approach causality via assumptions and advanced analytics. Experiments have the advantage over other methods for testing phenomena, such as marketing stimuli, which don’t currently exist in the market. There is potential to avoid limitations of just improving past performance within
executive insights
existing business models. Experimental research is limited by the creativity of the researchers to develop new concepts and to create reasonable approximations to test in market. Experimentation can control the noise that sometimes clouds inferences from analyses of observational data. It has the potential to correct for serious biases that can occur. In the case of advertising testing, researchers have developed creative ways to statistically adjust groups of people who have become exposed via natural (not randomly controlled) processes. They have refined the matching of respondents in exposed versus non-exposed groups to achieve better results. Yet, direct comparisons between methods show an alarming amount of variability in outcomes. Research is needed to explain the reasons and ideally lead to improved designs. Experimentation can serve as a “check and balance” on long-standing but possibly biased practices that estimate impact via analysis of observational data. There is renewed interest in experimentation in marketing practice, still mostly based on A/B or test/control designs. More sophisticated designs can magnify the impact and ROI of changes that are introduced into the market. For example, multi-factor designs that systematically alter many variables at once and response surface designs that lead to optimizing outcomes (e.g., usage, revenue and profit) can be even more powerful than simple designs. Technology may dictate the nature and amount of growth in the various methods of market research. Its influence on marketing-related behaviors almost ensures that research will follow its lead. It seems inevitable that observational data will increase its share of marketing research compared to surveys and experiments. The use cases for alternatives to digital observational data will have to prove that other methods produce more accurate results and that the impact translates to better business outcomes. m GordoN wyNer is research director at the Marketing Science Institute. June 2017 | marketing news
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executive insights
brand activism
Brands With Purpose, Not Politics Though the pressure is high to be a brand with an agenda, taking a political stance doesn’t grow the brand and can negatively impact stock value
By J. Walker Smith
jwalker.smith@kantarfutures.com
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olitics is risky business for brands, yet brands are under pressure like never before to take political stances. Activist consumers have carried their politics over to retail products. Despite these pressures, brands should think twice, even thrice, before jumping into politics. Brands are not politicians. Taking a political stance makes a brand a lobbying or advocacy group. While this may appeal to all or part of a brand’s consumers, taking a political stance means that a brand is pushing a political agenda on behalf of an interested constituency. Unlike political groups, brands can’t win by doing so. Political operators can win by dividing and conquering, and they do so routinely. Politicians and political causes emerge victorious with the narrowest of margins. It only takes one more vote. That’s not how brands win. To grow, brands have to keep rolling up bigger numbers of buyers. They can’t afford to alienate a large percentage of their buyer base. It is assumed by many that brands can grow by strengthening loyalty through explicit political actions that align with the beliefs and interests of their core consumers. However, loyalty is not how brands grow. The notion of loyalty as a driver of growth doesn’t make sense in most categories. Repeat buying just keeps a brand even with current demand. Loyalty must inspire more purchasing if it is to drive growth. Consider a consumer who
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replaces the tires on a car with the same brand. That demand stays the same from one purchase occasion to the next— but that’s not growth. If that customer replaces tires more frequently than is necessary or buys a fifth or a sixth tire for a car, that would be growth through loyalty, but neither scenario makes any sense. This sort of quandary about loyalty is true in most categories. Loyalty is important for sustaining current demand, but not for growing the brand. The work of University of South Australia marketing science professor Byron Sharp, especially his 2010 book, How Brands Grow, has shown that brands grow by building penetration, not by strengthening loyalty. Kantar Worldpanel tracks more than 200 fastmoving consumer goods (FMCG) categories in 39 countries, accounting for 76% of global GDP, and its data show the same. In 2015, only 47% of all FMCG brands grew, but of those, 79% grew because they gained buyers. Among brands that declined, 84% declined because they lost shoppers. The takeaway is clear: Brands must have widespread, crosscutting appeal in order to grow. Brands can’t burrow into a niche and expect to gain market share. As Sharp has noted, niche brands are a popular misconception. It turns out that so-called niche brands are not niche; they are just small brands with customer bases that are few in number and not really differentiated. Locking a brand into a niche limits its opportunities for growth.
Brands have to appeal across the board and bring many different people together. Unlike politicians, brands can’t win with a divide-and-conquer strategy. Brands win only through unification. Big brands are big because they unite a diverse group of consumers with divergent values and preferences. At its best, marketing is a powerful unifying force. Brands prefer to build their franchises on common ground. Politicians would do well to emulate brands, rather than the other way around. Of course, politics is inherently divisive, so common ground may not serve the purposes of politicians. For brands, unifying consumers is essential. Activist consumers are unlikely to let brands off the hook. Victories not won at the polls can be prosecuted all over again in the marketplace, where another tactic is within easy reach. During the last election cycle—and especially after it was over—boycotts sprung up left and right. Brands that made missteps or didn’t move fast enough to show proper allegiance were faced with boycotts for their transgressions. Target was the subject of a boycott over its bathroom policy. Kellogg’s, too, over steps to keep its programmatic ads from appearing on Breitbart. Budweiser was criticized for a Super Bowl ad commemorating its immigrant founder. On the other side of the political spectrum, dozens of companies have been singled out for boycotts largely because of ties to or support of President Donald Trump, including Nordstrom, Uber, MillerCoors, Amazon and NASCAR. Macy’s has been attacked from both sides, first for pulling Trumpbranded merchandise, then for not pulling Ivanka Trump’s products. Yet brands need not quaver in the face of boycotts. Some boycotts can be very effective, such as those against local businesses or the boycott of Nike during the 1990s over child labor. But most boycotts fizzle out. U.S. sales of French wine dropped 26% over France’s efforts to thwart international support of the invasion of Iraq, but sales recovered quickly and were soon back to trend line.
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brand activism
National boycotts have an effect when they are directed against a single firm and led by a major organization that can fund sustained media coverage. It helps if the boycotted firm is high on the Fortune 500 because companies of that size make for good press. But even sustained, properly managed national boycotts don’t affect sales very much. When they work, they affect brand reputation, which in turn affects stock price. That gets a company’s attention. Research by Northwestern University business professor Brayden King finds that for these kinds of boycotts, stock values drop by an average of 0.5% on the day the boycott hits national media, then a little more than
that for each day of media coverage. The vast majority of boycotts don’t operate in this way, though. In aggregate, only about 25% of boycotts result in any sort of concession from the targeted company. While it is smart and safe for brands to ignore politics and to make most boycotts a secondary concern, this is not to say that brands can sit on the sidelines. Politics and lifestyles can no longer be treated separately. Lifestyles are the central focus of brands, so as politics and lifestyles blend, brands will need a new vocabulary for addressing consumers. Employees, partners and investors care a lot about the values and character of those with whom they work, so they will put brands under a tighter
executive insights
microscope. Increasingly, brands are finding themselves as the proctor of last resort for enforcing civility and decency in public life. Even more, brands are the last bastion of optimism in a wary world cloven into rival political factions. Brands must answer these challenges with purpose, not with politics. Political brands will get lost in a scrum of bitter divisiveness. Brands make a difference that matters when they take a stand as brands with purpose, not a political agenda. m J. Walker Smith is executive chairman of Kantar Futures, part of the Kantar Group of WPP, and co-author of four books, including Rocking the Ages. Follow him on Twitter at @jwalkersmith. June 2017 | marketing news
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The 2017
AMA Gold Top 50 Report
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Photographer: Lisa Predko, Assistants: Jacqueline Ayala, Tom Michas Food Stylist & Catering: Andrea Donadio Model: Sarah Uchison Retouching: Tom Michas
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In
Review The revenue generated by the U.S. market research industry in 2016 was $11.584 billion, according to this analysis—the 44th annual AMA Gold Top 50 Report. This figure is based on the revenue of the top 50 companies along with 152 other member companies of the Insights Association, the national association of the marketing research and analytics industry, which was formed through the 2017 merger of CASRO and MRA. All of these 202 companies are for-profit, fullservice research firms whose areas of expertise and specialization reflect the breadth of our changing and expanding research industry. In February, we invited about 75 companies to participate in the annual top 50 ranking of U.S. research companies. These companies were asked to submit 2016 U.S. and non-U.S. research revenues, as well as the comparable data for 2015, to determine the annual rate of revenue growth or decline. If a firm made an acquisition or divestiture during 2016 or 2015, we made adjustments to ensure an apples-to-apples comparison. The U.S. revenue of the Top 50 companies in 2016 is $10.552 billion, or 91% of the total annual revenue reported by the 202 companies. Non-U.S. revenue for the top 50 companies in 2016 totaled $12.195 billion, or 53.6% of the total revenue of the worldwide top 50, which is $22.747 billion. The top 50 chart lists the U.S. and non-U.S. annual revenue for 2016 and 2015, the year-over-year growth and the number of full-time U.S. employees. In addition, we have provided profiles of each of the top 50 companies that include the names of the chief executives and a description of the company’s accomplishments, major services, acquisitions and divestitures in 2016 and plans for 2017.
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The additional 152 Insights Association member companies reported a total of $1.032 billion in U.S. revenue in 2016. The median U.S. revenue of these 152 companies is $1.5 million while the average is $6.8 million. Thirty-seven percent of the 152 companies conduct research outside of the U.S. These 56 companies accounted for a total of $392 million in non-U.S. revenue in 2016. The median non-U.S. revenue of these 56 companies is $800,000, and the average is $7 million.
A Detailed Look
2016 U.S. revenue for the 202 companies in this report is $11.584 billion—a growth rate of 5.7%. After adjustment for inflation using the Consumer Price Index (CPI) of 1.3%, the real-growth rate for 2016 is 4.4%. In 2015, the growth rate reported by the Top 50 Report was 4.8%, or 4.7% real growth when adjusted for a 0.1% CPI inflation rate. Given that the U.S. economy in 2016 was “tepid” (as some economists termed it) the U.S. research industry in 2016 maintained a strong year-over-year growth rate, even when adjusted by a higher inflation rate. The chart of the Top 50 Reports for the past decade from 2006 to 2016 (Figure 1) shows the decline in growth through the recession, followed by several years of slow recovery, and, in 2015 and 2016, a significant increase of more than 4% in the industry’s real growth rate. We can also look to the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) as another benchmark. The annual U.S. GDP shows the yearly growth of the estimated value of all the country’s goods produced and services provided. The U.S. research industry’s annual growth rate, historically, has tracked ahead of the annual GDP realgrowth rate, except in 2009 and 2012. The U.S. research industry’s growth rate exceeded the GDP growth rate by 2% in 2015 and doubled that figure in 2016 to 4%. In the past two years the U.S. research industry has been significantly healthier than the U.S. economy. The question before us is: Will this positive growth trend continue in 2017 and beyond?
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Figure 1 - growth of The Top 50 market research firms from 2006 to 2016
The Employment Picture
In 2016, the number of full-time U.S. employees in the research industry increased substantially, with the top 50 firms reporting a 6.8% increase in employment. The employment for the top 50 and the additional 152 research company members of the Insights Association reached the highest threshold ever of more than 40,000 employees, an 8.4% increase over 2015. The previous zenith occurred five years ago, when 204 companies (the top 50 plus 154 CASRO members) reported 38,305 full-time employees.
Revenue Per Employee
It is useful to look at the revenue per employee both among the top 50 companies and for the other Insights Association member research companies. For the top 50 companies the revenue per full-time employee in 2016 was $287,000. Figure 3 shows how revenue per employee for the top 50 has trended over the past decade. The top 50 companies are weighted toward large database companies, audience measurement and other syndicated services. It is interesting to note that the revenue per full-time employee among the smaller custom research companies that comprise the 152 other Insights Association members was $272,000 in 2016.
Changes in Top 50 List
New This Year There are seven new top 50 companies. At No. 2 on the list is QuintilesIMS. In October 2016, IMS Health, a global provider of information, research and technology services for the health care industry, merged with Quintiles, a contract research organization for the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device industries, to create a major company in the field of health care intelligence. (Previously, IMS Health had been a top 10 company on the AMA Gold Top 50 list.) At No. 22 is Informa Financial Intelligence, a new company established by Informa plc that combines six business intelligence and research entities that serve the financial industry, including Informa Research Services, EPFR Global, Informa Global Markets, iMoneyNet, Informa Investment Solutions and eBenchmarkers. (Informa Research Services has previously been included in the top 50 list.) At No. 25 is Market Force, which specializes in providing location-level customer experience management services, including mystery shopping and customer experience and employee engagement surveys. At No. 29 is MACROMILL, a global online panel company that combines two major business units, Macromill—headquartered in Tokyo—and MetrixLab, headquartered in Rotterdam, Netherlands.
Top 50 Report In Year . . .
Number of Research Companies Included in the Top 50 Report
Total U.S. Research Revenue (billions) Included in the Top 50
Annual Revenue Growth Rate for the Companies Included in the Top 50 Report %
Real Growth Rate (%) in the Top 50 Report After CPI Adjustment
2006
207
$7.7
6.6
3.4
2007
200
$8.6
6.0
3.2
2008
196
$8.9
1.6
-2.2
2009
203
$8.6
-3.7
-3.3
2010
199
$9.2
4.7
3.1
2011
204
$9.2
5.1
1.9
2012
207
$9.5
1.7
-.4
2013
196
$10.7
3.6
2.1
2014
192
$10.6
3.2
1.6
2015
185
$11.2
4.8
4.7
2016
202
$11.6
5.7
4.4
At No. 35 is Simmons Research, which measures consumers’ preferences, behaviors and attitudes through its proprietary study, the National Consumer Survey (NCS). At No. 38 is Maru/Matchbox, a sector-focused consumer intelligence and consulting firm, featuring online insight communities and market communities. At No. 49 is Hypothesis, a creative and consumer insights agency, specializing in innovation/ideation labs and data visualization. Not Here This Year There are five previous top 50 companies that are not on the list this year:
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The 2017
AMA Gold Top 50 Report
Percentage Points
figure 2 - growth rates of market research industry top 50 firms and u.s. gdp from 2006 to 2016
Growth Rate of the Top 50 U.S. Research Firms
7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 -1
U.S. Research Industry Net Increase/Decline Compared to Real GDP Growth Rate
-2 -3
Real GDP Growth Rate*
-4 2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
*Bureau of Economic Analysis and World Bank
26
• ComScore could not participate because the audit committee is restating financial results for the past three years to correct previous reporting of non-monetary income. • J.D. Power was acquired by XIO Group in 2016 and does not choose to disclose financial information. • Rentrak merged with comScore in February 2016. • Market Probe and Public Opinion Strategies chose not to participate in the report this year.
Of the companies that experienced a double-digit increase, there were three companies that achieved 50% or more year-over-year growth in 2016: • LRA by Deloitte, a customer experience measurement company, recorded a 56.7% increase. • Fors Marsh Group, with a focus on applied cognition and user experience, public policy and behavioral research, had a 54% increase. • Hypothesis, whose large global brand trackers contributed to its revenue increase, grew by 50%.
Top 50 Revenue Increases and Decreases The Top 50 Report in 2016 includes 19 companies with double-digit increases in revenue, 16 companies with single-digit increases that exceed inflation and 13 companies that are flat (did not exceed the rate of inflation) or had a decrease in revenues. In addition, there are two newly formed companies (Informa Financial Intelligence and Maru/Matchbox) that did not have reportable revenue in 2015 and, consequently, no year-over-year growth rate to report.
In 2016 as compared to previous years, it is notable that fewer companies reported flat or negative growth rates and that downturns were less severe than in past reports. The average rate of change for the 13 companies that reported flat or negative growth in 2016 is zero. Figure 4 compares U.S. revenue increases and decreases for the top 50 companies in 2016 and 2015.
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Figure 3 - Revenue Per Full-time Employee at Top 50 Companies
$304,000 $291,000 $274,000 $259,000
$258,000
$257,000
$287,000
$263,000
$239,000
$241,000 $215,000
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
Moving Up Companies moving up three or more positions are: • Fors Marsh Group (up seven positions from No. 44 to No. 37), derives almost all of its revenue from government research. • Wood MacKenzie (up five positions from No. 16 to No. 11), specializes in research for the energy, metals and mining industries. • LRW (up five positions from No. 20 to No. 15), emphasizes marketing science, integrated data and modeling and analytic techniques in its global consulting and research services. • LRA by Deloitte (up five positions from No. 37 to No. 32) is a global provider of customer experience measurement services for multinational companies. • Burke (up four positions from No. 22 to No. 18), provides custom research services with a primary focus on brand strategy, innovation, product development, retailer and shopper insights, customer engagement, health care and employee engagement.
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
• C Space (up four positions from No. 23 to No. 19), focuses on building ongoing relationships with customers—online and in-person—to cultivate connections between businesses and their customers. • Convergys Analytics (up three positions from No. 24 to No. 21), focuses on customer experience outsourcing, improving the customer experience through analytics and consulting solutions. • The Link Group (up three positions from No. 43 to No. 40), provides qualitative and quantitative research, focusing on positioning and branding, ethnography, emotional insights and segmentation.
The Top Ten
Three Moved Up There has been some upward movement into the top 10 companies with the absence of comScore and J.D. Power from this year’s top 50. • With its information assets, analytic and tracking services and consultative expertise in more than 20
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The 2017
AMA Gold Top 50 Report
Figure 4 - top 50 revenue increases and decreases from 2015 to 2016
Double-digit Revenue Increases
Single-digit Increases That Exceed Inflation Rate
Flat (Increase Does Not Exceed Inflation Rate) and Revenue Decreases
Year
2015
2016
Number of Companies
14
19
Avg. Rate of Change
21.9%
19.2%
Total Revenue (Billions)
$1.379
$2.455
Number of Companies
19
16
Avg. Rate of Change
4.0%
3.6%
Total Revenue (Billions)
$7.023
$3.498
Number of Companies
17
13
Avg. Rate of Change
-8.3%
0.0%
Total Revenue (Billions)
$2.118
$4.513
industries, The NPD Group moved up from No. 9 last year to No. 8 in 2016. • ICF International, which focuses its research and consulting services on government, educational and nonprofit agencies, moved up from No. 11 to No. 9 on this year’s list. • Abt SRBI (now, Abt Associates), specializing in research, evaluation and program implementation
in health care, social policy and international development, moved up three places (from No. 13 in 2015) to join the top 10 companies on the report. The Other Seven Maintaining the seventh position on the list for the past seven years is GfK, which in that time has strengthened its presence in the U.S. while sustaining more than 80% of its annual revenue from outside the U.S. in 100 other countries. No. 6 on the top 10 list, Westat, continues its significant work for the U.S. government, providing statistical, survey and evaluation studies of programs and policies. No. 5 Ipsos has five research specializations operating in 88 countries: Ipsos Marketing, Ipsos Connect, Ipsos Loyalty, Ipsos Public Affairs and Ipsos Observer. No. 4 IRI delivers market, consumer and media exposure information; prescriptive analytics and technology platforms through offices in 15 other countries. No. 3 Kantar, the data investment management division of WPP plc, includes Added Value, Kantar Health, Kantar Media, Kantar Retail, Kantar Worldpanel, Lightspeed, Millward Brown, TNS, The Futures Company and Benenson Strategy Group. No. 2 QuintlesIMS was mentioned earlier in this article. No. 1 is Nielsen, which alone accounts for more than 30% of the total U.S. 2016 annual revenue and more than 20% of the total non-U.S. 2016 research revenue generated by the top 50. Nielsen Holdings PLC is a global media and consumer measurement and data company with offices and presence in more than 100 countries. These top 10 companies account for almost 73.8% of the total U.S. revenue represented by the 202 companies in this year’s Top 50 Report. The actual dollar figure is $8.553 billion out of the total of $11.584 billion. Add to this their formidable non-U.S. research revenues, which total $10.792 billion, and the top 10 represent a world powerhouse of research. The non-U.S. revenues of the top 10 represent 85.7% of the total non-U.S. revenues in the Top 50 Report.
Revenue by Industry Served and by Type of Service We asked the top 50 companies to estimate the percentage of their annual U.S. revenue by the client
Methodology
Invitations are sent in February of each year to market research firms with estimated revenue greater than $15 million requesting revenue information for the prior calendar year and for the year preceding that, in order to assess the growth rate. Other company data are also requested, including a description of the company’s management, services, specializations, etc. Top 50 rankings are based on U.S. revenue. The rate of growth from year to year has been adjusted to account for revenue gains or losses from acquisitions or divestitures. Verification of revenue is required of each private firm for ranking by a third party, generally an outside accounting firm.
28
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About the Authors
Industry
Media, Advertising, Entertainment Health Care Products, Services, OTC Medicines Government, Associations, Nonprofits, Public Service Consumer Durables, Non-Durables Technology Consulting Telecommunications Financial Services and Insurance Retailers/Wholesalers Automotive Education Restaurants/Fast Food/Food and Beverage Utilities Hospitality/Travel/Tourism Agricultural/Grower Co-ops Political/Legal Audience Measurement
Type of Service
industry and to estimate the percentage of revenue by the type of service they provided to their clients. The first question is often included in our industry financial benchmarking studies, as well as in the annual ESOMAR Global Market Research Report, so the data are useful for comparative purposes. The second question aligns with our efforts to assess and measure the transformation of the industry, including new markets, new methods and new tools. The data in this second question provide a touch point for us to gauge whether and to what extent the top 50 companies are exploring and/or investing in new services and new approaches. The Insights Association and the AMA have been working cooperatively with Michigan State University’s Research Transformed Collaborative, under the leadership of Michael Brereton, adjunct professor at MSU’s Broad School of Business. In the AMA Global Top 25 Report that will be published this fall, we will provide a progress report on research industry transformation—the growth and impact on the research industry from advanced predictive analytics, social media integration and analytics, enterprise feedback management, neuroscience and mobile market intelligence, among other programs and services. We will continue to collaborate with our national and international association colleagues, in particular, the other national research business associations in the Global Research Business Network (GRBN), as well as with ESOMAR.
Figure 5 - top 50 revenue breakdown by industry and service
Custom Research Syndicated Research Advisory and Consulting Data Collection
Diane Bowers is a consultant to the Insights Association, the national
Data Analytics
association for the research and analytics industry and profession, established in 2017 through the merger of CASRO and MRA. Previously, she served as the president of CASRO. Bowers is on the board of directors of The Roper Center for Public Opinion Research at Cornell University, chair of the Executive Management Board of the Global Research Business Network (GRBN) and a board member of the Americas Research Industry Alliance (ARIA). She is also a past president of the Market Research Council and the Research Industry Coalition and a long-time member of AAPOR, AMA and ESOMAR.
Qualitative Ad Tracking/Copy Testing Financial Services and Insurance Online Panels/Communities/Sampling Automotive Social Media Measurement
Michael Brereton is currently with the marketing faculty at
Enterprise Feedback Management
Michigan State University’s Eli Broad Graduate School of Management. In 2014, Brereton retired from the role of president and CEO of Maritz Research, a position that he served in since 2003. Brereton’s industry leadership roles have included serving as a long-time board member as well as board chair of CASRO; founding chair for the CASRO Institute for Research Quality (CIRQ), an ISO certification body; advisory board chair for Michigan State University’s master of science in marketing research program; and advisory board member for Southern Illinois University’s master of marketing research program. Also contributing to this article was Rahul Sahgal, founder and CEO of Annik, a leading data analytics outsourcing company in India.
Auditing (mystery shopping) Biometrics and Sensory Data Processing Expert Witness (jury/legal) Software Development
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22
19
17
24
18
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21
20
15
21
15
14
20
12
13
23
14
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16
11
7
13
7
6
10
6
5
9
5
4
11
4
3
9
3
2
8
1
--
1
U.S. Rank 2017 2016
Market Force**
PRS IN VIVO
Morpace
Informa Financial Intelligence
Convergys Analytics**
Market Strategies International
C Space**
Burke
ORC International
NRC Health
LRW (Lieberman Research Worldwide)
dunnhumby**
DRG (Decision Resources Group)**
MaritzCX
Wood Mackenzie****
Abt SRBI
Louisville, CO
Teaneck, NJ
Farmington Hills, MI
Calabasas, CA
Cincinnati, OH
Livonia, MI
Boston, MA
Cincinnati, OH
Princeton, NJ
Lincoln, NE
Los Angeles, CA
Cincinnati, OH
Burlington, MA
Lehi, UT
New York, NY
New York, NY
burke.com
2005
1972
1975
2016
1998
1989
marketforce.com
prsresearch.com
morpace.com
financialintelligence.informa.com
convergys.com/analytics
marketstrategies.com
cspace.com
1931 1999
orcinternational.com
nrchealth.com
lrwonline.com
dunnhumby.com
decisionresourcesgroup.com
maritzcx.com
woodmac.com
abtsrbi.com
icf.com
npd.com
gfk.com
westat.com
ipsos-na.com
iriworldwide.com
kantar.com
quintilesims.com
nielsen.com
Website
1938
1981
1973
2001
1990
1973
1973
1965
1967
1966
Fairfax, VA
Port Washington, NY
The NPD Group
ICF International
1934
1963
1975
1979
1993
2016
1923
Year Founded
New York, NY
Rockville, MD
New York, NY
Chicago, IL
New York, NY
Danbury, CT; Durham, NC
New York, NY
U.S. Headquarters
GfK
Westat
Ipsos
IRI
Kantar** ˚
QuintilesIMS***
Nielsen
Organization
$48.0
$51.0
$52.7
$54.0
$60.2
$64.3
$66.6
$71.1
$76.2
$91.1
$103.3
$109.0
$128.0
$128.5
$132.8
$142.2
$163.7
$259.0
$310.2
$500.7
$568.0
$631.4
$994.0
$1,358.0
$3,626.0
U.S. Market˚
4.4%
10.9%
-5.0%
--
8.1%
-6.8%
2.6%
6.3%
-8.6%
8.1%
11.5%*
-0.9%
6.2%
15.4%
-5.5%*
19.2%
5.8%
12.1%
-10.3%
1.9%
3.1%*
4.4%
2.2%
20.5%*
0.0%
U.S. Market YOY % Change
$7.0
$46.0
$7.4
$28.8
$7.2
$1.1
$16.8
$8.9
$42.3
$4.9
$41.1
$320.0
$50.0
$40.7
$310.0
$5.0
$59.6
$82.0
$1,367.0
$10.8
$1,394.0
$395.3
$2,853.0
$1,943.0
$2,683.0
Non-U.S. Market˚
$55.0
$97.0
$60.1
$82.8
$67.4
$65.4
$83.4
$80.0
$118.5
$96.0
$144.4
$429.0
$178.0
$169.2
$442.8
$147.2
$223.3
$341.0
$1,677.2
$511.5
$1,962.0
$1,026.7
$3,847.0
$3,301.0
$6,309.0
Worldwide Total˚
2016 Research Revenue
T h e 2 0 1 7 AMA Gold T o p 5 0 R e p o rt
12.7%
47.4%
12.3%
34.8%
10.7%
1.7%
20.1%
11.1%
35.7%
5.1%
28.5%
74.6%
28.1%
24.1%
70.0%
3.4%
26.7%
24.0%
81.5%
2.1%
71.0%
38.5%
74.2%
58.9%
42.5%
% Non-U.S.
300
150
187
400
250
254
321
269
307
357
547
235
560
579
300
1,198
1,016
1,035
915
1,922
2,192
1,665
3,300
5,261
9,646
2016 U.S. Full-time Employees
$46.0
$46.0
$55.5
--
$55.7
$69.0
$64.9
$66.9
$83.4
$84.3
$82.8
$110.0
$120.5
$111.4
$109.5
$119.3
$154.7
$231.1
$345.9
$491.4
$544.0
$605.0
$973.0
$1,127.0
$3,606.0
U.S. Market˚
$6.0
$41.0
$7.2
--
$6.7
$1.6
$15.7
$8.1
$38.9
$5.2
$37.0
$330.0
$47.1
$40.2
$255.2
$5.1
$64.7
$76.6
$1,351.8
$18.3
$1,423.0
$376.0
$2,737.0
$1,794.0
$2,566.0
Non-U.S. Market˚
$52.0
$87.0
$62.7
--
$62.4
$70.6
$80.6
$75.0
$122.3
$89.5
$119.8
$440.0
$167.6
$151.6
$364.7
$124.4
$219.4
$307.7
$1,697.7
$509.7
$1,967.0
$981.0
$3,710.0
$2,921.0
$6,172.0
Worldwide Total˚
2015 Research Revenue
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--
47
49
50
Norwalk, CT
Los Angeles, CA
Hypothesis, Inc.
RTi Research
Boston, MA
Chadwick Martin Bailey
Syracuse, NY
1979
2000
1984
1983
1976
rtitesearch.com
hypothesisgroup.com
cmbinfo.com
ksrinc.com
bellomyresearch.com
gongos.com
$17.0
$17.7
$18.8
$19.0
$19.8
$21.1
$21.8
5.0%
5.7%
3.4%
5.9%
-2.3%
50.0%
25.3%
-13.6%
11.2%
1.0%
4.3%
12.2%
-0.8%
12.0%
27.5%
-1.4%*
-
54.0%
1.9%
-0.9%
2.1%
14.5%
56.7%
2.3%
11.3%
15.4%
10.8%
11.7%
$12,587.0
$392.0
$12,195.0
$0.0
$0.0
$0.0
$1.5
$0.0
$2.1
$0.0
$0.6
$70.4
$6.6
$1.6
$1.0
$10.0
$0.0
$1.0
$0.0
$2.0
$0.2
$7.3
$1.3
$20.9
$255.0
$0.0
$83.2
$5.4
Non-U.S. Market˚
$24,171.9
$1,424.2
$22,747.7
$17.0
$17.7
$18.8
$20.5
$19.8
$23.2
$21.8
$22.7
$95.1
$32.8
$28.0
$28.6
$40.4
$31.1
$33.6
$33.3
$36.2
$35.0
$46.8
$40.9
$61.3
$300.0
$45.0
$129.9
$53.3
Worldwide Total˚
2016 Research Revenue U.S. Market YOY % Change
52.1%
27.5%
53.6%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
7.3%
0.0%
9.1%
0.0%
2.6%
74.0%
20.1%
5.7%
3.5%
24.8%
0.0%
3.0%
0.0%
5.5%
0.6%
15.6%
3.2%
34.1%
85.0%
0.0%
64.0%
10.1%
% Non-U.S.
40,551
3,800
36,751
55
44
66
152
135
133
76
73
100
97
66
158
90
136
104
99
135
145
440
330
120
250
143
156
282
2016 U.S. Full Time Employees
$10,961.1
$998.4
$9,962.7
$17.4
$11.8
$15.0
$22.0
$17.8
$20.9
$20.9
$19.7
$24.9
$23.4
$20.7
$28.0
-
$20.2
$32.0
$33.6
$33.5
$30.4
$25.2
$38.7
$36.3
$39.0
$40.6
$41.8
$45.6
$12,048.9
$365.5
$11,683.4
$0.0
$0.0
$0.0
$2.8
$0.0
$1.6
$0.0
$2.6
$72.3
$5.9
$2.7
$0.9
-
$0.0
$0.8
$3.0
$0.0
$8.3
$1.7
$17.0
$226.0
$0.0
$81.1
$4.3
Non-U.S. Market˚
$23,010.0
$1,363.9
$21,646.1
$17.4
$11.8
$15.0
$24.8
$17.8
$22.5
$20.9
$22.3
$97.2
$29.3
$23.4
$28.9
-
$20.2
$32.8
$33.6
$36.5
$30.4
$33.5
$40.4
$53.3
$265.0
$40.6
$122.9
$49.9
Worldwide Total˚
2015 Research Revenue U.S. Market˚
Percent change calculation reflects adjustment of previously reported 2015 U.S. research revenue due to acquisition/divestiture activity or other business change during 2016. Some or all figures are not made available by this company so instead are based upon estimations by the report authors. 2016 market research revenue is for the combined company, assuming the merger of Quintiles and IMS Health was completed on Jan. 1, 2016. The merger closed on Oct. 3, 2016. Revenue growth rates are impacted by the merger and may not reflect true growth in the underlying operations. **** Percent change calculation reflects organic YOY growth only; 2016 annual revenue reflects acquisition activity during 2016. Some or all figures are not made available by this company so instead are based upon estimations by the report authors. -This company did not participate in last year’s Top 50 Report. ˚ 2016 currency exchange rate from British pounds to U.S. dollars decreased the percent growth rate. All values reported in millions of dollars.
* ** ***
$11,584.9
49
48
KS&R
Winston-Salem, NC
1991
naxionthinking.com
$22.1
Industry Total
40
47
Bellomy Research
Auburn Hills, MI
1911
acturus.com
$24.7
$26.2
$26.4
$27.6
$30.4
$31.1
$32.6
$33.3
$34.2
$1,032.2
46
46
Gongos
Philadelphia, PA
1978
cellohealth.com
keltonglobal.com
tlg.com
ssrs.com
marumatchbox.com
forsmarshgroup.com
radius-global.com
simmonsresearch.com
phoenixmi.com
$34.8
$39.5
$39.6
$40.4
$45.0
$45.0
$46.7
$47.9
U.S. Market˚
$10,552.7
42
45
NAXION
Farmington, CT
2004
2003
New York, NY
1994
Atlanta, GA
1983
2016
2002
1960
1952
Culver City, CA
Media, PA
Chicago, IL
Arlington, VA
New York, NY
Deerfield Beach, FL
1999
mv-research.com
www2.deloitte.com
hanoverresearch.com
mcast.com
macromill.com/global
directionsresearch.com
yougov.com
smg.com
Website
All Other Insights Association Research Company Members (152 companies not included in the Top 50)
41
44
Acturus
Cello Health**
Kelton
The Link Group
SSRS
MARU / Matchbox
Fors Marsh Group
Radius Global Market Research
Simmons Research
Rhinebeck, NY
Phoenix Marketing International
1983
1981
Horsham, PA Cincinnati, OH
2003
1985
2000
1988
2000
1991
Year Founded
Arlington, VA
Los Angeles, CA
Cincinnati, OH
Cincinnati, OH
Redwood City, CA
Kansas City, MO
U.S. Headquarters
MarketVision Research
LRA by Deloitte
Hanover Research
MarketCast
MACROMILL**
Directions Research
YouGov
Service Management Group (SMG)
Organization
Top 50 Total
45
44
37
43
34
36
38
--
35
42
33
34
39
35
33
43
37
32
41
31
31
40
32
30
--
--
29
29
30
28
39
28
27
38
27
26
U.S. Rank 2017 2016
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The 2017
AMA Gold Top 50 Report
1 nielsen.com
Nielsen
Founded 1923 2016 U.S Revenue
$3.626 Billion
Percent Change from 2015
0%
2016 Non-U.S. Revenue
$2.683 billion
Percent from Outside U.S.
42.5%
U.S. Employees
9,646
Dwight M. Barns CEO, B.S., Miami University
2016 Acquisitions:
• Repucom, a sports measurement, evaluation and intelligence firm. • Informate Mobile Intelligence, a leading provider of mobile usage measurement. • Qterics, a device management solution provider whose NetRead technology enables consumer electronics manufacturers to manage, maintain and support Internet of Things devices, including TVs, Blu-ray disc players, set-top boxes, tablets, mobile phones, gaming consoles and more. • VisualDNA, a consumer insights and analytics company that profiles people with visual personality quizzes. • Pointlogic, a provider of marketing decision support systems. • Gracenote, a provider of media and entertainment metadata across platforms, including multi-channel video programming distributors (MVPDs), smart televisions, streaming music services, connected devices, media players and in-car infotainment systems. Nielsen provides a comprehensive understanding of what consumers watch and buy and how those choices intersect. Nielsen delivers critical media and marketing information, analytics and manufacturer and retailer expertise, and its information, insights and solutions help clients maintain and strengthen their market positions and identify opportunities for profitable growth. Nielsen’s two reporting segments, “buy” (consumer purchasing measurement and analytics) and “watch” (media audience measurement and analytics), are built on proprietary data assets that yield insights for clients to successfully measure, manage and grow their businesses. The information from the buy and watch segments together deliver insights into the effectiveness of branding, advertising and consumer choice by linking media consumption trends with consumer purchasing data to better
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understand behavior and better manage supply and demand, media spend and supply chain issues. Representing about 53% of consolidated revenues in 2016, the buy segment provides retail transactional measurement data, consumer behavior information and analytics primarily to businesses in the consumer packaged goods industry. Nielsen tracks billions of sales transactions per month in retail outlets globally, and the data is used to measure sales and market share, enabling clients to better manage brands and supply chain issues, uncover new sources of demand, launch and grow new services, analyze their sales, improve their marketing mix and establish more effective consumer relationships. The watch segment represents about 47% of 2016 consolidated revenue, providing viewership and listening data and analytics primarily to the media and advertising industries across the television, radio, online and mobile viewing and listening platforms. The watch data is used by media clients to understand their audiences, establish the value of their advertising inventory and maximize the value of their content. It’s used by advertising clients to plan and optimize their spending. Nielsen measures eight hours of dynamic media consumption per day per person, including streaming audio, out-of-home measurements for television consumption and deeper measurement of multicultural audiences in the U.S.
2 QuintilesIMS*** quintilesims.com Founded 2016 2016 U.S. Revenue
$1.358 Billion
Percent Change from 2015 +20.5%* 2016 Non-U.S. Revenue
$1.943 billion
Percent from Outside U.S.
58.9%
U.S. Employees
5,261
Ari Bousbib CEO; MBA, Columbia University QuintilesIMS is working with clients to dramatically improve their clinical, scientific and commercial results through a distinctive integrated information and technology-enabled health care service. Formed through the 2016 merger of Quintiles and IMS Health, the company’s 55,000 employees operate in more than 100 countries. QuintilesIMS combines unparalleled health care information,
fit-for-purpose technology, advanced analytics and deep institutional knowledge to help stakeholders drive new insights and approaches as they work to improve real-world patient outcomes. The company’s customers include biotech, medical device and pharmaceutical companies, medical researchers, government agencies, payers and other health care stakeholders. Following the merger, QuintilesIMS maintains one of the world’s largest and most comprehensive collections of health care information, including more than 530 million longitudinal anonymous patient records spanning sales, prescription and promotional data, medical claims, electronic medical records and social media. The company maintains 20-plus petabytes of proprietary data sourced from more than 100,000 data suppliers and covering more than 800,000 data feeds globally. Based on this data, QuintilesIMS delivers information and insights on more than 85% of the world’s pharmaceuticals. QuintilesIMS offers hundreds of distinct services, applications and solutions to help its clients make critical decisions and perform better. Key capabilities include: • A leading health care-specific global IT infrastructure that processes more than 65 billion health care transactions annually. • Data-enriched clinical development, which improves clinical trial design, site identification and patient recruitment. • A robust real-world insights ecosystem with sophisticated retrospective database analytics, prospective real-world data collection technology platforms and scientific expertise. • Proprietary commercial applications that support clients’ sales operations, sales management, multi-channel marketing and performance management. Above all, QuintilesIMS is committed to helping clients drive health care forward with breakthrough approaches to developing and commercializing treatments, improving care provision and aligning with health care stakeholders globally. *** 2016 market research revenue is for the combined company, assuming the merger of Quintiles and IMS Health was completed on Jan. 1, 2016. The merger closed on Oct. 3, 2016. Revenue growth rates are impacted by the merger and may not reflect true growth in the underlying operations. * Percent change calculation reflects adjustment of previously reported 2015 U.S. research revenue due to acquisition/ divestiture activity or other business change during 2016.
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3 kantar.com
Kantar**•
Founded: 1993 2016 U.S. Revenue
$994 million
Percent Change from 2015
+2.2%
2016 Non-U.S. Revenue
$2.85 billion
Percent from Outside U.S.
74.2%
U.S. Employees
3,300
Eric Salama
Chairman & CEO; M.S., Birkbeck College, London Kantar is the data investment management division of WPP plc, a London-based public company. The group includes the following U.S.-based companies: • Added Value focuses on brand development and marketing insight through its “brand connections” methodology, providing services in brand marketing, consumer insight, innovation and communications. • Kantar Health specializes in health care research and consulting on marketing insights; strategic planning; risk management, safety and surveillance; stakeholder effectiveness and brand marketing; health economics and patient outcomes; pricing and reimbursement and forecasting and epidemiology. • Kantar Media offers a range of media insights and audience measurement services for global advertisers, agencies and media companies. • Kantar Retail is focused on digitally delivered intelligence on retailers and extending shopper insights and consulting capabilities. • Kantar Worldpanel is a global provider of consumer panels that offer continuous measurement and analysis of consumer purchasing and usage behavior. • Lightspeed Research provides market research services by building and maintaining online and mobile panels and associated service. • Millward Brown provides qualitative, quantitative and consulting services on brand strategy and experience; creative development and campaign evaluation; consumer needs and values; media planning and strategy; ROI, forecasting and investment management; brand valuation and analytics and demand and activation. • TNS offers market research and qualitative research to provide
marketing knowledge and insights into consumers and markets on stakeholder management, brand and communications and product development and innovation. • The Futures Company monitors what influences consumer values and attitudes to identify current and future trends and offers trends and futures consulting and future-facing qualitative and quantitative research. • Benenson Strategy Group is a strategic research, issue advocacy and consulting group helping leaders in politics, business and public affairs connect with their target audiences. The newly introduced Kantar First program will support collaboration among the operating brands of the Kantar group companies to better serve client needs by eliminating internal profit silos, encouraging the sharing of data across brands and facilitating better cooperation at a local level. ** Some or all figures are not made available by this company so instead are based upon estimation by the report authors. • 2016 currency exchange rate from British pounds to U.S. dollars decreased the percent growth rate.
4 IRI iriworldwide.com Founded 1979 2016 U.S. Revenue
$631.4 million
Percent Change from 2015
+4.4%
2016 Non-U.S. Revenue
$395.3 million
Percent from Outside U.S.
38.5%
U.S. Employees
1,665
Andrew Appel
President & CEO; MBA, University of Chicago
Richard H. Lenny
Chairman of the Board; MBA, Kellogg School of management I RI delivers market, consumer and media exposure information, prescriptive analytics, technology platforms and the foresight that leads to action. In September 2013 IRI acquired Aztec to gain a presence in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, New Zealand, South Africa, Sweden and the U.K. In March 2014, IRI joined forces with comScore and Rentrak to create a comprehensive data set and offer an
integrated solution for linking media consumption to purchasing. In 2017, IRI will drive consumer personalization by continuing to integrate multiple disparate Big Data sources to create sophisticated end-to-end capabilities enabling clients to more effectively plan, target, activate, measure and optimize their businesses in real time for growth. The IRI partner ecosystem includes such companies as Adobe, The Boston Consulting Group, comScore, Experian, Ipsos, Kantar Shopcom, MasterCard Advisors, MaxPoint, Millward Brown Digital, Oracle, Research Now, Simulmedia, Survey Sampling International and Univision. IRI’s retail footprint is a source of advantage for its CPG clients. Examples include: • Walmart, for which IRI provides POS data and is a premier partner on its targeted shopper activation program. • CVS Caremark, for which IRI designed the Collaborative Merchandising Gateway for improved collaboration. • Tesco, for which IRI is the exclusive global provider of inbound data services in the U.K. • Albertsons, for which IRI is the preferred partner for POS data, consumer panel insights and strategic growth initiatives to support joint business collaboration. IRI delivers growth to clients through five key areas of expertise: • Market performance and strategy (IRI answers critical market questions focused on issues such as achieving growth in a mature market and what clients should consider when launching a product.) • Consumer and shopper intelligence (IRI solutions focus on deep shopper insights, segment planning, opportunity sizing and activation strategies empowering companies to win the sale and the shopper.) • Media (IRI media solutions enable clients to measure the efficiency and effectiveness of their media spending.) • Analytics and retail execution (IRI helps clients analyze data to pinpoint new opportunities to optimize pricing, promotions and assortments.) • Data management/cloud/software (IRI data management, cloud and software solutions help clients better leverage data to gain faster insights and action.)
June 2017 | marketing news
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The 2017
AMA Gold Top 50 Report
5 ipsos-na.com Ipsos
Founded 1975 2016 U.S. Revenue
$568 million
Percent Change from 2015
+3.1%*
2016 Non-U.S. Revenue
$1.394 billion
Percent from Outside U.S.
71%
U.S. Employees
2,192
Didier Truchot
Chairman and CEO; B.S., PantheonSorbonne University
Pierre LeManh
CEO, North America; MBA, Ecole Superiere Sciences Economiques et Commerciales
2016 Divestiture:
• Ipsos’ Agriculture and Animal Health Sectors. Ipsos comprises five research specializations. Operating across 88 markets, we deliver information and analysis that provide our clients with a total understanding of people, markets and societies. Ipsos Marketing supports our clients’ marketing strategies to optimize their brand portfolio, leverage consumers’ path to purchase, innovate effectively, improve products and services and maximize commercial effectiveness through a range of capabilities, including survey and passive data, deep observation and listening, social intelligence and digital communities, insights curation and knowledge platforms, Big Data analytics and advisory services. Ipsos Connect measures and weighs our clients’ brands, advertising and media, optimizing communications and content for a highly digitized world and fragmented audience. We are on the forefront of the madtech revolution, delivering insights based on the facts that empower content, platforms and brands to be chosen by more people, more easily and more often. Ipsos Loyalty specializes in all matters relating to measuring, managing and improving customer relationships and employee engagement. Ipsos Public Affairs assists companies and institutions in understanding how the world is changing, the behavior and opinions of citizens and consumers and the trends underway, enhancing their reputation and communications.
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Ipsos Observer provides online and mobile surveys, manages online consumer panels and provides quantitative research data for in-house researchers. Ipsos in the U.S. comprises centers of expertise in data science, neurosciences and behavioral sciences as well as leading strategic partnerships in academia (Duke, Yale, MIT and Stanford) dedicated to advancing our understanding and application of behavioral sciences with two think tanks: • Yale/Ipsos Behavioral Sciences Think Tank, which develops and conducts research and experiments on the practical application of behavioral sciences principles in key areas of consumer marketing. • Duke/Ipsos Research Center, which is progressing our understanding of the science of decision-making based on in-store shopper marketing, consisting of manufacturers, retailers, Duke and Ipsos experts. * Percent change calculation reflects adjustment of previously reported 2015 U.S. research revenue due to acquisition/ divestiture activity or other business change during 2016.
6 Westat westat.com Founded 1963 2016 U.S. Revenue
$500.7 million
Percent Change from 2015
+1.9%
2016 Non-U.S. Revenue
$10.8 million
Percent from Outside U.S.
2.1%
U.S. Employees
1,922
James E. Smith
President & CEO; Ph.D., University of Southern California Westat is a 100% employee-owned research and professional services company known for its expertise in statistical research, survey methods and evaluation studies of programs and policies. Westat applies state-of-the-art, evidence-based research and statistical methods to complex issues across a wide range of fields including health, education, environment, transportation, justice, communications and social marketing. The firm’s clients include the U.S. government, state and local agencies, businesses and foundations.
Westat relies on an extensive field operation to support large-scale surveys, applying all modes of data collection to achieve maximum response rates. Statistical and subject matter expertise are combined with innovative methods and technologies to forge new ground in complex survey designs. Our research professionals contribute to their fields through professional publications and participation in the national and international research community. The company’s key areas of expertise include: • Statistical research and survey methods support for clients, including complex survey design, address-based sampling, small-area estimation, data analytics and statistical disclosure control. • Program evaluation using diverse methodologies to observe, measure and analyze the mechanics of policies and programs to determine effectiveness. • Health studies to support research in behavioral, veterans, public, international and mental health; clinical trials; epidemiology; health IT and health care delivery. • Education programs to provide technical assistance and evaluation for federal, state and local governments and private foundations. • Social policy research for a variety of social services for children and families, employment, criminal justice and marginalized populations. Westat’s Center for Transportation, Technology & Safety Research studies vehicle technology, travel behavior and traffic operations systems. To support our research projects, Westat invests in many general and specialized IT technologies and products and provides licensing, training and support for Blaise, a major survey software system produced by Statistics Netherlands and used internationally. The Individual Placement and Support (IPS) project and their research team joined Westat in 2016. The IPS team, with its special expertise in integrated mental health and employment practices, along with other leading experts in justice studies and methodologies, have further enhanced our research capabilities.
marketing news | June 2017
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The 2017
AMA Gold Top 50 Report
7 gfk.com GfK
Founded 1934 2016 U.S. Revenue
$310.2 million
Percent Change from 2015
-10.3%
2016 Non-U.S. Revenue
$1.367 billion
Percent from outside U.S.
81.5%
U.S. Employees
915
Peter Feld
CEO; M.S., RWTH Aachen University
2016 Divestiture:
• Kynetec, a global agriculture and animal health market research company.
In a digitized world, GfK is the trusted source of relevant market and consumer information that empowers clients to make smarter decisions. As a thought leader in the market research industry, GfK has a deep understanding of consumer experiences and choices. The company includes more than 13,000 experts providing vital insights into local markets in 100 countries. Earlier this year, the company appointed a new global GfK CEO, Peter Feld. Through innovative systems and partnerships, GfK integrates data, turning research into business opportunities and supporting growth from knowledge. The company’s goal is to enable clients to create winning strategies to enrich consumers’ lives. Understanding client challenges with expertise across a variety of industries, GfK helps clients take on some of their most important challenges, including: • Developing strategic opportunities (discovering trends and interpreting data to make better business decisions and identifying and nurturing areas of strategic potential). • Creating experiences (designing and testing new experiences along the customer journey and forecasting potential prior to launch). • Optimizing in-market experiences (tracking current market development pre- or post-launch or even mid-flight to optimize marketing spend immediately). • Growing relationships (increasing loyalty along experience points and building strong, durable relationships with customers and stakeholders). GfK provides research on brand and customer experience, consumer panels,
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digital market intelligence, distribution and supply chain management, geomarketing, market opportunities and innovation, media measurement, mystery shopping, online pricing intelligence, point-of-sale tracking, product catalogs, promotion and causal retail, public communications and social science, retail analytics, social media intelligence, trends and forecasting and user experience. Our industry focus provides GfK market researchers with a thorough understanding of business issues and questions specific to their concerns. Industries we cover include automotive, consumer goods, fashion and lifestyle, health, media and entertainment, public services, retail, technology and travel and hospitality. Trusted for quality, GfK stands for the highest standards in terms of quality, privacy, integrity and compliance. We offer valuable and reliable insights for our clients; carefully protect the information of our research participants; take a fair, honest and respectful approach with our employees; and manage our shareholders’ investments responsibly.
NPD Group 8 The npd.com Founded 1966 2016 U.S. Revenue
$259 million
Percent Change from 2015
+12.1%
2016 Non-U.S. Revenue
$82 million
From Outside U.S.
24%
U.S. Employees
1,035
Karyn Schoenbart
CEO; B.A., University of Massachusetts
Tod Johnson
Executive Chairman; M.S., Carnegie Mellon University
2016 Acquisitions:
• Nielsen Book Scan, a data provider and market research company for the book publishing industry. • EEDAR, a video game data and research company. • Sim2M, a Brazil-based point-of-sale toys panel and market research company for the toys industry. The NPD Group is a privately held corporation. NPD’s global information and business solutions provide data-driven confidence and a winning advantage to
the world’s leading brands. NPD offers uniquely combined information assets, analytic services and expertise in more than 20 industries to build long-standing partnerships that help clients uncover opportunities, solve problems and create profitable growth. Information is available for the following industries: apparel, automotive, appliances, beauty, consumer electronics, diamonds, e-commerce, entertainment, fashion accessories, food, food service, footwear, home, mobile, office supplies, retail, sports, technology, toys, video games, watches and jewelry. NPD Tracking Services encompasses retail tracking, distributor tracking and consumer tracking, including Checkout Tracking, which utilizes receipt harvesting to measure purchases across all industries and channels, including bricks-and-mortar and e-commerce. NPD Premium Services offers the most granular market views including weekly tracking, store-level enabled data (for looking at geographies or custom store groupings) and account-level information (for participating retailers). Information is collected from more than 1,250 retailers, representing more than 300,000 stores worldwide, 12 million consumer interviews conducted annually, and more than 4 million consumers who make physical and/ or digital receipts available for Checkout Tracking, some of which is done in partnership with Slice Intelligence. NPD’s Analytic Solutions group covers forecasting, new product development, pricing and promotion. The firm’s advisory services include Connected Intelligence, which offers reports and analysis on wearable tech and the connected world, including content, devices and services. In 2016, NPD marked its 50th anniversary with IDEA 2016, a thought leadership summit for senior business executives. It made several acquisitions including Nielsen’s American BookScan and related businesses (EEDAR, a specialist market research and data analysis firm for the video games industry, and the Brazil-based Sim2M point-of-sale toys panel). NPD also launched tracking services for diamonds, juvenile products and digital games. NPD will continue to develop its diverse data assets and solutions, launching Checkout Tracking in additional industries and expanding its portfolio of analytic services to help clients understand shifting consumer preferences and behaviors and the evolving retail landscape.
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9 icf.com
ICF International
Founded 1967 2016 U.S. Revenue
$163.7 million
Percent Change from 2015
+5.8%
2016 Non-U.S. Revenue
$59.6 million
Percent from Outside U.S.
26.7%
U.S. Employees
1,016
Sudhakar Kesavan
Chairman & CEO; M.S., Massachusetts Institute of Technology ICF is a global consulting services provider with more than 5,000 professionals focused on making big things possible for our commercial and government clients in the U.S., Europe and Asia. Employees are survey researchers, business analysts, policy specialists, technologists, digital strategists, social scientists and creatives. A significant percentage, who work in 65 countries globally, have earned advanced
educational degrees, bringing deep specialization to client engagements. Clients work with ICF on issues that matter profoundly to their success, whether it be a product or program that matters to the business or a social issue or policy that matters to the world. We offer comprehensive survey research services that empower clients to gain valuable and actionable insights on issues that matter. For more than 40 years, we have demonstrated design, methodological and statistical knowledge through the implementation of large and complex survey research projects. Our clients consist of U.S. federal, state and local agencies; universities; nonprofits and commercial organizations. Our survey research services include: • Analyzing, reporting and presenting findings. • Conducting surveys through a variety of data collection methods. • Designing samples, data collection protocols and instruments. • Protecting all processes and data through quality assurance and system security.
The company celebrated 10 years of being publicly traded on NASDAQ and launched a new brand, visual identity and a website last year. In addition, the survey research practice will complete the certification process for ISO 20252, providing independent third-party validation that our quality processes and procedures are comprehensive, transparent and documented. Moving forward, we will complete installation of our state-of-the-art, fully integrated and security-enhanced data collection system, allowing ICF to securely and most efficiently collect survey research data across all modes. We continue to be dedicated to solving the world’s most complex challenges and tackle problems with ingenuity on issues that matter profoundly to our clients.
June 2017 | marketing news
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5/16/17 12:01 PM
The 2017
AMA Gold Top 50 Report
10 abtsrbi.com
Abt SRBI
Founded 1965 2016 U.S. Revenue
$142.2 million
Percent Change from 2015
+19.2%
2016 Non-U.S. Revenue
$5 million
Percent from Outside U.S.
3.4%
U.S. Employees
1,198
Kathleen L. Flanagan
President & CEO of Abt Associates; M.S., University of Rochester
Michael Link
President & CEO of Abt SRBI; Ph.D., University of Southern California Abt Associates is a mission-driven, global leader in research, evaluation and program implementation in the fields of health, social and environmental policy and international development. It is known for its rigorous approach to solving complex challenges. Abt SRBI is the firm’s survey research arm. Abt SRBI is a full-service global research and consulting firm whose survey research capabilities range from sample design and instrument development to data collection (telephone, in-person, IVR, web, mail) and data management to advanced analysis and market strategy. The firm specializes in large-scale and complex projects. Abt SRBI has four practice groups: • The health group conducts healthrelated surveys and tracking studies for many U.S. government agencies. These projects include epidemiological surveys, health care, military veterans, immigration, domestic violence and program evaluations. • The public affairs group conducts large-scale public policy and public opinion surveys for university researchers, foundations, research institutes and the media. • The transportation and infrastructure group provides passenger/customer research to leading public transit authorities; transportation planners and engineering firms; as well as federal, state and local governments. It also specializes in energy and environmental issues. • The family, workforce and nutrition group supports large-scale program evaluation projects with a focus on interviews with beneficiaries of federal government programs. The practice groups are supported by a data science and advanced analytics and
40
operations division. The data science and advanced analytics group provides consulting support in complex sample design, non-response bias, cell and dual-frame sample designs, weighting, imputation and geographic information systems. The operations division administers telephone, mail, internet, IVR, smartphone and in-person interviews with nearly 300 CATI stations across four call centers, a large national in-person field force and a centralized technologically advanced survey platform.
11 woodmac.com
Wood MacKenzie****
Founded 1973 2016 U.S. Revenue
$132.8 million
Percent Change from 2015
-5.5%*
2016 Non-U.S. Revenue
$310 million
Percent Outside U.S.
70.0%
U.S. Employees
300
Stephen Halliday
CEO; B.S., University of Edinburgh Edinburgh-based Wood Mackenzie provides commercial intelligence for the energy, metals and mining industries through objective analysis and advice on assets, companies and markets. For more than 40 years, Wood Mackenzie has assessed and valued thousands of individual assets and companies around the world, evaluating economic indicators and analyzing market supply, demand and price trends. The firm produces research and analysis across oil, gas, power, coal, chemicals, metals and mining, giving clients a forwardlooking view of the challenges, opportunities and risks facing their business and sector. Wood MacKenzie offers a combination of robust proprietary data; expert, knowledgeable and collaborative people; and integrated analysis and advice. Wood MacKenzie’s research, analytics and consulting services help clients to understand their markets, value assets, reduce risk, identify and screen opportunities, assess competitors, strengthen strategy and pitch for new business. With 25 offices in 20 countries, our teams work across every sector of energy, metals and mining, covering more than 150 countries to provide an integrated perspective across entire industries.
**** Percent change calculation reflects organic year-over-year growth only; 2016 annual revenue reflects acquisition activity during 2016. Some or all figures are not made available by this company so instead are based upon estimation by the report authors. * Percent change calculation reflects adjustment of previously reported 2015 U.S. research revenue due to acquisition/ divestiture activity or other business change during 2016.
12 MaritzCX maritzcx.com Founded 1973 2016 U.S. Revenue
$128.5 million
Percent Change from 2014 +15.4% 2016 Non-U.S. Revenue
$40.7 million
Percent from Outside U.S.
24.1%
U.S. Employees
579
Mike Sinoway
President & CEO; MBA, Arizona State University MaritzCX is a CX software and research company that provides organizations with holistic and cost-efficient CX solutions. We believe companies should drive high-value customer experiences at every touch point, as it happens. MaritzCX helps organizations increase customer retention, conversion and lifetime value by embedding customer experience intelligence and action systems into the DNA of business operations. We are committed to being our clients’ customer experience outcomes partner. MaritzCX specializes in solutions for key industries, including automotive, financial services, retail, technology and B-to-B. Our mission is to provide businesses the strategic guidance and software engine they need to turn customer feedback into a competitive advantage. MaritzCX’s global reach includes more than 880 full-time employees and more than 900 part-time/contract employees in 19 offices around the world. MaritzCX provides solutions to more than 500 clients and 1.6 million users who speak 72 languages in 100 countries. The MaritzCX platform realized 83% growth year over year with a 119% increase in total software bookings from 2015 to 2016.
marketing news | June 2017
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The 2017
AMA Gold Top 50 Report
13 decisionresourcesgroup.com
DRG (Decision Resources Group)**
Founded 1990 2016 U.S. Revenue
$128 million
Percent change from 2015
+6.2%
2016 Non-U.S. Revenue
$50 million
Percent from Outside U.S.
28.1%
U.S. Employees
560
Jon Sandler
Chairman & CEO; MBA, Harvard University DRG is a global information and technology services company that provides proprietary data and solutions to the health care industry. We have brought together best-in-class companies to provide end-to-end solutions to complex challenges in health care. DRG reframes these challenges, enabling our customers to see the
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opportunities. Pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical technology and managed care companies rely on this analysis and data to make informed decisions critical to their success. Framing the current status and future trends in target health care markets using data, primary research and secondary research is a core competency of DRG. Product offerings include: high-value analytics, syndicated research, proprietary databases, decision support tools and advisory services. DRG has a number of key specialties including syndicated research focused on new therapeutic opportunities; portfolio planning, changing industry dynamics and global treatment patterns; insights and data on physician and consumer health care e-marketing and proprietary databases and analytics covering more than 90% of the U.S. managed care markets. Also included are longitudinal data and analytics on marketed drug reimbursement profiles, qualitative insights on drug-specific reimbursement
drivers for existing and emerging therapies, managed markets training and evidence-based market access solutions. ** Some or all figures are not made available by this company so instead are based upon estimation by the report authors.
14 dunnhumby** dunnhumby.com Founded 2001 2016 U.S. Revenue
$109 million
Percent Change from 2015
-0.9%
2015 Non-U.S. Revenue
$320 million
Percent from Outside U.S.
74.6%
U.S. Employees
235
Andy Hill
Managing Director, North America; B.A., University of Oxford Dunnhumby is a customer science company that analyzes data and applies insights for nearly 1 billion shoppers across
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the globe to create personalized customer experiences in digital, mobile and retail environments. Our strategic process, proprietary insights and multichannel media capabilities build loyalty with customers to drive competitive advantage and sustained growth for clients. Dunnhumby uses data and science to understand customers, then applies that insight to create personalized experiences that build lasting emotional connections with retailers and brands. It’s a strategy that demonstrates when companies know and treat their customers better than the competition, they earn more than their loyalty, they earn a competitive advantage. Dunnhumby was established in the U.S. to help retailers and manufacturers put the customer at the heart of their business decisions. Analyzing data from millions of customers across the country, we enable clients to use this insight to deliver a better shopping experience and more relevant marketing to their customers. Dunnhumby’s approach delivers measurable value, competitive edge and even more customer data to fuel ongoing optimization, setting clients up for long-term success. Dunnhumby Ltd., is a privately held and wholly owned subsidiary of Tesco PLC and employs more than 2,000 experts in offices throughout Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas and includes social marketing experts BzzAgent and programmatic advertising company Sociomantic.
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LRW (Lieberman Research Worldwide) lrwonline.com
Founded 1973 2016 U.S. Revenue
$103.3 million
Percent Change from 2015 +11.5%* 2016 Non-U.S. Revenue
$41.1 million
Percent from Outside U.S.
28.5%
U.S. Employees
547
David Sackman
CEO; B.A., University of California at Los Angeles
2016 Acquisitions:
• MotiveQuest, a social media insights company. • Sentient Services, which provides online. customer insight communities through icanmakeitbetter.com. • Tonic, an online insight communities agency. LRW (Lieberman Research Worldwide) is a full-service custom market research and global analytics company known for its ability to turn insight into impact. LRW employs its proprietary “so what?” consulting model, leveraging experts in marketing science and pragmatic brain science and utilizing data from a wide variety of sources (survey, community,
qualitative, social, digital, customer and geo-demographics) to help solve its clients’ complex business problems. LRW’s marketing science team utilizes a vast toolkit of modeling and analytical techniques, innovating and adapting to address specific business questions. LRW’s Pragmatic Brain Science Institute provides clients with a holistic understanding of the consumer, illuminating the less conscious and emotional drivers of consumer choice by combining traditional research techniques with cutting-edge approaches grounded in extensive academic research in the behavioral sciences. LRW addresses a wide variety of complex business issues, including segmentation, brand strategy, advertising and communications effectiveness, customer experience design and evaluation, and product development by integrating survey research with data from a wide variety of sources, such as social media, digital, company and customer databases and other forms of Big Data. Through its regional offices and its affiliate network of more than 100 affiliate companies, LRW conducts research in more than 90 countries in 66 languages. LRW serves a wide range of industries, including entertainment, pharmaceuticals, technology, consumer packaged goods, retail, food service, financial and business services and automotive. In 2016, LRW made three of its strategic acquisitions to grow its integrated data and analytics capabilities and global footprint.
**Some or all figures are not made available by this company so instead are based upon estimation by the report authors.
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LRW purchased Sentient Services and Tonic Insight to strengthen its positioning in communities. LRWTonic, with offices in London and NYC, specializes in using digital technologies to help deliver community-driven consulting services. LRW also purchased the award-winning, technology-enabled, social insights company MotiveQuest, now named LRWMotiveQuest. In 2017, LRW plans to continue making targeted acquisitions to increase its global reach and expand its integrated data capabilities. LRW will roll out innovations in the areas of integrated digital analytics, path-to-purchase and trade-off modeling, brand health measurement and advanced frameworks along with additional tools and approaches in pragmatic brain science. * Percent change calculation reflects adjustment of previously reported 2015 U.S. research revenue due to acquisition/ divestiture activity or other business change during 2016.
Health 16 NRC nrchealth.com Founded 1981 2016 U.S. Revenue
$91.1 million
Percent Change from 2015
+8.1%
2016 Non-U.S. Revenue
$4.9 million
Percent from Outside U.S.
5.1%
U.S. Employees
357
Michael D. Hays
Founder and CEO; B.S., University of Nebraska NRC Health (formerly National Research Corporation) offers performance measurement and improvement services to hospitals, health care systems, physicians, health plans, senior care organizations, home health agencies and other health care organizations. NRC Health’s solutions meet client needs by addressing key objectives to provide its clients with the ability to improve performance in the following areas: Growth Offerings: These solutions are subscription-based solutions that include measurement of community perception (Market Insights), brand tracking (BrandArc) and advertising testing (Advoice). Market Insights is the largest online U.S. health care survey, measuring the opinions and behaviors of more than 300,000 health care consumers in the top 300 metropolitan areas annually.
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• Retention Offerings: These solutions include patient and resident experience, physician engagement and employee experience measurement and improvement tools. These solutions enable clients to comply with regulatory requirements and to improve their • reimbursement under value-based purchasing models. Additionally, clients use these applications to positively impact patient experience through utilization of the company’s prescriptive analytics to enable improvement planning and implementation of best practices. Finally, with a growing body of research linking employee and physician satisfaction levels to provider quality and patient experience, NRC Health’s offerings also measure satisfaction from those constituents and integrate that data into prescriptive analytics for improvement. • Engagement Offerings: These solutions include NRC Health’s patient outreach and discharge call program (Connect Transitions), health risk assessments (Payer Solutions) and post-acute analytics (OCS). These offerings enable clients to understand the health risks associated with populations of patients, analyze and address readmission risks and efficiently reach out to patients to impact their behaviors outside of the health care provider settings. The company’s health risk assessment solutions enable its clients to effectively stratify and manage care for those who are most at-risk, engage individuals, • increase preventive care and manage wellness programs to improve patient experience and outcomes. NRC Health’s patient outreach and discharge call solutions are provided to health care organizations on a subscription basis.
International 17 ORC orcinternational.com Founded 1938 2016 U.S. Revenue
$76.2 million
Percent Change from 2015
-8.6%
2016 Non-U.S. Revenue
$42.3 million
Percent from Outside U.S.
35.7%
U.S. Employees
307
Tom Markert
CEO; B.A., St. Lawrence College
fuel their most important decisions, so they can optimize today, differentiate tomorrow and win in the future. A top 20 global business intelligence firm, ORC works with some of the world’s leading organizations to better understand their employees, customers and markets and transform their business performance. Our core expertise is providing in-depth data and insight, but our value is putting those findings into context for clients by uncovering important points of differentiation/distinction, helping clients navigate disruption and providing strategic guidance on activation, execution and measurement to help clients transform their organization. And as part of Engine Group, an independent, collaborative agency network, ORC is well-positioned to provide clients end-to-end business insights integrated with digital, brand and media capabilities. ORC continues to be a leader in the market as industry experts with the integrated and prescriptive solutions aligned with our clients’ changing needs. Solutions include: • Strategy: growth and expansion, innovation, competitive intelligence and expert network. • Markets and products: brand/ communication, product development and demand generation. • Employee: engagement, life cycle and polling. • Customer: maturity, acquisition, experience and retention. • Tools: CARAVAN omnibus surveys, online digital communities, generational consumer trends and insights. In 2016, more than 250 client brands renewed/expanded their contract scope, along with nearly 270 new clients across all U.S. business units. We launched several enhancements to our digital intelligence platform, Accesspoint, including enhanced interactive dashboards and action planning. In 2017 and beyond, ORC plans to evolve its offerings with integrated solutions and tools designed for enhanced decision-making. Combining research expertise, strategic and consultative approach and global program execution, our offerings will continually give clients reliable, measurable and trustworthy insight to grow their business. ORC also plans to evolve its technology platform, further incorporating predictive analytics and solutions and enhancing Accesspoint through best-in-class technology partnerships and providers.
ORC International helps global leaders uncover the truth about their business and
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18 burke.com
Burke
Founded 1931 2016 U.S. Revenue
$71.1 million
Percent Change from 2015
+6.3%
2016 Non-U.S. Revenue
$8.9 million
Percent from Outside U.S.
11.1%
U.S. Employees
269
Jeff Miller
President and CEO; MBA, University of Cincinnati Burke is an employee-owned, full-service custom marketing research supplier. Burke’s reputation for excellence derives from our ability to consistently deliver actionable decision support solutions to clients worldwide. Using an objectivesdriven focus, Burke researchers are known for their expertise in defining business objectives, crafting smart research designs that utilize traditional and emerging tools and approaches, executing complex projects, employing advanced data analysis techniques and communicating the business significance of research results. This expertise extends across a range of industries, both domestic and international, and across many data collection platforms. All of Burke’s core competencies are supported by a dedication to continuous
research and development efforts. In addition, Burke shares best practices in marketing research and consumer insights through courses conducted by its educational group, the Burke Institute. In 2014, Burke acquired Seed Strategy, a growth acceleration firm that specializes in new product innovation and strategic brand development. The combined organization is a world-class consultancy with the unique ability to meet clients’ needs with a seamless marriage of Burke’s research-based decision support and Seed Strategy’s expertise in innovation and implementation. Burke’s primary areas of focus include brand strategy, innovation, product development, retailer and shopper insights, customer engagement, health care and employee engagement. Burke works across various industries, including packaged goods, financial services, restaurants, travel/ hospitality, telecomm, retail, health care and automotive.
Space** 19 Ccspace.com Founded 1999 2016 U.S. Revenue
$66.6 million
Percent Change from 2015
+2.6%
2016 Non-U.S. Revenue
$16.8 million
Percent from Outside U.S.
20.1%
U.S. Employees
321
Charles Trevail
CEO; B.A., University of Durham
Jessica DeVlieger
President, Americas; B.A., Cornell University C Space, the customer agency, connects the world’s best-known brands with the people they serve to create customerinspired growth. We believe customers are a company’s most important investment. Our expertise is in building real, ongoing relationships with target customers, online and in-person, so companies have better and measurable access to customers’ creativity, instincts and smarts. Our range of services includes private online communities, immersive storytelling, activation events and innovation projects, all designed to bring the customer inside every department to enable fast, confident action. By cultivating connections between companies and their customers, C Space helps businesses grow, improve performance and design the products, services and experiences customers want. C Space is a part of the DAS Group of Companies, a division of Omnicom Group, Inc. ** Some or all figures are not made available by this company so instead are based upon estimation by the report authors.
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20 marketstrategies.com
Market Strategies International
Founded 1989 2016 U.S. Revenue
$64.3 million
Percent Change from 2015
-6.8%
2016 Non-U.S. Revenue
$1.1 million
Percent from Outside U.S.
1.7%
U.S. Employees
254
Melissa Sauter
President; M.A., University of Michigan Market Strategies International is the research consulting partner that helps the world’s most successful businesses thrive. We have earned a reputation as a leader in scientific research services, innovative techniques and marketing and data science capabilities—skills we use to help clients grow their businesses by applying exceptional insight through the lens of deep industry knowledge.
We specialize in consumer and retail, energy, financial services, health, technology and telecommunications. Focusing on select industries allows us to function as a trusted business partner who understands and enhances our clients’ knowledge and experience. This fosters powerful, lasting partnerships. Our custom research specialties include brand, communications, CX, product development and segmentation. Our syndicated research, known as Cogent Reports, offers a portfolio of traditional products in the wealth management, energy and health spaces as well as portal-based research solutions that provide continuous data collection and online reporting. Market Strategies’ consultants combine primary research with data from our syndicated studies, benchmarking and self-funded studies to deliver the most complete and accurate insights available in the industry. Our dedicated information design team transforms findings into stories by creating concise, infographic-style deliverables and sticky portal solutions. Each year, Market Strategies conducts
several international tracking programs and custom research assignments for its clients, involving work in more than 75 countries across eight regions.
Convergys 21 Analytics** convergys.com/analytics Founded 1998 2016 U.S. Revenue
$60.2 million
Percent Change from 2015
+8.1%
2016 Non-U.S. Revenue
$7.2 million
Percent from Outside U.S.
10.7%
U.S. Employees
250
Andrea J. Ayers
President and CEO; B.A., Louisiana State University Convergys is a world leader in customer experience outsourcing, with 130,000 employees in 150 locations. We partner with our clients to improve customer loyalty,
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reduce costs and generate revenue through an extensive portfolio of services, including customer care, analytics, VOC, technical support, collections, home agent and sales. Convergys has a dedicated team of 700 professionals who deliver data-driven insights to improve the customer experience through analytics and consulting solutions, including journey mapping, post-contact surveys, relational loyalty research, customer segmentation and profiling, call elimination analysis, customer effort analysis, digital channel optimization and integrated contact center analytics. In 2016, our Philippines research center celebrated 10 years in operation, the analytics team surpassed 700 employees around the globe and we achieved a client NPS of 72 points. In 2017, Convergys will launch a new voice of the customer platform (ConvergysCX) and a new operational metrics platform (Smart Reporting). Both will integrate disparate data sources in real time into a centralized CX view driven by in-platform text analytics, data visualization and predictive modeling capabilities. Our journey mapping capabilities will expand to include digital-only channels. ** Some or all figures are not made available by this company so instead are based upon estimation by the report authors.
Markets, iMoneyNet, Informa Investment Solutions and eBenchmarkers. Informa Financial Intelligence provides fund and wealth managers, traders, insurers, analysts and investment and retail bankers with the intelligent advantage to make informed decisions, understand past trends, forecast future performance, drive profitability and increase returns. Because of their strong background in the financial industry, the research teams of Informa Financial Intelligence are highly qualified to help financial institutions with their market research needs. Informa’s researchers are experts in benchmarking studies, competitive intelligence, new product development and usability testing, customer/member satisfaction and loyalty research, brand/advertising awareness research, mystery shopping services for sales and service quality evaluation, legal and match pair testing, compliance, discrimination and misleading sales practices testing. Informa is considered a leader in the use of market research to limit the risk associated with allegations of discrimination, UDAAP (unfair, deceptive or abusive acts or practices), predatory lending and misleading sales practices. Informa Financial Intelligence serves more than 1,700 client firms in 63 countries with more than 40,000 end users.
Informa Financial 22 Intelligence financialintelligence.informa.com 23 Morpace morpace.com Founded 2016
Founded 1975
2016 U.S. Revenues
$54 million
2016 U.S. Revenue
$52.7 million
Percent Change from 2015
--
Percent Change from 2015
-5%
2016 Non-U.S. Revenue
$28.8 million
2016 Non-U.S. Revenue
$7.4 million
Percent from Outside U.S.
34.8%
Percent from Outside U.S.
12.3%
U.S. Employees
400
U.S. Employees
187
Frank Sannella
President; B.S., Bryant University Informa Financial Intelligence is a leading provider of business intelligence, market research and expert analysis to the financial industry. The world’s top global financial institutions and banks look to Informa Financial Intelligence for our authority, precision and forward-focused analysis. Informa Financial Intelligence consists of key research, analysis and industry experts, such as Informa Research Services, EPFR Global, Informa Global
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brand and communications, product development and customer experience. Proud moments of 2016 include: • Big Data: We built analytical models using vehicle usage data to predict behavior and performance, supporting both manufacturers and fleets. • Ethnography: Our global moderating team was trained by an anthropologist to ensure the ethnographic work conducted in practice is grounded in academic method. • Health care growth: We increased CAHPS business by 35% as a result of increased insights in deliverables and dashboard reporting enhancements. • Communities: We served new industries including agriculture, financial services and education while increasing impact of deliverables and the flexibility of service. Focus of 2017: • ROI Brain, a media optimization solution that works in conjunction with Morpace’s Brand Tracking of the Future, provides unparalleled actionability and dramatically improves marketing effectiveness. • Quantifying qualitative by leveraging emerging technology solutions to capture emotional qualitative insight at quantitative scale. • Continued syndicated tracking and custom research in automotive, including powertrain, mobility, autonomy and electrification. • Journey and experience mapping to provide a holistic view of the entire customer experience with a company, providing insights for how they should be treated at each touch point. • Increasing Big Data integration by incorporating third-party data into custom solutions. • Further engagement in partnerships to enhance custom solutions and bring global insight to local research by way of innovative tools, predictive modeling and future trending.
Duncan Lawrence President & CEO; MBA, Michigan State University
As a group of inquisitive researchers, Morpace views each of our client’s initiatives as a journey to connect with people and deliver an interpretation of what they think and feel. We are truth seekers who understand that data is about humanizing numbers for business impact. We are experts in automotive, health care, financial services and retail and consumer goods. We help clients make smarter decisions in three core research pillars:
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24 prsresearch.com
PRS IN VIVO
Founded
1972
2016 u.S. Revenue
$51 million
PeRcent change FRom 2015
+10.9%
2016 non-u.S. Revenue
$46 million
PeRcent FRom outSide u.S.
47.4%
u.S. emPloyeeS
150
Scott Young
PReSident; mBa, kellogg School oF management PRS IN VIVO helps consumer marketers succeed through: • In-store and online studies to better understand shopper behavior in physical and e-commerce shopping contexts. • Qualitative studies to develop, screen and refine new product, packaging and merchandising concepts. • Quantitative studies to pre-test and quantify new packaging, merchandising
and display systems (for physical stores and e-commerce). • Volume forecasting and product testing for both innovations and brand re-stages. • “Nudge” initiatives to facilitate behavioral change, create new consumer habits and drive category growth. BVA, one of largest market research companies in France, is the majority shareholder in PRS IN VIVO.
Force** 25 Market marketforce.com Founded
2005
2016 u.S. RevenueS
$48 million
PeRcent change FRom 2015
+4.4%
2016 non-u.S. Revenue
$7 million
PeRcent FRom outSide u.S.
12.7%
u.S. emPloyeeS
300
Ray Walsh
ceo; B.S., oklahoma State univeRSity Market Force Information (Market Force) provides location-level customer experience management solutions to protect your brand’s reputation, delight customers and make more money. Founded in 2005, we continue to grow our global presence with offices in the U.S., Canada, U.K., France and Spain. We are proud to serve more than 350 clients ranging from the Fortune 10 to emerging brands with high-growth potential. Our
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clients’ success is our own, and with that comes a deep commitment to helping our clients optimize growth for every location. Market Force operates at scale across the globe. Each month, we: • Complete more than 100,000 mystery shops. • Collect, process and analyze millions of employee and customer experience surveys. • Manage more than 100,000 inbound calls to our contact center. • Host more than 1 million user log-ins on our KnowledgeForce reporting platform. To provide a robust framework to measure and improve operational excellence, customer experience and your financial KPIs, we offer multilocation solutions, including: • Measurement channels (mystery shopping, customer experience surveys, contact center calls, social media, employee engagement surveys). • KnowledgeForce technology platform and Eyes:On mobile app. • Predictive analytics to determine what matters most and the ROI for investing in improvements. • Market research services (e.g., customer segmentation, attitude trial and usage studies, custom research projects). • Strategic advisory services to design and implement effective measurement systems and improve performance. ** Some or all figures are not made available by this company so instead are based upon estimation by the report authors.
Service 26 Management Group (SMG) smg.com
Founded 1991 2016 U.S. Revenue
$47.9 million
Percent Change from 2015
+5%
2016 Non-U.S. Revenue
$5.4 million
Percent from Outside U.S.
10.1%
U.S. Employees
282
Andy Fromm
Chairman & CEO; B.A., Boston University SMG partners with more than 350 brands around the globe to create better customer and employee experiences, which drive loyalty and performance. SMG combines technology and insights to help clients listen better, act faster and
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outperform competitors. SMG is a technology-enabled research firm with a global footprint—evaluating more than 150 million surveys annually in 50 languages across 125 countries. Strategic solutions include omniCXTM, brand research and employee engagement. SMG’s omniCX solution uses multiple research methodologies to capture solicited and unsolicited consumer feedback across in-store, online, contact center and social channels. Results are aggregated and reported via smg360, a real-time, role-based reporting platform providing access to all customer and related data. SMG’s research professionals partner with clients to derive business-changing insights. Within brand research, SMG offers traditional brand tracking as well as access to dynamic customer and competitor data through its market intelligence tool, BrandGeek. Fueled by SurveyMini—SMG’s location-based mobile research app—BrandGeek contains consumer feedback and behavioral data relating to 4,500-plus brands across 500,000-plus locations. SMG’s employee engagement solution helps clients understand and manage the entire employee life cycle—with onboarding, exit and core engagement surveys. SMG’s integrated program includes goal setting, survey design, reporting, analytics, action-planning and follow-up. In 2016, SMG concentrated on technology and insights. Data integration was a major focus, and bidirectional APIs led to richer insights based on more data sources. SMG also launched smg360, a reporting site and app that integrates expanded data sources and streamlines access for users. Further, SMG was awarded two patents for technology that enhances the collection and accuracy of data, and SMG aligned its offering into 12 products designed to provide insight across the entire customer journey and employee life cycle. In 2017, SMG plans to expand its data sources and focus on extended differentiation through mobile data reporting, making it easier than ever for clients to access all relevant CX data and take action on it. As part of this expansion, SMG will introduce holistic comment reporting to aggregate open-ended comments from multiple sources for unparalleled analysis.
27 YouGov yougov.com Founded 2000 2016 U.S. Revenue
$46.7 million
Percent Change from 2015
+11.7%
2016 Non-U.S. Revenue
$83.2 million
Percent from Outside U.S.
64%
U.S. Employees
156
Stephan Shakespeare of Oxford
CEO and Co-founder; M.S., University
YouGov, based in Redwood City, California, began operating in the U.S. in 2007 as a unit of YouGov plc, based in London, a public company listed on the London Stock Exchange. YouGov is a global market research company that provides insights for brands, advertising and media agencies, institutions, investors and media publishers around the world. Products include custom research, syndicated products such as YouGov BrandIndex, YouGov Profiles and the Affluent Perspective. YouGov BrandIndex is a daily measure of brand perception, tracking thousands of brands across dozens of industry sectors. Subscribers gain a real-time picture of brand performance across 16 key measures with demographic and behavioral filters available. BrandIndex is available in 32 countries and conducts more than 5 million interviews every year. YouGov Profiles is a segmentation and media planning product for brands and their agencies. Powered by the world’s largest connected data set, Profiles gives marketers a richer, more detailed portrait of their customers’ complex lives across more than 200,000 variables, including demographics, attitudes and opinions, brand usage and perception, media consumption, lifestyle and social media and digital engagement. YouGov Omnibus is a 24-hour, nationally representative omnibus with specialist studies on B-to-B, children, homeowners, international and citybus and an extensive field and tab division. YouGov offers a full range of custom research and consulting service to help companies make smarter decisions about their markets, customers and offerings. YouGov addresses business questions related to market structure and composition, innovation and product development, product/service optimization, customer experience branding and market effectiveness.
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The scientific research group provides full-service survey research for academics, health researchers, policy think tanks and corporate clients. Survey methodologists serve clients who conduct survey research intended for peer-to-peer review. Survey research includes multi-wave panels, cross-national studies, surveys with complex experimentation and hard-toreach target populations. The YouGov online panel currently engages more than 5 million people across more than 37 countries.
Directions 28 Research directionsresearch.com Founded 1988 2016 U.S. Revenue
$45 million
Percent Change from 2015
+10.8%
2016 Non-U.S. Revenue
$0
Percent from Non-U.S. Revenue
0%
U.S. Employees
143
and combining those findings with existing client knowledge. Technology plays a large role in everything the firm touches. Combining the speed and actionability of clientfacing digital dashboards with deep analytics and data modeling, Directions delivers industry-leading insights to broad audiences quickly. Directions’ staff has an excellent mix of client- and supplier-side experience. The organization allows senior researchers to work with clients on a day-to-day basis. The company’s staff averages more years of insight experience per person than most other research firms. Directions invests in research and development projects designed to examine issues of interest to clients and the industry. In 2016, these efforts included: • The launching of CrowdSight, an advanced idea-screening platform that combines predictive markets, choice design and interactive open-ends. • AppTrack, tracking of the use and satisfaction of restaurant apps offered to mobile order and deliver loyalty program benefits.
Randy Brooks
Chairman of the Board; MBA, University of Cincinnati
Jim Lane
President; MBA, Kellogg School of Management Directions Research, Inc. is a privately held firm based in Cincinnati with multiple regional offices. Ownership of the firm is in the hands of 33 members of its entrepreneurial senior staff. Independently recognized as one of the leading business decision insight firms in the nation, the firm combines a highly experienced staff with a unique mix of innovative and proven approaches to answer pressing business issues. Directions’ clients value how the firm combines primary and connected data from various inputs to create a holistic picture and disseminate the story in a way that influences decisions effectively. Through digital dashboards; infographic, written reports; and other unique visualizations, the firm communicates its knowledge in a manner that is right for today’s leaders. Directions excels in innovation and optimization, customer and brand experience, strategic business intelligence and visualization across a wide range of industries. The firm offers B-to-C and B-to-B services globally, surveying audiences using a broad selection of data collection techniques
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29 MACROMILL** macromill.com/global/ Founded 2000 2016 U.S. Revenue
$45 million
Percent Change from 2015
15.4%
2016 Non-U.S. Revenue
$255 million
Percent from Outside U.S.
85%
U.S. Employees
250
Scott Ernst
highest-quality online panel with more than 2 million members, including 1 million Yahoo! Research Monitor members. Using our self-developed platform “AIRs,” we provide full-service online research including automated survey creation and completion, data tabulation and analysis. Our business portfolio has rapidly grown and is constantly evolving. Today, it includes services such as offline quantitative research, mobile research, POS database research (QPR), digital marketing (Accessmill), a DIY survey platform (Questant) and more. Headquartered in Tokyo, our global network can reach 87 countries across the world. METRIXLAB, headquartered in Rotterdam, Netherlands, is one of the fastest-growing providers of market and consumer insights. We turn data from online surveys, social media, mobile devices and enterprise systems into valuable business information and actionable consumer insights. This helps leading companies drive product innovation, brand engagement and customer value. Owned and group panels provide expansive access to global respondents in mature and emerging markets. Our teams deliver strategic and tactical decision support by pushing the boundaries of data analysis innovation, combining cutting-edge technology with data science and proven marketing research methodologies. Clients across the globe rely on our hyper-efficient data and insights ecosystem to deliver fast and affordable results. ** Some or all figures are not made available by this company so instead are based upon estimation by the report authors.
Global CEO and Representative Executive Officer; B.S., Wharton School of Business MACROMILL Inc. was founded in 2000, listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in 2004 and moved to its First Section in 2005. In January 2014, MACROMILL was acquired by Bain Capital. In November 2014, MACROMILL merged with MetrixLab, creating the Macromill Group. The Macromill Group operates several brands in 25 offices with 1,600 research experts across the Americas, Europe and Asia. The group’s leading business units are Macromill and MetrixLab. MACROMILL, one of the leading marketing research companies in Japan, stands at the forefront of innovation, delivering unique marketing solutions. We offer exclusive access to the
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30 mcast.com
MarketCast
Founded 1985 2016 U.S. Revenue
$40.4 million
Percent Change from 2015
+11.3%
2016 Non-U.S. Revenue
$20.9 million
Percent from Outside U.S.
34.1%
U.S. Employees
120
Henry Shapiro
CEO; MBA, Harvard Business School Based in Los Angeles, with offices in New York, Boston and London, MarketCast is a leading provider of marketing research services for the global entertainment industry. Through a variety of consulting services backed by rigorously scientific research methods, MarketCast works in collaboration with marketers and researchers across the entertainment spectrum in the development and execution of their
marketing strategies, from early concept exploration through distribution. MarketCast services are available worldwide and include materials testing, concept and positioning studies, exit polls, recruited audience screenings, social media analytics, tracking studies and focus groups, as well as a host of custom offerings including brand/franchise studies, post-release studies and attitudes and usage studies. In August 2015, MarketCast completed the acquisition of Insight Strategy Group, a leading New York-based research and strategy agency that leverages deep expertise anchored in social sciences to fuel brand growth, new product introductions and service and content innovation. Insight Strategy Group’s core services include segmentation and targeting strategy, brand positioning and tracking, product innovation and testing and customer experience strategy. A go-to partner for media and entertainment clients, Insight Strategy Group also has established industry practices in lifestyle, consumer goods, retail and services businesses, as well as a preeminent youth
practice. The combined strategy for MarketCast and Insight Strategy Group is to continue to expand internationally while expanding the company’s rapidly growing and established footprint in TV, OTT, video games and related entertainment verticals, both organically and through acquisition.
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31 hanoverresearch.com
Hanover Research
Founded 2003 2016 U.S. Revenue
$39.6 million
Percent Change from 2015
+2.3%
2016 Non-U.S. Revenue
$1.3 million
Percent from Outside U.S.
3.2%
U.S. Employees
330
Peter Dodge
by Deloitte 32 LRA www2.deloitte.com Founded 1981
Chairman & Founder; B.A., Washington and Lee University
2016 U.S. Revenue
$39.5 million
Percent Change from 2015
+56.7%
CEO; B.A., Washington and Lee University
2016 Non-U.S. Revenue
$7.3 million
Percent from Outside U.S.
15.6%
U.S. Employees
440
Wesley Givens
Hanover Research is a global information services firm that provides high-quality, custom research and analytics through a cost-effective model, which helps clients make informed decisions, identify and seize opportunities and heighten their effectiveness. Hanover serves more than 1,000 organizations and companies worldwide from small school districts to the Fortune 500. We partner with C-suite officers, strategy and marketing executives, university provosts, school superintendents and other leaders in need of sustained, structured decision-making support. Hanover operates on an annual, fixed-fee model, and partnership provides our clients with access to a team of high-caliber researchers, survey experts, analysts and statisticians with a diverse set of skills in market research, information services and analytics. Custom research services include: • Survey design, administration, analysis, qualitative data-coding, in-depth interviews and benchmarking for primary research. • Market segmentation and evaluation, labor and demographic trends and forecasts, vendor and product reviews and best practices reports for secondary research. • Data segmentation and mining, descriptive and predictive analytics and data forecasting and modeling for data analysis. Hanover’s core practice areas are: • Enterprise, which supports executives with brand tracking and positioning, market assessment, product management and customer knowledge. • Higher education, which delivers tailored research to higher-education
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administrators across enrollment, academic affairs, business and finance, marketing and continuing education functions. • K-12 education, which addresses the key priorities of K-12 administrators, including program evaluation, resource management and learning assessment.
Rob Rush
Managing Director; B.S., Cornell University LRA by Deloitte is a leading global provider of customer experience measurement services for multinational companies with complex customer interactions. For more than 35 years, LRA by Deloitte’s innovative brand standards audits, quality assurance inspections, mystery shopping programs, research and consulting services have helped ensure our clients deliver consistent, memorable and differentiated experiences to their customers. Many of the world’s preeminent global hospitality brands, as well as companies in the gaming, dining, health care, sports and entertainment, real estate, retail and travel industries choose LRA by Deloitte to measure and improve customer experience in more than 145 countries. LRA by Deloitte’s research offerings are focused on helping our clients to define and measure the current state of the customer experience and identify measures to enhance or reinvent that experience to drive customer satisfaction, loyalty, advocacy and positive customer outcomes and behaviors. Our standard offerings include: field/ operational research, audits and inspections, mystery shopping, customer/ employee research, qualitative/ exploratory research, customer tracking survey research, customer relationship studies, employee engagement studies, conjoint/decision modeling studies, customer segmentation personae development studies, touch point/ moment-of-truth-focused surveys,
modeling the emotional connection of customers to company and its impact on behavior and spending and share of wallet. We are unique in the industry for our focus on gathering the field/operational data via our audits and inspections and mystery shopping offerings. This capability allows us to complement the sentiment/directional data we are gathering from customers with very granular, specific data about how an operation is running or an experience is being delivered in the field. Our plans in 2017 include the continued reach into retail, automotive, restaurants, airlines, senior living, health care, banking, consumer product and facility management industries.
MarketVision 33 Research mv-research.com Founded 1983 2016 U.S. Revenue
$34.8 million
Percent Change from 2015
+14.5%
2016 Non-U.S. Revenue
$0.2 million
Percent from Outside U.S.
0.6%
U.S. Employees
145
Tyler McMullen President; MBA, Darden School of Business
MarketVision Research is a full-service marketing research consultancy, providing clients with actionable insights about their markets, customers, brands and products. Research areas of focus include product and portfolio development, pricing, branding, segmentation and customer satisfaction. The company offers a full suite of quantitative and qualitative research capabilities and works across industry groups. The firm invests significantly in its education program and frequently shares findings with the research community. MarketVision also leads a variety of research training and development programs for clients and individuals. The Research on Research program explored the following topics: • Producing survey design solutions for multiplatform respondent participation and ADA accessibility for respondents with visual impairment. • Exploring the topic of rising costs of medication and the trade-offs patients make to maintain treatment.
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• Understanding differences and similarities between millennials in the U.S. and millennials in the United Arab Emerates and Saudi Arabia. • Discrete choice modeling and optimization with application to areas such as product and service development, branding, packaging and pricing. The group conducts much research around innovation, using qualitative research with professionals and consumers to fill in the gaps in the innovation process and matching with quantitative research. Since 2007, MarketVision has provided online communities that are completely managed and developed in-house. The platform is engaging and mobileenabled, and clients are provided proactive research plans with timely deliverables. We continue to develop the platform to support our consumer research and B-to-B and pharmaceutical/ health care practices. Major activities from 2016 include: • Enhanced survey platform to facilitate multiplatform and ADA accessibility. • Expanded our Dubai team to better support our growing consumer and health care practice in the region. • Expanded synthesis capability of client data streams with primary research. • Spoke at major industry events such as The Quirks Event, MRA Corporate Researchers Conference and PMRG. • Expanded our Financial Services practice and hired a senior level executive to take the lead.
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34 phoenixmi.com
Phoenix Marketing International
Founded 1999 2016 U.S. Revenue
$34.2 million
Percent Change from 2015
+2.1%
2016 Non-U.S. Revenue
$2 million
Percent from Outside U.S.
5.5%
U.S. Employees
135
Our custom analytics group is expert in new collection and reporting methodologies and techniques combined with advanced data integration and modeling capabilities applied to any complex marketing issue. In 2017 Phoenix will expand its global footprint and continue to invest in top-tier talent and stay true to our brand promise: to be “boldly intelligent” research professionals, utilizing state-of-the-art methods.
Allen R. DeCotiis
Research 35 Simmons simmonsresearch.com
Martha Rea
Founded 1952
Chairman and CEO; Ph.D., Emory University
President; B.S., University of South Florida Phoenix Marketing International, with its flagship office located in Rhinebeck, New York, is a privately owned company founded in 1999 by Allen R. DeCotiis and Martha Rea. Phoenix helps clients improve their brand and communications, create and refine the products and services that they deliver and optimize the customer experience driven by those commitments. By utilizing the strengths of senior market researchers, Phoenix provides its clients with disruptive insights across the automotive, financial services, health care, converged technology and media, restaurant, consumer goods and travel/ leisure sectors. The firm’s research expertise includes classic as well as technologically advanced qualitative and quantitative research, conducted throughout the Americas, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and other emerging markets, featuring all areas of communications and brand work, customer experience and advanced analytics. Our communications platform is made up of custom and syndicated solutions, including a large-scale tracking advertising/communication audit and performance evaluation system (AdPi and BrandPi Audits). Syndicated products include AdPi Express, Wealth and Affluent Monitor, Phoenix 360 PatientView, Credit Card/Mobile Payments Monitor, Consumer Convergence 360, Virtual Mailbox, Hotel BASE and Hotel SCORES. Our customer experience platform is a sophisticated and highly flexible solution, which allows for custom survey design combined with an immediate, case-based, state-of-the-art technology platform with a sophisticated analytics and graphical reporting dashboard.
2016 U.S. Revenue
$33.3 million
Percent Change from 2015
-0.9%
2016 Non-U.S. Revenue
$0.0
Percent from Outside U.S.
0%
U.S. Employees
99
John Ouren
Executive Chairman; MBA, Stanford University
Pasquale (Pat) Pellegrini
President and Chief Research Officer; Ph.D., SUNY at Buffalo Simmons Research provides essential consumer intelligence to agencies, media and advertisers. The National Consumer Survey (NCS) measures consumers’ preferences, behaviors and attitudes. The NCS is a proprietary study utilizing a sample of U.S. respondents, includes 60,000-plus variables and is the base of Simmons’ full product suite. In 2016, Simmons was acquired by Symphony Technology Group (STG) from former owner Experian Marketing Services. Since the acquisition, Simmons has made great strides to develop innovative products and create a stand-alone brand. Most notably, Simmons is developing a new product that actualizes cross-platform video consumption using active and passive measurement methods for more robust video analytics. The product is set to launch in mid-2017. Simmons’ executive team spoke at several industry events during 2016 on the topic of video analytics and shared their groundbreaking findings on modern media consumption. The product is set to launch in mid-2017. Simmons Research plans to move forward into 2017 with a strong road map for product innovation and solutions-based research.
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36 radius-global.com
Radius Global Market Research
Founded 1960 2016 U.S. Revenue
$32.6 million
Percent Change from 2015
+1.9%
2016 Non-U.S. Revenue
$1 million
Percent from Outside U.S.
3%
U.S. Employees
104
Chip Lister
Managing Director; B.A., Temple University Radius Global Market Research is one of the largest custom market research companies in the world. Our goal is to provide a clear view of the dynamics for success in today’s complex and competitive marketplace. We partner with leading global organizations to provide clear thinking on critical areas of brand performance, optimize brand offerings, identify differentiating
innovations and deliver compelling customer propositions. Our consultative guidance gives our clients the confidence to make key strategic decisions that will deliver brand growth. Radius’ offerings include: • Custom, agile design to meet a brand’s unique needs. Every brand experiences unique customer and market dynamics. All of our designs are driven by industry-leading advanced analytics that provide deeper and more meaningful analysis of the data. • Open-source thinking and deep intellectual capital for better outcomes. Radius is on the forefront of bringing open-source thinking to custom research design. Each project benefits from the shared knowledge of our senior team’s industry experience and market research expertise, including the global perspectives found in our international offices. • World-class service and senior guidance for the best experience. Radius consistently sets the bar high on delivering impeccable service and personal attention. Each study is always
led by a senior team member with at least 15 years of marketing and research experience. When you partner with Radius, you can be assured that your team is continually pushing itself to identify the most impactful business implications from the research. For more than 60 years, Radius has been delivering what growth-oriented organizations need most: clear thinking for a complex world.
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37 forsmarshgroup.com
Fors Marsh Group
Founded 2002 2016 U.S. Revenue
$31.1 million
Percent Change from 2015
+54%
2016 Non-U.S. Revenue
$0
Percent from Outside U.S.
0%
U.S. Employees
136
Sean M. Marsh
CEO; Ph.D., George Mason University Fors Marsh Group LLC (FMG), based in Arlington, Virginia, is a privately held organization that specializes in measuring, understanding and influencing the way people think and make decisions. We are driven by our passion to uncover the “why” behind human behavior and exist to support our clients’ efforts to better reach, serve and support their priority audiences. Since its founding in 2002, FMG has successfully completed hundreds of large-scale and highly visible projects on behalf of government agencies, private sector firms, nonprofits and educational institutions. Using qualitative, quantitative and physiological methods, FMG’s collaborative partnership approach ensures clients can act with confidence to improve communication, increase operational efficiency and better organizational decision-making. Subject areas of expertise include: • Applied cognition and user experience, which integrates the philosophies and practices of behavioral and cognitive psychology to understand how users think and interact with everyday products in everyday situations. • Communication and behavior change, which supports the creation of evidencebased message strategy and messages and measures their ability to influence change that benefits people and society. • Military recruiting, personnel and veterans, which studies and analyzes military populations and the people and programs that support them with a focus on recruiting and retention research, quality of life and special policy issues. • Personnel and development, which focuses on improving the human capital of organizations by improving the performance, organizational culture and well-being of individuals, teams and groups. • Public policy evaluation, which provides research and analysis on the structure
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and operation of governmental and nongovernmental programs and policies. As we progress through 2017 and look ahead to 2018, FMG continues to invest in its employees so they can best serve clients in tackling the challenges they are faced with solving. With a focus on the subject areas identified, FMG will broaden its capabilities to not only support our clients in the research and analysis necessary to understand the why but also side-by-side strategically proposing and implementing the how to get there. This direct application of data is instrumental in all marketplaces as organizations are tasked with further understanding all touch points and reasoning behind simple and complex decisions alike.
38 Maru/Matchbox marumatchbox.com Founded 2016 2016 U.S. Revenue
$30.4 million
Percent Change from 2015
--
2016 Non-U.S. Revenue
$10 million
Percent from Outside U.S.
24.8%
U.S. Employees
90
Ed Morawski
President and COO; M.A., University of British Columbia Maru/Matchbox was founded in 2016 when Maru Group purchased the research and consulting division of Vision Critical. Headquartered in Toronto, Maru/ Matchbox is a global research firm that enables leaders to make timely decisions with confidence. Maru/Matchbox is a sector-focused consumer intelligence firm focused entirely on better client outcomes. Their expert teams are deeply invested in key sectors of the economy, delivering insights and analysis backed by knowledge, understanding and real-world context. Maru/Matchbox research and consulting teams draw on sector-specific expertise to deliver unparalleled insight to clients. The team provide informed consumer data and insights that can be acted on quickly and with confidence. The firm has sectorfocused teams in consumer packaged goods, financial services, retail, technology, agency, public affairs and media and entertainment. Maru/Matchbox have been pioneers in the insight community for almost 20 years. Insight communities help clients gain a real-time window into their
customers’ needs and motivations. They deliver actionable customer intelligence based on meaningful relationships between brands and their customers. Market communities are the solution for on-demand and ongoing access to relevant North American audience segments. Maru/Matchbox is deeply concerned with sample quality. They have an ongoing series of research on research programs that monitor the quality of their samples, as well as market panels, river samples and publisher sourced sample. Their market communities are made up of deeply engaged, well-curated respondents who provide intelligence on an as-needed basis. Quality responses produce actionable insights you can count on, enabling you to make smarter, betterinformed decisions.
39 SSRS ssrs.com Founded 1983 2016 U.S. Revenue
$27.6 million
Percent Change from 2015
-1.4%*
2016 Non-U.S. Revenue
$1 million
Percent from Outside U.S. 3.5% U.S. Employees
158
Melissa J. Herrmann President; M.A., Annenberg School of Communications
SSRS is a full-service market and survey research firm, managed by a core of dedicated professionals with advanced degrees in the social sciences. Since }1986, SSRS (formerly known as ICR and SSRS/Social Science Research Solutions) has been a subsidiary of Mount Laurel, N.J.-based AUS Inc., a privately held company. SSRS provides the analytical, administrative and management capabilities needed for project execution. The company designs and implements solutions to complex strategic, tactical, public opinion and policy issues in the U.S. and more than 40 countries. Its in-house resources include three interviewing centers and the corporate headquarters. SSRS focuses on public opinion polling, social science research, policy research, multicultural research and sports/leisure. SSRS has expertise surveying low-incidence populations, creating sophisticated sample designs and experience with all modes of data collection. SSRS is also a provider of omnibus research services in the U.S., including the
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SSRS Omnibus, a weekly nationally representative survey of 1,000 adults, with interviews in Spanish and 600 cellphone interviews. The company introduced the SSRS Millennial Omnibus, a monthly study of 1,000 nationally representative 18-to-35-year-olds. SSRS assures coverage of the growing millennial population by interviewing a minimum of 80% of respondents on cellphones. The company also conducts online research. The SSRS Media & Technology Survey monitors trends and changes in the video market. Additional online offerings include the SSRS Probability Panel, which recruits panelists through the SSRS Omnibus. Surveys are designed to ensure a positive panelist experience. * Percent change calculation reflects adjustment of previously reported 2015 U.S. research revenue due to acquisition/ divestiture activity or other business change during 2016.
Link Group 40 The tlg.com Founded 1994 2016 U.S. Revenue
$26.4 million
Percent Change from 2015
+27.5%
2016 Non-U.S. Revenue
$1.6 million
Percent from Outside U.S.
5.7%
U.S. Employees
66
Tom Pfeil
Co-founder & Managing Partner; MBA, University of Texas at Austin
Brad Camrud
President; M.S., Thunderbird School of Global Management The Link Group (TLG) is a privately held market research consultancy with offices in Atlanta and Durham, North Carolina. The Link Group has been exceeding clients’ expectations for 20-plus years by offering a strategic partnership approach to designing and executing custom qualitative and quantitative market research projects. The Link Group’s tagline is “Smarter Research. Better Service.” Smarter research is all about the way The Link Group approaches client requests through a mix of creativity, customization, immersion in the category and delivering actionable and insightful reports. Better service is at the core of how TLG approaches its client relationships. They focus on clients’ needs by having a project
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lead who is the single point of contact from start to finish, which maximizes responsiveness and minimizes client headaches. Thus, 99% of the firm’s revenue comes from repeat clients. Smarter research and better service start and end with The Link Group’s people. TLG hires an inquisitive brand of outgoing problem solvers to work in a highly collaborative environment from which the client ultimately benefits. TLG boasts an extremely low turnover rate of 5%, which means clients get to see the same faces over time to grow relationships and fundamental knowledge that helps The Link Group deliver more strategic insights. TLG’s clients are typically Fortune 500 firms in the health care, retail and CPG industries. While TLG can deftly accomplish many research topics and approaches, their core competencies are in positioning, branding, messaging and concept development; emotional insights; ethnography and segmentation.
41 Kelton keltonglobal.com Founded 2003 2016 U.S. Revenue
$26.2 million
Percent Change from 2015
+12%
2016 Non-U.S. Revenue
$6.6 million
Percent from Outside U.S.
20.1%
U.S. Employees
97
Tom Bernthal
Co-founder & CEO; B.S., University of Wisconsin-Madison
Gareth Schweitzer Co-founder & President; B.A., McGill University
Kelton Global is an insights and strategy consultancy. We help businesses grow by uncovering human truths and transforming them into innovative solutions for the world’s biggest, most well-loved brands. Kelton’s suite of offerings includes: • Qualitative Research: applied ethnographies, consumer inspiration sessions, LifeStories, In-Situ Observations, Kelton SmartCommunities, trend scanning, semiotic analysis, archetype studies and analysis, co-creation and digital anthropology. • Quantitative Research: customer brand health tracker; people, ideas and trends tracking; customer segmentation; attitudes and usage; consumer choice modeling; price perception and
elasticity; line extension analysis; portfolio optimization; messaging/ positioning optimization; package testing; new product testing; and brand and ad optimization. • Design: product, service and communications innovation; customer journey mapping; prototype optimization; visual merchandising; information design; concept ideation; path-to-purchase; and new product development. • Communications: information design, video documentary, language and message development, strategic thought-leadership research and data for dissemination. • Strategic Consulting: brand landscape analysis, brand positioning, marketing strategy, agency search and briefing and new concept generation and launch strategy. Kelton accomplishments in 2016, include adding several people to our teams across all U.S. locations and moving our Los Angeles office to a state-of-the-art building in Playa Vista. In addition, Kelton received two MarCom awards for brand design, was included in the 2016 Great Places To Work list, and was named to Inc. 5000’s famed list of fastest-growing private companies for the 10th year in a row. In 2017, Kelton is focused on growing relationships with new clients while continuing to provide our innovative qualitative, quantitative and cultural insights work for clients like Coca-Cola, Pfizer, Revlon and Harley-Davidson. We are looking to grow our revenue from outside the U.S. by offering services to additional global brands, developing more proprietary products to compete at the highest level in the market research space, and growing our unrivaled team to support our consistent revenue growth. In the office, we’re planning to grow our professional development programs, revamp wellness initiatives, and invest in increasingly efficient technology systems. We’re looking forward to a successful year ahead!
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42 cellohealth.com
Cello Health**
Founded 2004 2016 U.S. Revenue
$24.7 million
Percent Change from 2015
-0.8%
2016 Non-U.S. Revenue
$70.4 million
Percent from Outside U.S.
74%
U.S. Employees
100
Stephen Highley Group COO
Cello Health is one of the two operating segments of the Cello Group, a health care and consumer strategic marketing company. Cello Health combines its core capabilities of insight, consulting and communications to provide health care and pharmaceutical clients with comprehensive services that address the requirements of each project. Cello Health Insight is a global marketing research company, providing
business intelligence to the health care and pharmaceutical sectors. Cello Health Insight specializes in getting to the heart of our clients’ questions, using a large pool of creative and academic resources and providing design of materials and deliverables through a hand-picked project team selected to best meet the needs of each individual project. Cello Health Consulting is the strategic consulting arm of Cello Health, focused on delivering business results by unlocking the potential within organizations, people, assets and brands. Cello Health Consulting works alongside clients to create practical solutions, which ensures buy-in and builds relationships. Cello Health Consulting focuses on four key practices: brand and portfolio strategy, business sciences, early product commercialization and organizational excellence. Cello Health Communications combines science, strategy and creativity to unlock the potential of brands and assets. It focuses on building a foundational evidence base and translating that into outcome-focused behavior change. It also focuses on how data and insights are
applied in a strategic framework to support clinical and commercial success. Cello Health Communications services underpin differentiated positioning and deliver brand optimization, focusing on multiple areas of development and launch through to commercial maturity. In 2014, Cello Health acquired iS Healthcare Dynamics Limited (“iS�), a health care communications agency specializing in medical communication services, and Promedica, a San Franciscobased, full-service market research consulting firm specializing in new-product planning for life science companies. In February 2017, Cello Health announced further expansion in the U.S. with the acquisition of New Jersey-based Defined Healthcare Research Inc., a leading business development strategy firm, servicing life sciences firms with a particular focus in biotech. ** Some or all figures are not made available by this company so instead are based upon estimation by the report authors.
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43 www.acturus.com
44 naxionthinking.com
actûrus
NAXION
Founded 1978
Founded 1911
2016 U.S. Revenue
$22.1 million
2016 U.S. Revenue
$21.8 million
Percent Change from 2014
+12.2%
Percent Change from 2015
+4.3%
2015 Non-U.S. Revenue
$0.6 million
2016 Non-U.S. Revenue
$0
Percent from Outside U.S.
2.6%
Percent from Outside U.S.
0%
U.S. Employees
73
U.S. Employees
76
Doug Guion President
Actûrus is a leading global research-based consultancy specializing in qualitative, quantitative and multisponsored studies. Formed in July of 2015, the merger of The Pert Group and MSS bridged the powerful connection between buyers and their influencers in our unprecedented 360-by-360 approach. Our customized and multisponsored research strategies are designed to help clients understand not only the consumer, but also the influences that surround them. Our ability to identify and understand the relationship between consumer and influencer allows us to deliver a richer, more nuanced view of consumer decision-making. This multidimensional approach produces a better understanding of the how and why of the buying decision, enhances the value of traditional research and provides a clear road map for optimizing business and brand performance. Actûrus provides a radical change in approach to identifying, clarifying and providing concrete direction on the most complex business questions across a wide variety of industries such as adult beverage, health and beauty, insurance, lubricants and food/restaurant for some of the world’s biggest brands. In 2016, actûrus announced the launch of its Brandvantage product, a breakthrough in equity management that leaves behind the linear thinking of the funnel model to reflect the way consumers make decisions today. Our proprietary framework incorporates attitudes, behavior and occasion-level insights to provide layered direction for marketing strategy. The company also has a new product in development, Ad Assess, which is scheduled for a full introduction into the marketplace in 2017.
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Susan Schwartz McDonald
President & CEO; Ph.D., Annenberg School for Communication stablished as the world’s first market E research unit in 1911 by Curtis Publishing Company, NAXION operated independently as National Analysts for 25 years, and for another two decades as a division of the global consulting firm, Booz Allen Hamilton, spurring an evolution beginning in 1970 from market research organization to data-powered boutique consultancy. The firm was spun off as an independent organization in 1992 and reorganized as a woman-owned ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan) in 2004. NAXION guides strategic business decisions globally in health care, information technology, financial services, energy, heavy equipment and other B-to-B markets, drawing on depth of marketing experience in key verticals and skilled application of sophisticated and inventive methodologies. The firm’s NAscence group helps life science innovators develop commercialization strategy through clinical trial design and selection of target indications, forecasting, launch planning and other research-based consulting services. Engagements routinely include market segmentation, opportunity assessment and innovation, demand forecasting and pricing, positioning, brand health, market monitoring and life cycle management. The firm deploys multiple data streams, including primary research (qualitative and quantitative), secondary data, customer databases and other complex data sets to develop an integrative perspective on business problems. The firm also builds custom panels for B-to-B markets. Project leaders with sector experience and research proficiency are supported by in-house methodologists and a wide portfolio of advanced analytic tools, including highly customized proprietary modeling services and software. The firm continues to invest significant resources in intellectual capital to enhance enterprise
decision support with cutting-edge methods, including specialized “small data” choice models, new predictive techniques using Big Data and brandcustomized text analytics. Its Farsight suite supports the building of highly dynamic models capable of producing forecasts for complex market scenarios, including paradigm-shift technologies, and gives market monitoring programs a forward-looking perspective that guides timely market interventions. Other services include litigation and regulatory support, often involving expert testimony in cases involving trademark confusion, deceptive advertising and brand equity. NAXION’s strong commitment to operational excellence is reflected in ISO certification and in-house operations capabilities to deliver exceptional levels of quality control.
45 Gongos gongos.com Founded 1991 2016 U.S. Revenue
$21.1 million
Percent Change from 2015
+1%
2016 Non-U.S. Revenue
$2.1 million
Percent from Outside U.S.
9.1%
U.S. Employees
133
Camille Nicita
President & CEO; MBA, Wayne State University As a decision intelligence company, Gongos, Inc. brings a consultative approach to developing growth strategies grounded in operationalizing customer centricity across its clients’ insights, analytics, strategy and innovation groups. By coalescing the disciplines of primary research, data science and insight curation, Gongos fuels an organization’s capacity and competency to gain and apply wisdom that inspires great consumer-minded decisions. This trifecta of multidisciplinary skill sets empowers stakeholders to achieve greater ROI as they leverage enterprise data, deliver new insights and translate consumer wisdom across multiple teams. Gongos serves Global 1,000 corporations in the consumer products, financial services, health care, lifestyle, retail and transportation spaces. In 2017, Gongos forged a partnership with Customerville, an award-winning global customer experience platform
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provider, bringing their proprietary design-driven feedback technology to organizations by blending a designintensive and human-centric, real-time feedback platform. The collaboration will help further pinpoint customer pain, identify gaps between brand promise and experience and help organizations design activation plans to enhance customer lifetime value. Privately owned, Gongos, Inc. is a WBENC-certified company.
Research 46 Bellomy bellomyresearch.com Founded 1976 2016 U.S. Revenue
$19.8 million
Percent Change from 2015
+11.2%
2016 Non-U.S. Revenue
$0
Percent from Outside U.S.
0%
U.S. Employees
135
John Sessions
CEO; MBA, Wake Forest University School of Business Bellomy Research, Inc. is a privately held, family-owned company based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Bellomy focuses on driving successful business outcomes through the design and delivery of solutions that yield deeper customer understanding. We surround our clients’ business challenges with an unparalleled mix of knowledge and experience, marketing science and proprietary research technology. Our work involves both B-to-C and B-to-B environments—with qualitative and quantitative insight solutions spanning market segmentation, customer experience and journeys (including digital user experiences), brand equity, product innovation, shopper insights, marketing optimization, social research platforms and research technology. We work with clients across a broad range of categories and industries including consumer packaged goods, financial services, automotive, retail, restaurant and hospitality, telecommunications and technology, apparel/textiles, utilities, health care, insurance and home improvement. Bellomy serves as an extension of its clients’ marketing research and customer experience departments by integrating a broad set of capabilities and areas of expertise, including: • Segmentation (a collaborative, outcome-oriented approach to
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segmentation, ensuring actionable segments that are stable, meaningful, differentiated and embraced). • Customer (and digital) experience (combining marketing science and technology creates our systematic approach to understanding and measuring differentiated customer experiences). • Shopper insights (our approach to understanding shoppers gets to the “why” behind consumer behavior). • Social research platforms (engages customers and key stakeholder communities via a broad array of activities including discussions, quick polls, surveys, video chats and digital diaries). • Brand equity (measuring and understanding a brand’s place in the hearts and minds of the market provides direction on how to convert prospects to customers and increase devotion to the brand). • Product innovation (design, optimize and validate innovation with insights at every stage). • Marketing optimization (tools to define the optimal mix of product, price, package and messaging). In addition, Bellomy clients are able to leverage SmartIDEAS, our enterprise consumer knowledge and insight platform. Bellomy is a founding sponsor of the Center for Retail Innovation at the Wake Forest University School of Business and a member of UGA’s Advisory Board in the MMR program.
47 KS&R ksrinc.com Founded 1983 2016 U.S. Revenue
$19 million
Percent Change from 2015
-13.6%
2016 Non-U.S. Revenue
$1.5 million
Percent from Outside U.S.
7.3%
U.S. Employees
152
Rita L. Reicher
marketing research buyers. This is a strong testament to our passion for excellence and “client first” business philosophy. KS&R’s clients range from Fortune Global 500 companies to startups. We have diverse industry experience with particular strength in technology, telecommunications, transportation, health care, finance and retail/e-commerce sectors. Our customized, multidisciplinary research solutions enable KS&R to engage with our clients throughout an entire initiative. We begin with crisp identification of the business issues and continue through detailed recommendations to inform critical business decisions and facilitate our clients’ success. Team members include business strategists with client-side experience and deep industry expertise who hit the ground running to successfully address specific issues and opportunities. KS&R uses established research methodologies, but also employs innovative tools. Our ongoing investment in technology and customer data include mobile apps, geofencing, applied and mobile ethnographies and social media research through KS&R’s Social Insight Exchange (SIX). Over the past year, KS&R’s team of qualitative experts has developed and refined customer experience and design techniques to build services, products and messages that are compelling and differentiating with bottom-line impact. Moreover, our marketing sciences team is experienced in advanced analytics, including forecasting and simulators to help our clients prioritize investments and identify growth opportunities. In 2017 KS&R will launch Knowit, easy-to-use, value-priced research solutions to help small businesses answer questions to grow their business. The purpose of Knowit is to give small businesses opportunities for insights where they are currently out-priced for them. KS&R will always be present to consult and guide customers through the research process. The initial Knowit offerings will include online surveys, secondary searches, social media insights (SIX) and bulletin board focus groups.
Chairman & President; Ph.D., Yale University KS&R (Knowledge Systems and Research, Inc.), based in Syracuse, New York, is a privately held, full-service custom marketing research company. For six years, KS&R has received the highest Gold Index composite score of any provider in the Prevision/Inside Research survey of
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The 2017
AMA Gold Top 50 Report
48 cmbinfo.com
Chadwick Martin Bailey
Founded 1984 2016 U.S. Revenue
$18.8 million
Percent Change from 2015
+25.3%
2016 Non-U.S. Revenue
$0
Percent from Outside U.S.
0%
U.S. Employees
66
Anne Bailey Berman
CEO & President; MBA, Boston University School of Management Chadwick Martin Bailey, Inc. (CMB) is a full-service market strategy firm helping leading brands adapt, innovate and grow through thoughtful quantitative and qualitative research, advanced and predictive analytics and strategic consulting. The CMB team is a strategic partner delivering insights and recommendations to the most innovative and fast-growing companies around the world. CMB’s consultative approach is centered on identifying and delivering insights and recommendations that support confident, strategic decision-making across each of its six practice areas: digital media and entertainment, financial services, health care, retail, technology and telecom and travel and hospitality. CMB specializes in innovative custom solutions to help brands in four critical areas: • Market strategy (target the right segments, create opportunity and build brands that compete and thrive). • Brand (build deep connections at every stage of the customer journey). • Product/service (accurately capture and translate evolving customer needs into tangible innovation road maps). • Journey (consistently deliver extraordinary and differentiating customer experience). In 2016, CMB expanded their co-creation workshop offerings to provide clients with a distinctive approach, leveraging expertise in consumer behavior, qualitative research and strategic consulting to ensure the experience is engaging and results in scores of new ideas, concepts or themes to take to the next level of development. Also in 2016, CMB extended their existing consumer psychology expertise through the development of a team of experts. The team’s work is centered on helping brands understand and influence consumers’ emotions and the impact of consumer identity to acquire and engage
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customers. This fusion of advanced analytics and consumer psychology helps brands optimize marketing and targeting and develop effective consumer-centric strategies for growth. While the team lends their innovative thinking on self, emotions and identity to all of CMB’s work, 2016 saw the further development of three proprietary consumer psychology-based solutions: • AffinIDSM helps clients strategically influence consumers’ image of the brand’s typical user. • EMPACTSM helps clients prioritize the emotions their brand, product or experience should inspire. • Habit-based segmentation helps clients leverage consumer habits that impact their business.
49 Hypothesis hypothesisgroup.com Founded 2000 2016 U.S. Revenue
$17.7 million
Percent Change from 2015
+50%
2016 Non-U.S. Revenue
$0
Percent from Outside U.S.
0%
U.S. Employees
44
Maria Stark
Founder; MBA, University of Southern California
Jeff Seltzer
Managing Partner; M.A., San Diego State University Hypothesis is a premium creative and consumer insights agency located in Los Angeles and Seattle that specializes in qualitative, quantitative, design-thinking, advanced analytics and data visualization. The Hypothesis approach is foundational, forward-looking and empathetic with a guiding principle that “simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” In 2016, Hypothesis revenue grew by more than 25%, driven by a combination of ad hoc custom projects, innovation/ideation labs and large global brand trackers. In 2017, we hope to continue our growth by doing great work for our current clients, adding more strong talent (especially in our Seattle office), emphasizing our design-thinking approaches and adding to our overall capabilities, especially data visualization/ design and advanced analytics/modelling.
Research 50 RTi rtiresearch.com Founded 1979 2016 U.S. Revenue:
$17 million
Percent Change from 2015
-2.3%
2016 Non-U.S. Revenue
$0
Percent from Outside U.S.
0%
U.S. Employees
55
David Rothstein
CEO; MBA, University of Rochester Ti helps turn insight into action. We are R an innovative, global full-service market research company, and for more than three decades, our clients have counted on us to connect the dots, tell the story and influence decisions. We are a four-time winner of the Connecticut Top Workplace Award. Through our extraordinarily talented, passionate and dedicated team, we provide unparalleled marketing-focused research and brand strategy services to the largest and most highly regarded brands and companies within their respective industries. In addition to our complete offering of traditional research tools and methods, RTi continuously develops specialized products leveraging technology, advances in data collection modes and advanced analytics in support of increasingly complex business decisions being made in an increasingly complex business environment. One example is our exciting new ideation and innovation platform, RTi Ingenuity, which has developed an impressive track record of success in just a short time. RTi Ingenuity accelerates and energizes innovation, ideation and naming through an exclusive “creative genius” panel and a proven yet customizable process. This year, we are very excited about our newest endeavor to focus on helping our clients market their research. Through high-quality, highly creative videos, we transform research insights into a memorable, emotionally engaging story that can be shared easily and quickly at any level of any organization. These videos embody and truly capture the essence of storytelling. We find that clients begin working with RTi because they seek higher-level, more insightful thinking and more attentive service from a research partner that understands what it takes to support their personal success as well as their company’s. Clients stay with us because we deliver.
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MARKETING RESEARCH
2017profiles
Marketing Research Company Profiles Find leading marketing research companies on the following pages who offer the knowledge, latest technology and tools to turn your marketing vision into reality. (Companies are listed in alphabetical order. The information in each listing was provided by the advertiser.)
Geographic Index to the Marketing Research Company Profiles UNITED STATES Arkansas
Minnesota
Wisconsin
C&C Market Research
ADAPT Inc.
Market Probe
California
Nebraska
Hypothesis
NRC Health
Connecticut
New Jersey
Germany
RTi Research
RTi Research
GfK Global HQ
Georgia
New York
University of Georgia | MRII
GfK North America HQ
Illinois
Radius Global Market Research
Customer Lifecycle, LLC
SIS International Research
Maryland
Ohio
Full Circle Research Co.
Ascribe
Westat
Michigan Michigan State University
Texas Creative Consumer Research — Houston
INTERNATIONAL
SIS International Research
Japan SIS International Research
Philippines SIS International Research
Shanghai SIS International Research United Kingdom SIS International Research
University of Georgia | MRII
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ADAPT Inc.
C&C Market Research
Location: Minnetonka, MN Contact: Dave Koch Phone: 952-939-0538 Email: dkoch@ adaptdata.com Web: http://www.adaptdata.com
Location: Fort Smith, Arkansas Contact: Thomas Morrison Email: thomas@ccmarketresearch.com Web: http://www.ccmarketresearch.com C&C Market Research, an industry leader for over 25 years, is the complete answer to all of your data collection needs. Our highly trained data collection specialists and beautifully designed field locations, coupled with our state of the art programming and data transmission capabilities, will ensure your next project is a success. With 50 locations (and growing!) nationwide, we are the largest privately owned and operated data collection company in the U.S. and have remained a leader in today’s marketplace through hard work, ingenuity, and a dedication to quality that is second to none. Our specialties include eye tracking, medical/ executive interviewing, Hispanic interviewing, on-site interviewing, sensory testing, mall intercepts, new product development, product purchase retrieval, and more.
Over 30 years of survey processing experience dedicated to the market research industry. Services include: comment coding (in over 30 languages); mobile media coding; text analysis; survey printing and mailing (US and Canada); inbound mail management; image scanning and traditional data capture; verbatim keying and editing; transcription (focus groups, IDI’s and recorded IVR comments). We have extensive experience in Healthcare, Consumer and Employee research. When you need fast and accurate survey processing services, call the experts at ADAPT Inc.
Please give us a call today!
NOTE: The following information was supplied by display advertisers in this issue to provide readers with additional details about their companies. All of these Profiles are paid advertisements.
Customer Lifecycle, LLC Location: Bolingbrook, IL Contact: Karin A Ferenz, Principal Email: kaferenz@customerlifecycle.us Phone: 630-412-8989 Web: http://www.customerlifecycle.us Customer Lifecycle is a global research consultancy working with B2B/B2C companies to plan and conduct research to accurately identify and measure requirements for customer acquisition, satisfaction and loyalty, share of wallet growth, and retention. We help organizations get better business results through improved integration of research findings into day-to-day operations. With reach to more than 3 million individuals in 160+ countries, we conduct strategic qualitative and quantitative research in multiple localized languages on a worldwide basis. We help companies avoid costly mistakes by focusing on thorough front-end planning, appropriate support for research execution, and action implementation at the back end.
Ascribe Location: Cincinnati, OH Contact: Rick Kieser, CEO of Ascribe Phone: 1-877-241-9112 Email: sales@ goascribe.com Web: www.goascribe.com Ascribe is the leading provider of verbatim text analytics solutions for the world’s most recognizable brands and research firms. Clients spanning 57 countries depend on Ascribe to gain real-time, accurate, and actionable insights into the feelings and experiences of their customers. Ascribe analyzes more than 300 million open-ended customer comments per year, captured across a broad range of channels and in a myriad of languages. With Ascribe, companies make better, moreinformed decisions through a deeper understanding of their customers and markets.
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Creative Consumer Research — Houston Location: Houston (Stafford), TX Contact: Patricia Pratt, President Email: ppratt@ccrsurveys.com Phone: 281-240-9646 Web: http://www.ccrsurveys.com Complete field service covering all of Texas. Large conference-style focus group rooms; one-way mirrors; large client viewing spaces. Taste tests, telephone interviewing, executive surveys, mall intercepts, door-todoor interviewing, in store intercepts, mystery shops, store audits. Computer capabilities available. Bilingual interviewing, moderators, translators available. Large rooms for oversized equipment and 100+ respondents. Expert recruiting for low incidence projects. Nationwide recruiting and telephone interviewing capabilities.
Full Circle Research Co. Location: Potomac, MD Contact: Adam Weinstein Phone: 301-762-1972 Email: adamw@ ilovefullcircle.com Web: http://www.ilovefullcircle.com Full Circle is the only U.S.-based online consumer sample provider to earn ISO 26362 certification and the only company to offer HoNoR™ (Holistic Next-level Research), a proven approach to quality. This unprecedented, automated marriage of advanced technology, flexible community strategies and industry-leading quality controls delivers the purest data and most consultative experience.
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sciences, GfK turns big data into smart data, enabling its clients to improve their competitive edge and enrich consumers’ experiences and choices.
GfK Locations: GfK Global HQ, Nordwestring 101, 90419 Nuremberg, Germany GfK North America HQ 200 Liberty Street, 4th Floor NY, NY 10281 Contacts: Gaina Collis/Lori Halivopoulos Web: http://www.gfk.com About GfK GfK is the trusted source of relevant market and consumer information that enables its clients to make smarter decisions. More than 13,000 market research experts combine their passion with GfK’s long-standing data science experience. This allows GfK to deliver vital global insights matched with local market intelligence from more than 100 countries. By using innovative technologies and data
Hypothesis
2017profiles client partners include many of the world’s most innovative, admired, dynamic, and disruptive brands and agencies who require the resources and capabilities of a top 50 firm, but the creativity and service orientation of a boutique. Headquartered in Los Angeles, with offices in Seattle, Hypothesis manages hundreds of projects domestically and internationally since 2000.
Location: Los Angeles, CA | Seattle, WA Contact: Jeff Seltzer, Managing Partner Email: jseltzer@ hypothesisgroup.com Phone: 213-542-7448 Web: http://www.hypothesisgroup.com Hypothesis is a consumer-centric insights, design, and creative agency specializing in research that is foundational, holistic, and forward looking. Unlike many firms, we don’t have an outsource model – our consultants, analysts, moderators, marketing scientists and designers are all in-house, and work closely to develop and effectively communicate insights and stories in a compelling (in fact, award-winning) style. Our
Market Probe Location: Milwaukee, WI Contact: Bonnie Lockwood Phone: 414-778-6000 Email: info@ marketprobe.com Web: http://www.marketprobe.com Market Probe specializes in technology enabled business solutions that deliver Voice of Market Feedback to improve business >>>
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operations. Market Probe designs enterprise feedback systems by integrating our technology solutions to configure program deliverables around client requirements. Our Voice of Market approach includes the latest multi-channel customer experience management solutions, with a strong focus on feedback systems designed to the needs of front line managers and channel partners in Business to Business programs. Every customer experiences a progression of stages in their product ownership: conversion, onboarding, compliance, expectations, disconnect and relationship. Loyalty and advocacy have to be earned by a brand by providing good experiences to customers across their product ownership. Market Probe offers six product solutions, covering the stages, which can be used by front line managers that are responsible for performance at each stage. Our products connect with their customers, helping them to improve the experience and build advocacy.
even fewer universities house these programs within a top-ranked, AACSB accredited business school – the Broad MSMR does both. Become a member of the next generation of business and marketing leaders.
The Master of Science in Marketing Research Program at MSU has been ranked by College Choice and TFE Times as #1 among Masters programs in Marketing Research in the U.S. The Broad Master of Science in Marketing Research is a specialized program that provides a graduate-level degree for people who want to build or accelerate their careers in marketing research. The program is available in two formats: • Full-Time: Two 12-month program options that include an internship period or real-life marketing research projects • Online: a 20-month program designed for working professionals Less than a handful of universities in the United States offer graduate degrees in marketing research, and
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that seek answers to meaningfully affect business results. The real core of Radius is the intellectual capital of our people who take every project from inception through to deliverables, looking at each stage to optimize the client experience and the power of our research’s impact.
NRC Health 1245 Q Street Lincoln, NE 68508 Locations: Lincoln, NE | San Diego, CA | Atlanta, GA | Seattle, WA | Markham, Ontario, Canada Web: www.nrchealth.com NRC Health enables healthcare organizations to illuminate and improve the key moments that define an experience and build trust. Guided by a uniquely empathic heritage, proprietary methods, and holistic approach, we help our partners design experiences that exceed expectations and inspire loyalty among patients, residents, physicians, nurses, and staff.
The Master of Science in Marketing Research Program at Michigan State University Email: msmr@broad.msu.edu Web: http://marketing.broad.msu.edu/mr/ Locations: Online | East Lansing, MI
NOTE: The following information was supplied by display advertisers in this issue to provide readers with additional details about their companies. All of these Profiles are paid advertisements.
RTi Research
Locations: Norwalk, CT | Matawan, NJ | Westerville, OH Email: drothstein@ rtiresearch.com Web: http://www.rtiresearch.com Our clients, some of the largest and most respected companies within their industries have counted on RTi Research for more than 30 years to connect the dots, tell the story, and help influence decisions. Clients come to RTi seeking higher level, more insightful thinking and extraordinary service from senior level professionals; they stay because we deliver on our promise — supporting our clients’ personal and organizational success.
Radius Global Market Research Location: New York, NY Contact: Chip Lister Email: clister@ radius-global.com Web: http://www.radius-global.com
SIS International Research Locations: New York | London | Frankfurt | Shanghai | Manila | Tokyo Email: restanat@ sisinternational.com Web: www.sisinternational.com Telephone: +1 212-505-6805
Radius Global Market Research is one of the largest independent market research companies in the world. We are single-minded in our focus: to grow your brand by strategically optimizing its offerings, identifying differentiating innovations in the marketplace, and delivering a compelling customer proposition that drives business performance. Our global brandbuilding experience is both deep and wide spanning all geographies and industries.
SIS International Research is a leading full-service Market Research, Strategy Consulting and Market Intelligence firm, established in 1984. We conduct Qualitative Market Research Fieldwork, Quantitative Data Collection, Market Research Recruiting, Brand Research, Strategic Market & Competitive Intelligence and Global Growth Marketing Consulting solutions.
We partner with Fortune 500 companies and other industry leaders
Our research solutions include Consumer & B2B research,
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Customer Satisfaction & Loyalty research, Product & Packaging testing, Automotive Market Research, Healthcare research and Branding Research. Our coverage is global, including nationwide US, Europe, Latin America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Our key regional offices include New York, Los Angeles, London, Frankfurt, Manila, Shanghai and Tokyo. Our qualitative services include Focus Groups, Interviews, Ethnography, Home Visits and Usability tests. Our quantitative services include CATI Telephone Interviews, Intercepts, Central Location Testing and Online Surveys. Our Strategy Unit provides Market Intelligence solutions including Market Opportunity & Entry research, Competitive Analysis and Go-ToMarket research. SIS also operates a state-of-the-art focus group facility in New York City.
2017profiles
University of Georgia | MRII
Westat
The University of Georgia offers three online certificate courses designed to teach the market research core body of knowledge — the basic skills you need to design, execute, and report on a market research project from beginning to end. Over 8000 practitioners in 104 countries have enrolled in the Principles of Market Research or the Principles of Pharmaceutical Market Research. The Principles of Mobile Marketing Research is new self-paced course that explores emerging mobile techniques and their application in market research. All courses are updated regularly to reflect the newest methods and approaches. AMA is aproud supporter of the Principles programs.
About Westat: Westat, one of the foremost professional service corporations of its kind, is the gold standard for social science research, statistical analysis, and strategic communications. Our research methods are customized to meet our client’s needs. With over 50 years of experience, Westat is the trusted source for innovative survey research and evaluation in areas including health, education, social policy, and transportation. Our 2,000 employeeowners in over 14 locations worldwide deliver high-quality, evidence-based results to support our clients’ goals.
Location: Athens, Georgia | Ann Arbor, Michigan Contact: Pam Bracken Email: Pam.Bracken@georgiacenter. uga.edu Web: h ttp://www.marketresearchcourses.org
Location: Westat Headquarters, 1600 Research Boulevard, Rockville, MD, 20850 Contact: Patricia Espey-English Vice President, Marketing Email: marketing@westat.com Phone: 301-294-2836 Web: www.westat.com
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The Friendship that Changed Marketing Forever How a 55-year friendship and intellectual partnership made marketing larger than life
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Sidney Levy
fascinated had become
with
marketing. A trained behavioral scientist, he suspected that branding went beyond soap, steel and candy bars. He’d been researching the social aspects of marketing since the 1940s and saw the field’s vast potential. In 1961, he began teaching marketing classes at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. Levy’s first year at Kellogg was an exciting time for marketing, with a booming economy, booming consumerism and a baby boom in the years after WWII. The recently invented color TV was brought into living rooms across America, carrying with it hours of previously nonexistent ad space. A large audience was not only reachable but willing to be reached; marketing and advertising became more important than ever for big business. From 1950 to 1960, annual advertising expenditures in the U.S. quadrupled from $1.3 billion to $6 billion, according to The Advertising Age Encyclopedia of Advertising. It was also an exciting time for the Kellogg school, which was transitioning from a traditional faculty and marketing program to a school that included scholars from outside the field. One such scholar was an economist named Philip Kotler.
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In 1962, Kotler was recruited to Kellogg and told by the school that he could choose to teach either economics or marketing. After a visit with Levy and other members of the faculty, Kotler says his choice was clear: “I chose marketing.” “That was one of the attractive things in meeting the faculty and deciding whether to join Northwestern: meeting Sid Levy,” Kotler says. “Sid and I hit it off early. He’s a very charming and interesting man; an original mind, fresh insights into things.” Kotler, like Levy, did not have a marketing degree. He had studied
economics under Nobel laureates such as Milton Friedman, Paul Samuelson and Robert Solow. While Kotler didn’t have a marketing background, he—like Levy—did have a unique viewpoint and a desire to refine and expand the field. Fifty-five years after joining Kellogg, Kotler is affectionately known by marketers as the “father of modern marketing.” Over those five and a half decades, Kotler, Levy and other faculty members at Kellogg studied, explained and thought about marketing in ways no one had before. “We actually wanted to hire people who were not trained in
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marketing,” Kotler says. “Not that it was a prejudice. It was that we would go further if we had different social sciences in our group.” That diversification of ideas spread throughout academia and, soon after, the marketing business world. Levy, who ran Kellogg’s doctoral program
Philip Kotler, Sidney Levy and Nancy Kotler in Levy’s living room.
for 16 years, says the influence of Kellogg’s golden era stretched far and wide: His first three student graduates became the heads of marketing departments at the Sloan School of Management (Alvin Silk); the Haas School of Business (John Myers) and the Wharton School (Tom Robertson). Kotler’s textbooks are used in universities across the world. More than 3 million copies have been sold, and they’ve been translated into 20 languages. In 2017, the AMA turned 80, Kotler turned 86 and Levy turned 96. Though Kotler and Levy have not formally worked together in two decades, their
impact on the marketing industry reverberates, and their bond as lifelong friends holds strong. Changing Marketing, Changing Society In the age of post-WWII explosive spending, marketing was a narrow field that focused on practice sans theory. Businesses spent money but didn’t know what kind of ROI they were getting on campaigns or what went on in the mind of the customer, nor could they properly segment customer bases. But for each of these issues, it seemed Kotler and Levy had an answer—or at least a series of edifying questions to ask. The duo brought unique concepts and ways of thinking to marketing, just as Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky brought to behavioral economics. Take, for example, Kotler’s assertion that marketing is a branch of economics, a thought that likely drew some cross looks in the 1950s. Now, Kotler’s assertion is accepted and practiced by academics and executives. “The field of economics is becoming very rich because of what marketers have been studying for 100 years,” Kotler says. In his early years at Kellogg, Kotler spent a lot of time reading extant marketing textbooks. They were disappointing. Most books described what a salesman, wholesaler or advertiser would do in a given situation, but none were based on data. None had analytical models. The books were anecdotal, dry and not well-researched. “The whole idea of being analytical and trying to get explanations of a phenomenon rather than just describing things descriptively was in my mindset,” Kotler says. “I immediately said that we needed a textbook in marketing which was based on four foundations: economics, organizational theory, consumer
“Both Kotler and Levy had a profound influence on marketing as we know it today. Levy did pioneering things in the domain of branding, culture and the realm of the symbolic. Had he not conquered this exciting territory early on, marketing would not exist today as a ‘social science discipline,’ and most of us contemporary, culturally oriented marketing and consumer researchers wouldn’t even be here. Kotler must be credited for having established marketing as an MBA and boardroom institution. He really ‘translated’ marketing knowledge in ways that made it accessible and desirable to a wide array of stakeholders and industries. He made marketing resonant to engineers, tourism managers, city officials, political leaders and media journalists. It could be argued that Kotler is marketing’s best marketer.” —Markus Giesler, chair of the marketing department at York University’s Schulich School of Business and director of the Big Design Lab
behavior theory and mathematics.” His book Marketing Management [Analysis, Planning, and Control] was a big risk, he says, because all the work could have collapsed if professors didn’t respond well. Kotler was pleasantly surprised as professors not only responded well to his 1967 textbook, but many lauded it as the best book on marketing they had read. It was adopted in classrooms across the U.S., then the world. Fifty years later, the book remains in print and is in its 15th edition. Levy was doing his own intellectual heavy lifting. His landmark 1959 paper titled “Symbols for Sale” was the first to say that marketing goes beyond simply selling practical merchandise—it also sells symbols. Anyone with a pair of Nike sneakers or a Gucci bag likely knows this now, but at the time Levy’s concept was novel. Ever the social scientist, Levy argued that marketers needed to consider the personal and social meanings behind what people
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Photo proofs of Kotler, Levy and others from the 1984 and 1985 AMA Summer Educators Conferences in Chicago and Washington, D.C.
“Quite independently of one another, Phil and Sid had as big an impact on marketing thought as anyone else I know. What is also unusual is that this impact is felt among both practitioners and academics. If that isn’t special enough, we find that together, through their joint work on broadening the concept of marketing, they further shaped how we even conceive of the field in the first place. … The atmosphere [at Kellogg] was special and made more special by the ways in which everyone stimulated the department’s intellectual goals.”— Gerald Zaltman, former Kellogg faculty member and current Joseph C. Wilson Professor Emeritus at Harvard Business School
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buy, the diversity of spending and “the recognition of modern goods as essentially psychological things which are symbolic of personal attributes and psychological goals,” as the paper says. “This seems obvious if we grant the importance of symbols—but not all businessmen do, of course, and that has accounted for many failures in sales,” Levy wrote. “Greater attention to consumers’ modes of thought will give marketing management and research increased vitality, and, in turn, add to its own practical and symbolic merits.” In addition to advancing the idea of brand symbols and brand image, Levy is credited by many with coining the term “brand.” Kotler says Levy first used the word at a conference where David Ogilvy, founder of Ogilvy and Mather, “picked up” the word from him. “So Sid didn’t get credit for inventing that,” Kotler says. “But many people have picked up ideas from
Sid and used them as their own.” No matter, as Levy’s groundbreaking work on branding is in print for all to see. While each man did important solo work, perhaps their most formidable breakthroughs came in tandem. In 1969, Levy and Kotler co-authored a paper in the AMA’s Journal of Marketing titled “Broadening the Concept of Marketing.” Levy and Kotler laid out the idea that marketing was about more than goods and services, it was about places, people and ideas. Instead of simply focusing on soap, toothbrushes and televisions, they wanted to expand marketing to cover cities, ideas and policies, too. In 1969, the article was presented at the AMA’s Summer Educators’ Conference. “I regarded it as an assertion of the universal application of marketing activities to all individuals and organizations,” Levy says. “I had already done marketing research work since 1946 for
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Recent Titles
Kotler and Levy have not stopped working. Check out these recent books from both marketing legends: Kotler: Marketing 4.0: Moving from Traditional to Digital (2016) Marketing for Competitiveness: Asia to the World - in the Age of Digital Consumers (2016) Marketing: An Introduction, Sixth Canadian Edition (2016) Confronting Capitalism: Real Solutions for a Troubled Economic System (2015) Marketing Management, Student Value Edition (2015) Levy: The Theory of the Brand (2016) A Marketing Educator’s Career: Living the American Dream. A Memoir (2015)
numerous kinds of individuals and organizations—[such as] politicians, entertainers, hospitals—the article was a natural extension of the idea of marketing.” When this paper was published, Kotler and Levy polled of some of the top academic economists on whether they were in favor of broadening the concept of marketing or if they wanted it to remain defined as the sale of goods and services. “Marketing will either take on a broader social meaning or remain a narrowly defined business activity,” they wrote in the paper. The response to the poll was overwhelmingly positive and a broader definition of marketing was born. What Kotler considers to be his and Levy’s biggest idea was that of “demarketing.” The 1971 paper, titled “Demarketing, Yes, Demarketing,” explained that there are some products that are either not good for people or are in short supply. These products need to be rationed, they wrote.
“So everything that’s opposite of building up the demand is to take down a demand,” Kotler says. “Demarketing is the science of reducing the demand for something, such as the demand for arrests or for using water very carelessly when there’s a shortage.” In another 1971 paper—this one by Kotler and Gerald Zaltman, a fellow Kellogg staff member who is now the Joseph C. Wilson Professor Emeritus at Harvard Business School—titled “Social Marketing: An Approach to Planned Social Change,” the phrase “social marketing”—now also known by many as cause marketing— was born. The paper showed how marketing analysis, planning and control could help solve societal problems such as safe driving and family planning. There’s no measurement of how far any of Levy or Kotler’s ideas have spread through marketing, but their pervasiveness is undeniable. “It Was Not Just Two Professors.” Ideas from Kotler and Levy laid the groundwork for modern marketing, but the ideas also helped build the foundation for a 55-year friendship. “We had a family relationship, too,” Kotler says. “It was not just two professors.”
True to themselves, the friendship was far bigger than marketing. When they first met, Levy and Kotler quickly discovered that their parents had owned retail businesses not far from each other in Chicago. Outside of campus, they spent time together with their families. Levy’s daughter babysat for Kotler’s young children. Kotler fondly remembers he and his wife, Nancy, sitting in Levy’s living room, pulling up a seat to a big table and finding out what Levy’s two children had learned that day. At work, Kotler and Levy would go to lunch and talk about anything— music, art, forms of government, health care. These big conversations were often not about marketing, but Kotler says they helped jar loose some of his and Levy’s biggest ideas. Levy was—like Kotler—also a “cosmopolitan type,” unafraid to broach any subject. “Sid and I may have talked a lot about Karl Marx in the sense of there was a proletariat, there are poor people and there are people who are super rich,” he says, touching on a controversial topic in the years after McCarthyism and the Red Scare. “We wondered, ‘What is a good society?’ We would talk about questions like that. ‘What makes for happiness in life?’ and so on and so forth. We were just free-thinker types.”
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The Definition of Marketing Here’s how the AMA, Kotler and Levy each define marketing
The AMA Board of Directors: “Marketing is the activity, set of institutions and processes for creating, communicating, delivering and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners and society at large.” Philip Kotler: “The science and art of exploring, creating and delivering value to satisfy the needs of a target market at a profit. Marketing identifies unfulfilled needs and desires. It defines, measures and quantifies the size of the identified market and the profit potential. It pinpoints which segments the company is capable of serving best and it designs and promotes the appropriate products and services.” Sidney Levy: “I see marketing as essentially all exchanges where people seek to achieve their purposes. But that would have to include activities that do not seem to pursue ‘value’ or ‘profit’ except in a larger sense that I don’t think the AMA or Philip have in mind. ... So, here is why I think marketing is a function of branding, not the reverse as is commonly thought. People’s motives are basically to be themselves, to have their identities and express their purposes. In doing that, they create their branding and gain their reputations. Whether they are individuals or are in groups or organizations, they engage in an exchange of objects, money, ideas and actions, in order to implement that branding. Marketing is what we call that implementation, making it a function of branding. That overall branding I sometimes refer to as ‘grand branding’ is commonly confused with the specifics of logos and advertisements as parts of the implementation. We have different ways of marketing as we seek to implement different categories of purpose, such as commercial marketing, intimate marketing, social marketing and labor marketing.”
Often, their conversations would lead to action. Kotler recalls a lunch where he and Levy got out their pens and paper and worked out what an American single-payer health care system might look like. They weren’t satisfied with improving marketing: Levy and Kotler wanted to answer life’s biggest questions. In 1991, Levy retired from Kellogg. He remained an active member of the faculty until 1997, but then he and his wife moved to Arizona where the weather is a bit warmer than the snowy, windy conditions that tend to denude the trees on Lake Michigan’s shores. Ever the workman, Levy’s “retirement” turned into his chairmanship of the University of Arizona’s marketing department at the Eller College of Management. Now, at 96, he continues to live on Arizona’s campus and works as the Coca-Cola Distinguished Professor of Marketing.
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Kotler, who still teaches at Kellogg but is mulling retirement in 2018, laughs when mentioning Levy’s attempt at retirement. “You think he’s retired, but he went from Northwestern to that other place,” Kotler says with an air of disbelief. Perhaps he just wanted to go somewhere warmer where his wife could have a garden full of plants, Kotler says. But listening to Kotler’s voice, one can sense his belief that he and Levy could have had more conversations, answered more big questions and made marketing even broader if Levy had stayed. Dealing with Disagreement While the two men now see each other less often, Levy returns to Kellogg every two years—most recently in May 2017—to visit Kotler and Kellogg’s marketing students.
During a 2015 visit on his 94th birthday, Levy gave a talk titled “A Theory of the Brand.” Levy discussed his belief that branding is the central concept of marketing. Unsurprisingly, a conversation broke out. Kotler stood up and disagreed with Levy, expressing his belief that marketing itself is the central concept and branding is only a piece of the puzzle. This type of disagreement has not happened often between the two— especially publicly—as their bond prevents odious comments from escaping the mouth of either. Kotler says he would never disparage Levy, but they disagreed from time to time. However, their friendship was not one that depended on agreement. They could push each other without taking it personally. “We may disagree but it was with the best of intentions,” Kotler says, reflecting back on the 2015 meeting. “If I remember, we had the faculty listening to Sid talk and present a view and something in me said, ‘I would think differently about that.’ That was not to be cited as a typical thing between us. Most of the time we just enjoyed each other’s viewpoints.” Levy recalls the humor of the event: “Actually, the one time we met at Kellogg a couple of years ago and he said he disagreed with me about what I had said about the priority of grand branding, I just said, ‘Philip, I am not going to disagree with you publicly,’ and that ended the session, with laughter from the audience,” Levy says. “I just meant I didn’t want to embarrass him by explaining why he was wrong. “But we are good friends,” Levy continues. “Intellectual shades of difference don’t affect that. I have always loved and admired Philip and Nancy.” Pushing the Boundaries of Marketing From the time Levy and Kotler first shook hands 55 years ago to
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From the Marketing News archives: Kotler holds up a Russian copy of his book Marketing Management.
present day, marketing has expanded larger than anyone—Levy and Kotler aside—ever imagined. Levy and Kotler’s admiration for and conversation with each other played a big role in pushing them and the industry forward. Each wanted marketing to become bigger, but also moral and ethical at its core. “Sid and I were always concerned about making marketing a good field, a field that people could be proud of,” Kotler says. “If I said, ‘I’m a marketer,’ people might say, ‘You’re trying to sell me something.’ And they always have stories of bad companies and bad selling. We wanted to make it a field that actually should enrich lives. The best definition we used to use was marketing’s aim is to raise the standard of living of a whole community, to give people higher aspirations and higher capabilities.” This aim strikes at the heart of why Levy and Kotler wanted to expand marketing: It needed to become larger to be used for a greater purpose. While marketers should keep the best of the old tactics, Kotler says marketing is a field where professionals must always evolve and grow, just as he and Levy did. If a CEO came up to Kotler and asked him to sign the 1967 version of Marketing Management, adding that he still uses it in business today, Kotler says he’d look the CEO in the eye and tell him “you’re doomed to fail.” There’s always a new idea, always fresh knowledge, always something to expand upon. Levy agrees, saying there’s still room to grow in a field pregnant with potential: “Despite all that has happened since WWII, which is tremendous, there is still a long way to go for people to learn about marketing and how to engage in it for greater benefit.” Kotler and Levy were always forward thinkers looking for that greater benefit. During Kellogg’s golden era, Kotler says it was especially helpful to have each other.
“I like that island of social scientists,” Kotler says, counting off a list of professors at Kellogg and their differing specialties—anthropology, economics, social science—all with a focus on pushing the boundaries on marketing. “We even began to forget we were anything else. I didn’t do that much economics initially in the classical theory point of view; I was a social scientist. By the way, I went back to the University of Chicago for an extra year to bone up on more social science, so Sid was a major influence on my thinking.” Levy says the atmosphere at Kellogg during his days of tenure were “remarkably familial.” “We did not suffer the emotional divisions that some schools have among their partisan thinkers,” he says. “Our quantitative, qualitative and managerial groups were amiable, congenial and discussed in outspoken but friendly ways. We had a picnic at the lakefront every spring and a party at the Levy house every fall. Together, we built the eminence of Kellogg School’s Department of Marketing.” When Kotler speaks about the golden era of Kellogg and his work with Levy in expanding the definition of marketing, he becomes reflective and pauses. “You know, let me give you a little insight that I just realized myself: Maybe what we felt was marketing was too narrow for us. Our interests
“Certainly their classic paper, ‘Broadening the Concept of Marketing,’ reframed the conversation about marketing among both practitioners and academics to be less tactical and more philosophical and strategic. This has led marketing departments at business schools to seek faculty with training in basic disciplines such as economics and psychology. This has had an enormous impact on marketing practice, helping it to move up the corporate ladder and now reside in the C-suite.” — Alice Tybout, Harold T. Martin Professor of Marketing at Kellogg School of Management
were so broad, we had to broaden it,” he says with a laugh. “In other words, ironically we did this for our own sake. We wanted to be thinking about bigger issues and the field was narrow. Broadening was our answer.” Kotler and Levy smile upon their days of broadening marketing, even now across the broad expanse between them. “If I’m not too late for your meeting with Philip, please give him my regards,” Levy says from Arizona. Kotler laughs when he hears from his friend and partner, 1,700 miles away. “Sid’s a great guy and I’m looking forward to seeing him when he comes.” m
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and what do you see indicating the freshness of a particular item? Sell by. Use by. Enjoy by. Best before. Expires on. Display until. Etc. So many phrases attempt to give consumers an understanding of a product’s shelf life, but their meanings are nebulous. For years, the bevy of terms used to denote the longevity of packaged foods at grocery stores has created confusion instead of clarity. It’s a problem that has significant real-world implications. In 2013, the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic and Natural Resources Defense Council teamed up to produce a report that found Americans waste 160 billion pounds of food each year, valued at approximately $29 billion. Research conducted by the U.K. sustainability nongovernmental organization, Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) indicates 20% of that waste comes from uncertainty over the meaning of freshness labels. Leading food waste reduction nonprofit ReFED estimates that standardizing food labels could save 400,000 tons of food from being wasted each year. In the face of all this data is a growing movement to assimilate quality and safety messages. Under a proposal endorsed by both the Food Marketing Institute (FMI) and Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), there is an industry-wide push to standardize food labels by the summer of 2018. “Right now, there are 10 to maybe 20 different phrases that are used on packaging,” says Meghan Stasz, senior director of sustainability at GMA. “The retail grocery and manufacturing sectors, over the course of a year, have worked to develop a voluntary national standard to streamline the phrases used on consumer product packaging in the U.S. to help reduce consumer confusion.” Under the new system, Stasz hopes that the plethora of terms seen on shelves will be phased out in favor of just two. The main packaging language is slated to become “Best if used by.” This is an indicator of food quality, not a hard expiration date. It’s what most of the product labels used today indicate, although studies have shown most consumers view such labels as firm “use-by” dates that denote the last day before product spoilage.
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“After that date, they are OK to consume,” Stasz says. “They might not taste quite like you would expect. They might not have as much vitamin content as the stuff on the label, but they are safe to consume.” Products that are highly perishable, such as meat and dairy, will be stamped with a shorter, firmer “Use by” description, indicating the maximum length of time the item is safe for consumption. Stasz says market research has indicated that American consumers respond with the most certainty to these two terms. “There have been a number of different proposals on how best to streamline the product date labeling language. We wanted to make sure that we are promoting phrases that work best with U.S. consumers,” Stasz says. “These phrases were tested several times over with consumers in the U.S. to make sure they understood the difference between the two phrases and they would be able to translate [them into] action.” The campaign to standardize labels comes as lawmakers scrutinize the labeling of store items. While there is no federal standard, legislation proposed last year by two Democratic members of Congress sought to impose uniformity throughout the grocery aisles, requiring widespread adoption of “Best if used by” and “Expires on” nomenclature to indicate quality and safety, respectively. The bill would also have required such dates to be placed prominently on packaging in print no smaller than 8-point font. Enforcement of the standard would have been the responsibility of the USDA and Department of Health and Human Services, in coordination with the Federal Trade Commission. While their proposal never advanced out of Congress, the lawmakers have indicated they are looking to reintroduce the law. That may not be necessary if the current FMI-GMA push is successful, although it is completely voluntary for both retailers and manufactures. Nevertheless, some of the biggest players have already signed on. “We have exceptionally strong support for and buy-in from both the retail grocery and manufacturing sectors,” Stasz says. In fact, the GMA press release touting the initiative includes support from executives at Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Dean Foods and Wakefern Food Corporation. Wal-Mart has used standardized “Best if used by” labeling on its nonperishable Great Value items since 2015. In a company blog post, vice president of food safety Frank Yiannas wrote, “After surveying our customers about how they would choose a food label that indicated a change in quality but not safety, there was a clear winner: ‘Best if used by.’ I expect the standard labels to have an even bigger impact on waste reduction since many of our suppliers sell products under their own labels outside of Wal-Mart. This is significant, as the
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global economic impact of food wastage comes to about $750 billion each year.” In an e-mailed statement to Marketing News, Jack Jeffers, vice president of quality at Dean Foods, said, “Dean Foods has always strived to make sure our dates are as consumer-friendly as possible, and eliminating confusion for the consumers to help reduce waste is a win-win for the consumers and the food industry.” Kristine Mulford, communications manager at Conagra Brands, says her company will begin updating its labels in a phased approach with completion planned for July 2018. “We are pleased that the industry has aligned on consistent labeling language to offer consumers greater clarity around the quality and safety of their food,” she says. “Nobody really wants to get direction, but I think most of us want to make things as simple for our
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A sampling of different date labels currently used on products. Research shows consumers treat such labels as firm “use by” dates, although items are often safe for consumption past the listed date.
customers as we can,” says Joe Oberweis, president and CEO of Oberweis Dairy, a food manufacturer and restaurant operator throughout the Midwest. Oberweis says his company hasn’t yet looked closely at the specifics of the FMI-GMA proposals, but he would be inclined to favor standardizing labels, so long as it frees companies from the burden of navigating a hodgepodge of state guidelines on food labeling. Stasz says that while the “vast majority” of store product is eligible for relabeling under the voluntary national standard, companies will still need to comply with state law where applicable. However, Oberweis raises a bigger question about the food labeling system. Right now, he says his company stamps calendar dates onto his products with no accompanying text. “We’ve always treated it as an
expiration date, but the reality is that our product lasts something like a week beyond that,” he says. So the fuzziness or lack of clarity with his products could be contributing to food waste that the standardization initiative seeks to reduce. But, he says, the nature of his products is such that he believes people are bypassing the date on the label altogether and using the “smell test” to determine whether or not they are safe for consumption. “We have the advantage of selling milk. If milk is bad, all you have to do is smell it and you know,” Oberweis says. “It’s not really hard to determine whether milk is sour or not.” What about less-perishable foods like ice cream, which can last much longer if kept at the right temperature? “If you took ice cream and stored it in a deep freezer at 20 degrees below zero, even two years later, there’s not a health risk,” he says. What Oberweis is getting at—and at the crux of the label question—is there’s a certain degree of variance in estimating the date a product will lose quality or spoil. While the date listed on the package is an educated guess, mileage may vary. Even honey, widely known as a food product that does not go bad, is often stamped with a quality label two years from the production date. “There’s less precision than I think consumers assume around expiration dates,” Oberweis says. “If you take half a gallon of milk and warm it up to 60 degrees and let it sit for four hours and then put it back in the refrigerator and let it cool to 35 [degrees], that expiration date is no longer appropriate.” Some of the dates listed on packaged foods are regulated by state law, but most are determined by the manufacturers themselves. “Companies’ food scientists and food safety people are some of the best in the world, and for most products the dates are set [internally],” Stasz says. “The date is selected based on how the product performs in different environments. It’s a highly scientific process. With that said, we know a consumer education campaign is going to be a critical part of any standardization effort.” For the next year, while the push to standardize unfolds behind the scenes, Stasz will be developing a campaign to inform consumers about the exact meaning of the new quality and safety phrases. She plans to involve QR codes on packages, introduced by the GMA as part of the SmartLabel campaign, to help spread the message. Likewise, the FMI’s FoodKeeper mobile app is another resource that Stasz can rely on to push out the campaign and reinforce the new messages consumers will soon be seeing in stores if they are not there already. “This is not a silver bullet solution for food waste,” Stasz says. “It’s really about providing better, more and clearer information to consumers to improve their experiences with products.” m
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T o p o f t he Clas s an d t h e I n dus t ry Ma rketers (a n d a sp iring m arke t e rs ) are c on sta n tly lookin g f or ways t o brus h up on th eir skills or g ain ce rt ificat io ns . Ma rketin g New s exp lore s t hre e o pt ions .
By S ar ah S t e i me r
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There’s a big “what now?” moment that emerges during many professionals’ careers. Maybe this moment occurrs because their knowledge has gone stale, they want an edge on the competition or they’re looking for a new job. For marketers—or those looking to gain entrance into the marketing field—there are numerous options for updating your know-how and résumé.
University Tie-Ins
Choosing ongoing education programs by way of a university can be a great fit for professionals looking to gain customized training, but not a degree. One such example is the DePaul University Kellstadt Marketing Center, where courses are taught by marketing experts from the academic and business communities. Topics covered in class range from social media to website design. “DePaul’s mission is to reach out and connect with the community,” says J. Steven Kelly, executive director of the Kellstadt Marketing Center. “My goal was to build something that helps people reinvigorate their skills in marketing. People just want to find out how to get their skills upgraded.” Marketers can earn a certificate in certain classes or the Integrated Marketing Communications Certificate, which is a package of classes. The classes, which remain on the smaller side—about 10 to 20 students per section— ensure more interaction and include group projects that allow classmates of varying ages and backgrounds to collaborate and share knowledge. Kelly says if there is a project on mobile solutions, for example, he could see a student with a social media background paired with a person who has a strategic marketing background. “I don’t ever see an age clash,” says Jurate Murray, associate director of the center. “I think they benefit from each other. Older students are learning from younger, and young students are learning from their [older classmates’] experience. They also keep in touch. I know a couple of students even started their own consulting business.” There are some classes offered online through the center, but both Kelly and Murray emphasize the impact of the classroom experience. Kelly says many classes benefit from guest speakers and the type of group work that would be difficult to recreate in an online experience. An advantage of education and certification through a university is having the institution’s accredited name attached. Murray says a number of foreign students find this particularly appealing. “International students really value that this is an accredited institution, it’s a known university,” she says. “They go back to their home country and often get promoted because they have an education from the United States. A lot of students do want that piece of paper.”
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When a program is associated with a university such as DePaul, Kelly says, there’s an awareness that quality should be measurable, and the programs must go through an approval process similar to the university’s degree programs. The curriculum must have clear objectives, and there needs to be a definition of what it’s trying to accomplish. The types of students who come to the Kellstadt Center may vary widely in age and ability, but Kelly and Murray say they reflect a desire to grow with the industry. They are active learners and understand the need to update their skills. Some students even return to refresh their craft. KeLLsTADT MArKeTInG CenTer
Location: Chicago, some online classes Typical student age: 25-65, majority are 25-44 Typical student background: majority of students have a bachelor’s degree; one-third have a master’s degree Completion rate of the ICM program: 99%
TrAInInG AnD COMMUnITy
General Assembly CEO and co-founder Jake Schwartz calls his organization “the solution to the global skills gap.” The education provider focuses on coding, design, data, business, marketing and career development. GA’s digital marketing program is available to students online and in-person at a number of its locations (there are 20 campuses in six countries). There are two options for the digital marketing program: part-time or intensive. The part-time course lasts 10 weeks, with students meeting twice per week in the evenings. Most of these attendees already have fulltime jobs. The one-week intensive program is typically for students without a full-time job. The program begins by building on the marketing background most students have, then shifts to a deeper dive into topics such as Google AdWords and Twitter buys. The students are working on a project throughout, and many use their own company, brand or campaign as the focus— particularly those who received funding from their company to take the course. “For example, let’s say you’re developing a campaign on LinkedIn for tech recruiters,” says Taylor Golden, partnerships manager at the Chicago General Assembly campus. “You’ll work on the audience segmentation first, then you’ll work on developing Facebook ads. Working on these different components for a single objective helps you see the build of the actual campaign. You’re also exposed to classmates’ presentations twice during the course, then throughout the class when you’re talking about a particular topic and everybody’s sharing.” The curriculum is built in collaboration with GA’s employer partners, says Jonny Vu, regional director
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at General Assembly in Chicago. The course reflects what these employers are looking for in graduates, or the sorts of tools and devices the companies are utilizing. The New York-based curriculum team gets feedback from all the campuses about what is relevant in each market as technology changes. Because the class instructors work in the field, they also bring in current, on-the-ground knowledge. “Bringing those industry tidbits into the classroom is so valuable,” Vu says. General Assembly’s coursework can be very flexible compared to a traditional or university setting. Golden says this ability to respond immediately to industry changes helps GA achieve a more iterative curriculum. While the program is not certificate-bearing, the focus is on GA’s mission of advancing students from education to employment. A large piece of that is in the communitybuilding that’s offered to students both during and after they take the course. The digital marketing instructors are encouraged to invite speakers to the class, and GA locations frequently host guest panels, networking activities, boot camps and other events that bring together thought leaders from the community. “There are so many ways to work with General Assembly,” Golden says. “We’ve had different speakers come from all walks of the marketing world. Then they might send an employee to take a class, who then perhaps hires data scientists, UX designers or web developers from our other classes. It’s a weave of people that’s continuing to grow.” GenerAL AsseMBLy DIGITAL MArKeTInG PrOGrAM
Location: online or at its 20 campuses Typical student age: 29-30 Typical background: college degree Hiring partners (in all GA fields): 2,500+
InDUsTry LeADersHIP CerTIFICATIOn
The American Marketing Association’s Professional Certified Marketer (PCM) program currently has two tracks: marketing management and digital marketing. The latter launched in March and allows marketers to demonstrate that they have specialized digital marketing skills and are aware of the best practices in the field. “This was developed for the purpose of giving people the tools and the knowledge they need to advance their career,” says Christopher Bartone, director of digital content at the AMA. “It’s about career advancement and allowing marketers to take agency in trying to gain an edge.” William Trevor, a faculty program director for marketing programs at Excelsior College, is a Professional Certified Marketer, Digital Marketing after taking the
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exam, and he says the biggest draw is that the exam is backed by the AMA. It is important to him, as a marketing professional, that his credentials convey his commitment to keeping his skills updated and that the certification is developed by leading industry and academic experts. “Fundamentally, the certification helps me to show that I am current with industry best practice,” he says. “I have appended it to my e-mail signature and put it on my social media profiles, which has also generated a lot of comment and discussion from my connections and colleagues. It also hangs proudly on the wall in my office.” Bartone says the AMA found that its members are seeking independence in the way they gain certification. The digital marketing certification exam takes about two hours and has 120 questions with an optional break about halfway through. The questions are multiple choice and true or false, with questions covering metrics and conversions, SEO, content marketing, social, community and more. The AMA served as a curator, pulling together the most recent, relevant information with its partners, with questions to be updated as the industry itself changes. “When the trends in digital marketing change, the AMA’s digital marketing exam can respond in real time,” Bartone says.
The AMA partnered with LinkedIn Learning to design a learning path for the exam, using LinkedIn’s videos on various digital marketing topics that were recommended by a committee of marketing experts. Those looking to take the exam can use the 40-plus videos to study, but there is no obligation to watch. For instance, if a test-taker needs only to brush up on SEO, they can focus on just those videos. “As someone who has been in education and online learning for a number of years, I really felt that the content was well-presented, current and designed to help me pass the exam,” Trevor says of the LinkedIn Learning videos. A free practice exam is available that includes 28 questions representing each section of the certification exam. The practice exam can help potential test-takers decide whether they want to go directly to the full exam or shore up some of their skills with some LinkedIn Learning videos, Bartone says. And this isn’t a one-attempt test, either. Once the exam is purchased, marketers may take it three times over the course of a year. “What the AMA is trying to do is help the marketer take control of their own curriculum and have the AMA’s community validate that this is where digital marketing is and these are the skills you need to know,” Bartone says. Trevor says the exam required him to illustrate how his competence in the digital marketing area could be tested in the real world, and it tasked him with applying his knowledge in a practical and relevant way. Once the exam is passed, the marketer is immediately issued a three-year certification. The AMA’s research showed marketers want the process to be rigorous, robust and conveniently accessible. “This is what provides the AMA community advantage,” Bartone says. “It gives them the confidence and an edge to be successful in their career and job search.” AMA PCM In DIGITAL MArKeTInG
Location: Online Typical test-taker background: N/A Qualified test-takers: Open to all, with a discount for AMA members
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career advancement
on the record
How to Make Glassdoor Work For You The employer review site offers a window into other companies while allowing users to sound off on their own
ew innovations have taken as much guesswork out of job searching as Glassdoor. For nine years, the employer-review site has provided a window to the world of startups and Fortune 500 companies alike. Employers and employees view public feedback left on the site as a near real-time evaluation of morale and working conditions. Lately, researchers have jumped on the bandwagon, too. Studies using Glassdoor data have found links between poorly rated companies and corporate fraud, and in-house research has confirmed the existence of a gender pay gap and the impact of college major on perpetuating said gap. Marketing News spoke to Scott Dobroski, Glassdoor’s director of corporate communications, about site features and getting the most out of your Glassdoor experience.
a human touch review. We have a real team of human moderators read reviews. We want to empower employees to leave constructive reviews that are helpful to others to get a good look at what it is like to work at a company. People are empowered to leave their opinions, period. You can talk about what you think of the CEO. You can talk about what you think of your team, the work, the hours. You can talk about the commute. You can talk about things that you don’t like or need improvement, and you must give your opinion. What you’re not allowed to do is reveal facts about a company’s product roadmap. You cannot state things that are not true. You can state opinions. You can call out your CEO by name, or other public-facing executives. You cannot call out Sally in the next cubicle and talk negatively about her. We believe that goes beyond helping somebody find a job or company.
Q
Q
What’s fair game when you are reviewing an employer?
A
First of all, let me just set the scene. Unlike other companies, on Glassdoor we require people to give a full picture of what it’s really like to work at a company, which means they have to enter pros and cons. No workplace, just like no relationship, no apartment, nor any bike is perfect. There are always areas where things are going well and areas that need improvement. Every review goes through a robust review process. We take our data integrity incredibly seriously. What I mean by that is when people share a review, it goes through both a technological review and
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Q
Some companies that are huge have hundreds of reviews. Smaller companies might only have a handful. What do you think is a good sample size to get a sense of what a company is actually like?
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By Zach Brooke | staff writer
zbrooke@ama.org
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Glassdoor readers form opinions after reading about six to seven reviews.
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How do you put the ratings in perspective?
We want to empower our users to do the research and determine for themselves. If you work at a company with a 2.0 rating, then a 3.5 company may be really good. But if you work at a 4.3 and then you go to a 3.5 company, you may view that as bad. For some perspective, of the 700,000 companies that are featured on Glassdoor with content, the average company is a 3.3. You should read reviews and determine for yourself. See what people have to say about it. It’s not just a rating alone, which is why people need to write a review when rating a company. We find that most
There isn’t a do-or-die algorithm. It depends on everyone. However, if you are applying to a very large company, it could be helpful to expect and see more reviews, obviously. And actually small and medium-size businesses with fewer than 1,000 employers make up more than half of all employers in the U.S. labor economy. If you see 10 reviews at a company, but they only have 500 employees, that may be enough for you to get a sense of what it’s like to work there. The reviews on Glassdoor are a great added data point to really understand the company, but it shouldn’t end there. You should also be reaching out to friends, family, coworkers and people on social networks who work at the company to get greater insights.
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What about people who are not actively looking for new jobs? What is their incentive to review their employer on Glassdoor?
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The incentive for them is to get unlimited access to Glassdoor. We have what we call a give-to-get model, which means we ask our users to share a review or one piece of content, like a salary report, once a year. We believe that’s a fair ask. Even if you’re happily employed, when you want to go for salary negotiations, you should be using a site like Glassdoor to see what fair market pay is for your title, years of experience and where you live. You should use a tool like Know Your Worth, which allows you to calculate what you should be earning based on where you live, your employer, years of experience, your title and specialty. Workplace transparency is only going to increase. You’re helping others find a job that could be the right fit for them and you’re actually giving feedback to your
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AMA Recruitment Classified Advertising Need to hire qualified, skilled marketing professionals? Looking for qualified marketing or business professors? AMA’s Recruitment Classified Ads are the most cost-effective way to reach your target audience!
ORDER INFORMATION To place a classified ad in Marketing News, please contact Jordan Berthiaume at amaprint@yourmembership.com or call Jordan at (727) 4976565 x3409. To post your job on AMA's online job board, go to http://jobs.ama.org.
The Graduate School of Business at Stanford University invites applications for tenure-track faculty positions in marketing beginning September 1, 2018. All ranks and relevant disciplines will be considered. Candidates should have or expect to complete a PhD by September 1, 2018, and should possess a strong and active research record. The successful candidate will be expected to conduct research and to teach both MBA and PhD courses in marketing. Applicants should submit their applications electronically by visiting the web site http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/recruiting and uploading their curriculum vitae, research papers and publications, and teaching evaluations, if applicable, on that site. For an application to be considered complete, all applicants must have three letters of recommendation, CV and job market paper submitted by June 30, 2017. For questions regarding the application process, please send an email to faculty_recruiter@ gsb.stanford.edu. Stanford University is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to increasing the diversity of its faculty. It welcomes nominations of and applications from women, members of minority groups, protected veterans and individuals with disabilities, as well as from others who would bring additional dimensions to the university’s research, teaching and clinical missions.
Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth Faculty Search in Marketing The Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, invites applications for a tenure-track position in marketing beginning in the 2018–19 academic year. We are open to all levels of appointment — Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, or Full Professor. Applicants must have a Ph.D. or be near completion of a doctoral degree in marketing or a related field. The application deadline is Friday, June 30, 2017. JOB QUALIFICATIONS: We seek candidates who will produce research of excellent quality that will have high impact on the field. There must be evidence that the candidate can conduct research and teach at a level of quality consistent with Tuck’s high standards. We are interested in candidates who can interact effectively with others and enhance the intellectual environment of the school. APPLICATION PROCEDURE: Faculty applications and all supporting documents must be submitted to: http://apply.interfolio. com/41699. Dartmouth is an equal opportunity/ affirmative action employer with a strong commitment to diversity. All underrepresented groups are encouraged to apply.
POSITIONS OPEN ACADEMIC FACULTY UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI – CORAL GABLES, FLORIDA The University of Miami invites applications from interested candidates for one or more tenure-track/ tenured faculty positions (rank open and contingent upon research record), starting Fall 2018. Qualified candidates should have a Ph.D. or be in the final stages of their dissertation, have a willingness and capacity to conduct highquality scholarly research, and demonstrate teaching competence. They are expected to pursue an active research program, perform undergraduate and graduate teaching, supervise graduate students and engage in service activities. Please send a cover letter, CV, and letters of recommendation in PDF format to MKTrecruiting@ bus.maimi.edu by no later than July 12th, 2017. Information about the Marketing Department at the University of Miami is available at: http://www. bus.miami.edu/facultyand-research/academicdepartments/marketing/ index.html. The University of Miami is an Equal
Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer, and a drugfree/smoke-free workplace. MARKETING RESEARCH INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS ANALYST: Collect, evaluate & report on international business trends & related data; Provide analysis & recommendations to top mgmt both in the US & in Japan about new international business plans & new product launching; Bachelor deg or equiv in Bus Admin or Mktg reqd; Must be fluent in Japanese; 40 hrs/ wk; $54,974.00/Yr; Jobsite/ Interview: LA, CA; Send this ad & resume to Mr. Kodama, c/o Mutual Trading Co. 431 Crocker St., L.A., CA 90013.
POSITIONS WANTED FREELANCERS AVAILABLE QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH SERVICES: Online Surveys, Survey Mailings (Discount Business Reply), Date Entry, Data Tabulations, SPSS & Quantum, MaxDiff, Conjoint, Opportunity Analysis, Comment Coding and PowerPoint Presentations. UGA graduate with 20 years experience. Quick turnaround. Please call Jeanne Eidex at 770.614.6334.
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recommend is applying to a job purely based on salary. In fact, the research shows that salary is a leading factor that people consider before determining where to work, but is actually not a leading factor when it comes to what keeps them engaged and satisfied in the long term.
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Any recommended do’s and don’ts for leaving a review?
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employer. We have tens of thousands of employers who use our free employer account as an added data point to help them understand near real-time employee feedback at organizations. We hear from Salesforce, Facebook, Starbucks and a bunch of other companies across all industries that they use Glassdoor to gauge real-time sentiment.
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Are there commonalities among the best employers or the worst employers in terms of what comes up during reviews?
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Yes, there is. Each year we publish a list of the best places to work according to employees themselves. When we analyze this, the common themes among the best places to work are very clear. No. 1, what employees love about working at these very highly rated companies is that there is a missiondriven company culture. That means decisions they make, improvements they make, things that they want to do that help the business are all aligned to the mission. That makes people understand why they are doing what they are doing and that’s empowering. No. 2, people love working at companies with [further] career opportunities. Not only does it mean you like the job, but it means that if you want to stay with the company, there is actually a clear path for career opportunities.
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That’s great. It means you can go on to learn new skills, you can get promoted and you can bolster your salary, too. The third thing that really resonates in terms of a theme among highly rated companies is people love working for employers where senior leaders are clearly communicating to their workforces in the short term and the long term. That often means they are finding ways that cross time zones or markets. What resonates at lower-rated companies is the exact inverse. People are often working for companies where they just don’t know what the point is, the company changes its mission or its focus every day. They feel like there’s a lack of career opportunities and career growth, so they feel stuck. They are not hearing from anyone on what the vision is, so they don’t really know why they’re doing what they’re doing.
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Is it dangerous to log-in to Glassdoor and just check out salaries for a position without looking at anything else? Do jobseekers focus solely on salaries at their peril?
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No, the No. 1 reason people visit us is to search for the latest jobs. The next two reasons are to research salaries, followed by company research—what it’s really like to work there. It’s not a bad thing for anyone to come to Glassdoor just to research salaries. What we don’t
In terms of the do’s, give a full picture of what’s working well and what needs improvement. Make your review current. Give people a fresh perspective on what it’s like to work there right now. Talk about some of your favorite moments. Give concrete examples; people love that. Be specific in your role.
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Glassdoor also posts open jobs. How does the aggregator work? Are these jobs only available through Glassdoor?
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We do feature all of the available online jobs now. Here in U.S., there’re just over 5 million, and that’s consistent with what the Bureau of Labor Statistics puts out. Yes, there is still a small percentage of jobs [posted by] people who will put “help wanted” signs in the window of their businesses. We have the same jobs as other major job sites. It’s the same technology for how we get them. Whether it’s LinkedIn or Indeed, we’re able to work with employers or scrape job sites and use various feeds.
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Is there any special bonus to job searching through Glassdoor?
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Yes. Unlike job boards, we feature a split view of our jobs. Data has shown us that jobseekers find this more engaging. On the left-hand side, you’ll see all of the latest jobs, one on top of another. You’ll even see all of the estimated salaries for each job, which no other site offers. On the right-hand side, you’ll see the job description with all of our great employeegenerated content underneath. So you can instantly read reviews from employees at the company. m
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advertisers’index
ADVERTISERS’ INDEX Quick source for contacting the suppliers in the June 2017 issue of Marketing News.
2017 AMA Annual Conference . ........................ p. 7 URL: http://ama.marketing/ annual2017
Bates Creative ............... back cover Ph. 301-495-8844 *118 URL: http://www.batescreative.com
2017 AMA Nonprofit Marketing Conference .... p. 55 URL: http://ama.marketing/ nonprofit17
C&C Market Research . ....................... p. 45 Ph. 1-877-530-9688 URL: http:// www.ccmarketresearch.com
2017 Summer AMA Conference . ........................ p. 5 URL: http://ama.marketing/ Summer2017 Adapt .............................. p. 46 Email: dkoch@adaptdata.com URL: http://www.adaptdata.com AMA Academic Placement Career Fair .......................... p. 5 URL: http://ama.marketing/ap17 AMA's Marketing Resource Directory ....... p. 69 Ph. 1-888-777-6578 URL: http:// marketingresourcedirectory. ama.org AMA Members-Only Webcasts . .......................... p. 71 Email: savdic@ama.org URL: http://www.AMA.org/ mow AMA Whitepapers ........... p. 42 Email: sales@ama.org URL: http://www.AMA.org/ whitepaper Ascribe ........................... p. 37 Ph. 513-241-9112 x55 URL: http://www.GoAscribe.com
Creative Consumer Research — Houston ...................... p. 53 Ph. 1-877-530-9646 URL: http://www.ccrsurveys.com Customer Lifecycle ...... p. 43 Ph. 630-412-8989 URL: http:// www.customerlifecycle.com Full Circle Research Co. .................. p. 47 Ph. 301-762-1972 URL: http://www.iLoveFullCircle.com GfK . .................................. p. 41 URL: http://www.gfk.com Hypothesis ..................... p. 65 URL: http:// www.hypothesisgroup.com Insights Association ... inside back cover URL: http:// www.insightsassociation.org
Michigan State University Master of Science in Marketing Research . ....................... p. 57 Email: msmr@broad.msu.edu URL: http://marketing.broad.msu. edu/mr/ NRC Health .............. p. 30, 51 URL: http://nrchealth.com http://go.nrchealth.com/AMA Radius Global Market Research . ....................... p. 33 Ph. 212-633-1100 URL: http://www.radius-global.com/ experience RTi Research .................. p. 63 Ph. 203-324-2420 URL: http://www.RTiResearch.com Salesforce ............. inside front cover URL: http://www.sfdc.co/ gartner-mq-2017 SIS International Research . ....................... p. 49 Email: research@sisinternational.com URL: http:// www.sismarketresearch.com
Market Probe ........... p. 59, 61 URL: http://www.marketprobe.com
The University of Georgia | MRII ................... p. 3 Ph. 1-800-811-6640 URL: http://www. principlesofmarketresearch.org
Marketing Research Company Profiles ....... p. 67-71
Westat ............................ p. 39 URL: http://www.westat.com JUNE 2017 | MARKETING NEWS
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#OfficeGoals A peek inside the marketers’ offices that make us drool
Cloud Room The concept for Seattle’s Cloud Room posits that
The sixth floor, 5,017-square-foot space consists of a large co-working area (with back-of-house support amenities) and a lounge that can be completely separated for use as a private event room. Glass-fronted conference and phone rooms are designed to reinforce the collaborative spirit while providing privacy. Office furnishings include a mix of simple standardized pieces (long work tables and seating) as well as an eclectic assortment of casual seating. The lounge features a wood- and mirror-faced bar with stools, sofas, and occasional furniture. The lounge adjoins a westfacing terrace punctuated with a fire pit for cool-weather socializing. Design architect: Graham Baba Architects
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Photographers: Lara Swimmer, Rafael Soldi, and Tim Bies
“the best office might not be an office at all.” Cloud Room provides a shared working environment and private member’s club enriched by the people who occupy it.
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