Marketing News: June/July 2018 by Molly Soat

AMERICAN MARKETING ASSOCIATION

AMA.ORG

JUNE/JULY 2018

The 2018

AMA Gold Top 50 Report

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table of contents AMERICAN MARKETING ASSOCIATION

4-6

SEEN ON AMA.ORG

8-11

ANSWERS IN ACTION • Snapshot • Core Concepts

12-14

AMA INTELLIGENCE • The Middle Market

16-21

EXECUTIVE INSIGHTS • Andy Crestodina • Vikas Mittal • David Aaker

102-107 CAREER ADVANCEMENT • Job Hunting • On the Record

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 The 2018 AMA Gold Top 50 Report

The final edition of the AMA’s annual report on the biggest players in the market research industry.

#OFFICEGOALS The Market Research Arms Race

Faced with myriad pressures in a dynamic marketplace, traditional market researchers are seeing themselves upended by technology and consultancies. Can they diversify before being subsumed by larger players, or is their reach finite?

88  Wading Through a Data Swampland

Marketers can lead the way in a post-Cambridge Analytica world where data collection rules are murky and consumers are creeped out.

What Makes Brands Iconic? Brands must nurture what makes them iconic instead of what makes them appear new and shiny, according to Soon Yu, author of Iconic Advantage.

FIND OUT MORE AT

AMA .org

OR FIND US ON

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JUNE/JULY 2018

VOL. 52 | NO. 6

LETTER FROM THE CEO

AMERICAN MARKETING ASSOCIATION

Mary Garrett Chairperson of the AMA Board 2017-2018 Russ Klein, AMA Chief Executive Officer rklein@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 Bill Murphy, Designer wmurphy@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 June/ July 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, U.S.A. Periodical Postage paid at Chicago, Ill., and additional mailing offices. 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. 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). 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. Copyright © 2018 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. Printed in the U.S.A.

The Swinging Chimp

’ve always loved the sight of a swinging chimpanzee making its way through the jungle so deftly, knowing precisely when to let go of the old branch and when to grab onto the next branch just in time. Chimps make swinging look so elegant and effortless, but we all know how difficult it can be to let go of things in our own lives. This Marketing News represents the final edition of the Gold Report. The AMA’s intellectual agenda is anchored by the Seven Big Problems confronting marketers in the coming years. Problem No. 7 is the delicate balance between managing incremental versus radical innovation, a problem which also poses the broader question of managing an enterprise in the present while preparing for the future. Jim Collins’ famous philosophy of companies that are “built to last” has been obsolesced by the greater need to build companies to adapt. Few spaces in the marketing landscape have been recontoured like that of marketing research. The postdigital world has upended the role marketing research plays in an enterprise. Digital access to data and information has been democratized in an always-on, real-time society. Consumers are grappling to find a balance between expectations of personalization and privacy. New job titles and new organizational structures reflect the importance of turning data into insights. Research cultures are turning into learning cultures. As has been said many times

for other disciplines, marketing research is everyone’s job. While the Gold Report has endured for 45 years, our recognition of this change in marketing research spurs us to believe there are better (i.e., the “next branch”) solutions to support market research through more innovative forms of content. Make no mistake, if you’re a marketing researcher, the AMA remains an essential community for you and all 17 million sales and marketing professionals in North America. No other organization is for the individual marketer, for life, like the AMA. Whether you’re looking for solutions-based content, coaching and training, certification and credentials or simply a safe place you can call home as a marketer, we’re for you.

RUSS KLEIN CEO

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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

You Can’t Stop Evolution

he world changes quickly. Marketers know this better than most. In the past few decades, the research technologies and methodologies used to inform marketing strategy have gone through massive transformation, and marketers are better for it. In this issue, the AMA is publishing the last Gold Report. The biannual report has been a stalwart of the market research industry—but it’s time for a change. We’re witnessing a massive evolution in how research is conducted and used. Our content, both online and in print, will cover those changes and will keep you informed of what’s coming next in market research methodologies and innovations. Our commitment to covering the market research industry is unfailing. Elsewhere in the issue, Zach Brooke dives into the evolution of the market research industry and what marketers should know to stay ahead. “Market

research consumers now place greater value on insights beyond what traditional market research has measured—and they don’t care where those new insights come from, which has opened the door to tech upstarts and legacy consultancies with new research arms. Industry insiders must act swiftly to keep pace with technological advances, ward off corporate interlopers and refashion themselves as psychologists and market-forecasting tycoons, lest they be overtaken,” Brooke writes. Facebook’s recent missteps have ignited a firestorm of questions about online data collection ethics. New market research giants Google and Facebook have a way to go before they serve their advertisers in the same way that traditional marketresearch agencies have in the past. “The ability to collect more granular data continues to grow, sometimes faster than guidelines can be written. … As Facebook policies continue to morph, marketers are mulling over

whether the social platform is still the golden child of online ad targeting, or if guidance and filtering could help Facebook reach its potential,” writes Sarah Steimer. What do you think the future of market research looks like? MOLLY SOAT Editor in Chief @MollySoat

CONTRIBUTORS

JACQUELINE FROLE

HOLLY SCHMITTLE

Jacqueline Frole is an art director and set designer making bold, graphic scenery and props for brands, editorials, film/TV and theater. You can see her most recent work on Instagram @j.a.c.k.i.e.l.a.n.d.

Holly Schmittle is the director of human resources at Planit, a Baltimore-based advertising agency. She has more than 15 years of experience in human resources across diverse industries including marketing, engineering, accounting and medicine.

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cooperate with the Information Commissioner’s Office and be a catalyst for a change of mindset necessary for compliance. GDPR aims to get companies to acknowledge the concept of privacy by design and default.

How to Meet GDPR Standards CONSENT

A Marketer’s Guide to GDPR

he EU’s General Data Privacy Regulations (GDPR) became law on May 25. This set of regulations provides consumers with vital data protection that has been missing for decades in today’s hyper-connected digital world. Even though GDPR is EU law, it applies to any business or organization offering services or goods to any EU resident. The EU market is the largest in the world and most global enterprises are doing business in the EU, so GDPR could become the de facto standard worldwide. (Noncompliance can carry penalties as high as $24.6 million or 4% of annual global revenue.) The increasing expansion of cloud

and mobile computing practices in enterprises will make U.S. companies more vulnerable to GDPR, as they often act as both data processors and data controllers. GDPR was created to ensure that data protection laws are responsive to the ever-increasing threat of security breaches and cyberattacks. The directive is prescriptive to ensure European citizens’ personal data is safe, enhancing their confidence and interaction with online services. The first step for brands toward compliance is to recognize their responsibilities and create a GDPR strategy. Businesses can begin by appointing a data protection officer to inform the company of its legal obligations, monitor compliance,

The definition of consent has been changed under GDPR to: “Any freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous indication of his or her wishes by which the data subject, either by a statement or by a clear affirmative action, signifies agreement to personal data relating to them being processed. “Silence, pre-ticked boxes or inactivity should not therefore constitute consent.” GDPR also makes it clear that consent should not be conditional upon sign-up to another service (i.e., bundled together). Individuals must also be told they can withdraw consent, and it must be simple to do. Organizations that are processing data with consent will have to demonstrate that they have obtained consent fairly and that the individual was given the information necessary to understand their choices. PROFILING

Under GDPR, profiling has been given a comprehensive definition intended to include all forms of automated decision-making. Profiling for direct marketing purposes does not require explicit consent, but consumers have a right to opt out. THE RIGHTS OF NATURAL PERSONS (CALLED ‘DATA SUBJECTS’)

GDPR gives individuals the right to access all the personal data companies store about them. The information needs to be supplied in

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writing or in electronic form when the request is made electronically (unless it is requested in writing). There will be no fee for the first copy of this data, which companies have one month to provide. The controller must also indicate the recipients of the personal data, how long the data will be stored and knowledge of unprocessed data. Data subjects will have the right to request rectification or erasure of personal data, to object to processing and to complain to the supervisory authority. RIGHT TO RECTIFICATION

If a data subject finds any inaccuracies in their personal data, they can have the organization rectify it. THE RIGHT TO ERASURE

The right to be forgotten has been extended into the right to erasure. This gives natural persons the right to request their personal data be erased “without undue delay.”

GREATER CUSTOMER LOYALTY

It’s clear that better cybersecurity will improve loyalty among existing customers. The consequence of the alternative was highlighted by a 2016 FireEye report, wherein 76% of consumers who responded admitted they were likely to take their business elsewhere if a company was guilty of negligent data handling, and 75% said they would stop buying from a company that suffered a data breach following boardroom failure to prioritize cybersecurity. Fiftynine percent said they would take legal action if their personal details were stolen and used for criminal purposes. MORE ACCURATE DATA

Getting GDPR-ready will improve the accuracy of data stored in a company’s database because it will allow customers to access their personal data and validate the stored information. This right already exists, but since the new

regulations will require data controllers to rectify any identified errors they are told about, it means the accuracy of data stored will be greatly improved. DATA STORAGE

No longer will firms use their data just to look back at history. Now data can be used to establish patterns, trends and predict the future, empowering organizations to innovate and launch new products. The modern datacentric approach should leverage technology to integrate the full content of all data sets, establish relationships between them, annotate them with metadata and make them instantaneously searchable, at less cost. Gearing up for GDPR is a priority for many organizations, but it won't be easy. Even so, the changes needed for GDPR compliance can turn into a competitive advantage for organizations. —PETER GILLETT

THE RIGHT TO DATA PORTABILITY

Under GDPR, there is a new right to data portability designed to make it easier for individuals to switch accounts.

Potential ROI of GDPR IMPROVED BUSINESS REPUTATION

Major data breaches have made global headlines, but the problem of data protection is a lot bigger when smaller companies are factored in. The Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2017, an annual report published by the U.K.’s Department of Culture, Media and Sport, found about 70% of large U.K. firms have suffered a cyberattack. With the threat of attack so high, being certified as GDPR-compliant is going to be a major marketing benefit, boosting a business’ reputation as secure in the eyes of potential customers. JUNE / JULY 2018 | MARKETING NEWS

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Failure, Not Fitting In and Driving Value: Keys to Success for 2018 Marketing Hall of Fame Inductees

he Marketing Hall of Fame recognizes the most admired marketers for the innovative ways they have advanced marketing. Seth Godin, Lee Clow and Esther Lee were inducted to the Marketing Hall of Fame on May 17, 2018. The inductees were chosen from a pool of 300 nominees. “Sometimes marketing works and sometimes it doesn’t,” Godin said as he accepted his induction. “But getting marketing right is important. … I just keep getting lucky time after time because I ignore all the times my fingers hurt and all the times it

doesn’t work. “The future of marketing, I think, is about having the guts to do something that matters, not because the client wants us to or because it’s in a manual or because we can.” When marketing is done right, Godin said, it can change culture itself. Clow couldn’t be in New York City for the event, but he said he was glad to accept, as his induction means that marketing and advertising have come a long way since he started 50 years ago. “Fifty years ago, I don’t think I would have been able to join the

AMA,” Clow said, sounding and looking the part of an aged surfer. “Tonight, I’m in your hall of fame. Cool.” Before accepting her induction, Lee stood up and hugged her father, who had flown into New York from Korea to see his daughter inducted into the Marketing Hall of Fame. Lee, currently the global CMO of MetLife, said she didn’t know what her dad was going to say in the video introducing her, but she knows that he made her the marketer she is today. “You become what you were raised to believe,” she said. “My dad had the proud belief that all his kids were capable of anything, but we had to make the most of every opportunity and create the most value.” —HAL CONICK

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answers in action

SNAPSHOT

Hockey Fans Warm Up with Dunkin’ Tapping its NHL and U.S.A Women’s Hockey connections, Dunkin’ Donuts engaged with fans off the ice at the 2018 Stadium Series BY SARAH STEIMER | STAFF WRITER

 ssteimer@ama.org

t’s 6 a.m. and mom or dad are trucking their child—foul hockey gear in tow— to the ice rink. The only redeeming part of their morning may be a doughnut and the cup of coffee that keeps their hands warm as they watch from the stands. Dunkin’ Donuts saw this connection between cold mornings and a hot cuppa and struck at the chance to be the unofficial sponsor of early morning

practices, as well as the corporate marketing partner of the National Hockey League, the National Women’s Hockey League and U.S. Hockey. Dunkin’ has also become a mainstay at NHL jewel events, which include the Winter Classic, All-Star Weekend and the Stadium Series. Goal The typical Dunkin’ experience for most customers consists of popping by a

walk-up window or sliding into a drivethru for coffee, doughnuts or a breakfast sandwich. The brief stop is typically what fuels their morning. Dunkin’ Brands wanted to capture consumers’ and hockey fans’ attention for longer than the morning rush. The company was interested in gaining in-person customer feedback and offering samples of products that customers might not otherwise try. It was a chance to extend the interaction longer than the time it takes to order, pay and leave. Through its partnership with national hockey organizations, Dunkin’ saw an opportunity to spend time with one of its key demographics: People looking to warm up. “That’s the best way we can get customer feedback, and that’s the way we connect with our fans on site,” says Kemma Kefalas, assistant marketing manager for Dunkin’ Brands. “We want to give them a new type of Dunkin’ experience—something really fun and

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SNAPSHOT

something that’s near and dear to their hearts: hockey. This is just a way to engage them, have some fun, to put Dunkin’ front of mind and remember how much fun they had that day at our activation.” Action With the help of Fenway Sports Management and Sapient, Dunkin’ Brands set up a branded experience tent at the NHL’s 2018 Stadium Series in March, held at the Navy–Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis, Maryland, where the Washington Capitals played the Toronto Maple Leafs. Fans could engage with the campaign for a few hours prior to the game’s start. “[Dunkin’] really felt like the demographic around the hockey world and that hard-working, diehard hockey fan was what they were going after,” says Kate Hogan, director of consulting and events at Fenway Sports. “When we were talking about what to do at the jewel events for the NHL, we were focused on finding something that would appeal to those fans.” The “Brewed for This” Zone was stocked with Dunkin’-branded games, all centered around a shared love for hockey and a desire to stay warm in chilly temperatures. A DJ played music for guests to dance along to, accompanied by a grooving Dunkin’ Cuppy, the brand’s mascot. Guests could take advantage of the on-site photo booth, raising a giant Dunkin’ cup over their head, mimicking the way NHL players hoist the Stanley Cup overhead after winning the playoffs. The photo booth was set up, so pictures could be sent directly to users’ phones, allowing them to post the photo to social media, tag Dunkin’ Donuts and engage with the company online. Dunkin’ offered samples of coffee, hot chocolate, iced coffee and Munchkins doughnut holes. There were air hockey games and bubble hockey games for fans to pass the time before the real game began. Dunkin’ also tapped its partnership with the U.S. Women’s Hockey Team. Five

members of the team, which won gold at the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, visited the tent to take photos with guests, including team captain Meghan Duggan. “They had their gold medals on them, which was a nice way for fans to experience something that they might never be able to get near, touch or see in their lives,” Kefalas says. While fans waited in line to meet the Olympians, the Dunkin’ team found a family at the highest point of the stadium and gave the lucky fans, who drove three hours from Pennsylvania, a seat upgrade. Results Dunkin’ Brands measured its success by the number of samples distributed. At this Stadium Series event, the company gave away 4,000 Munchkins samples, 1,500 4-ounce cups of hot chocolate, 1,300 4-ounce cups of coffee and 300 3.5-ounce cups of cold brew. “It was really fantastic to see so many fans engaged with the team,” Hogan says. “And [fans] were staying in the booth. They didn’t just take their picture and leave. They were playing, they were sampling, they were dancing with Cuppy. It was a great draw, but we found fans were sticking around a while as well.” At all NHL jewel events throughout the 2016-17 season, the company distributed 14,000 Munchkins, 12,600 coffee samples and 1,900 hot chocolate samples. The young daughter of the Pennsylvania family was a big fan of Duggan and got to both meet the hockey star and wear her gold medal, Hogan says. The girl’s mother shared a surprise anecdote with Hogan as well: She rewards her daughter weekly for doing her chores and homework with a trip to Dunkin’ to get her favorite strawberry frosted doughnut. “She kind of just went crazy when she had a chance to meet Meghan [Duggan],” Hogan says. “Sports fans are Dunkin’ fans many times, so we want to use our sports sponsorships to help share that access for these fans, to give them the upgraded opportunity on behalf of Dunkin’. ” m

answers in action

COMPANY

Dunkin’ Donuts HEADQUARTERS

Canton, Massachusetts CAMPAIGN TIMELINE

Prior to the 2018 Stadium Series on March 3 RESULTS

Gave out samples of: • 4,000 Munchkins. • 1,500 4-ounce cups of hot chocolate. • 1,300 4-ounce cups of coffee. • 300 3.5-ounce cups of cold brew.

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CORE CONCEPTS

How to Have a Great E-mail Marketing Campaign in 2018 Consumers’ inboxes are inundated by spam, trash and malware disguised as marketing messages. How can marketers differentiate their content and connect with consumers? BY HAL CONICK | STAFF WRITER

 hconick@ama.org

-mail is a marketer’s greatest tool and greatest conundrum. E-mail gives marketers access to the potential attention of nearly 4 billion consumers across the world, but it also fills consumers’ inboxes with an avalanche of spam, malware and mistargeted ads. And the avalanche of e-mail is growing. In 2017, people sent or received 269 e-mails each day on average, up from 110 per day in 2010, according to reports from research firm The Radicati Group. In three years, consumers will have to work harder to keep up with their inboxes, as Radicati predicts consumers will send or receive nearly 320 e-mails each day. As consumers fight to keep up with their inboxes—“zero inbox” has become more an aspiration than a realistic goal— marketers have used design, targeting and personalization to cut through the clutter. But as access to e-mail marketing tools has become common beyond the agency marketer, e-mail has become democratized. Anyone, from a backroom spammer to a Fortune 500 CMO, can send an alluring e-mail. In turn, consumers have become chary of the messages they open—and for good reason. In 2017, cybersecurity software company Symantec reported that spam composed 54.3% of all e-mail messages. No longer the unpolished shlock it once was, spam can now look just as good as the finest e-mail marketing campaign. In the same year, IBM researchers found that the volume of spam with malicious intent—phishing, malware or account takeovers—was swelling. One wrong click

could mean disaster; trust has become imperative. How can marketers build trust and stand out in cluttered inboxes? Here are nine tips.

Be Human MailChimp, where Tom Klein serves as CMO, is one reason why creating polished e-mail campaigns is easy for anyone. “You don’t have to be a $20 billion

companies easygoing and long-winded. At MailChimp, Klein says the marketing department likes to keep messages to subscribers “weird.” In a recent listbuilding campaign, MailChimp created a landing page with an e-mail submission form in the foreground and flowers, candles and a CD titled “Ultimate E-romance Classics” in the background. Users who submitted their e-mail address received a download link to an “e-romance” song that someone from MailChimp’s design team wrote and sang. “It’s weird, it stands out and it’s clearly something that’s not a hard sell,” Klein says, adding that these no-pressure landing pages deliver results to marketers and value to consumers. “I could have just as easily given away a PDF. It’s a way to deliver some value and get people to sign up to your list.” No matter what style is used or what value is given to the consumer, Klein says marketers should think of their e-mail marketing as if they were writing a letter to somebody they care about. “It’s like a love letter to your customer,” Klein says. “Put a little heart into it.”

company to create incredibly compelling marketing communication,” Klein says. MailChimp is likely the most wellknown e-mail marketing and automation platform, claiming to deliver 2 billion e-mails each month. But others—such as VerticalResponse, Constant Contact and SendGrid—have also made e-mail marketing scalable. These platforms simplify the technological end of e-mail, but Klein says that without thoughtful content, marketers’ messages will sound robotic. Being a human will set marketers apart in the inbox, he says. As in real life, being a human in an e-mail means something different to each company. Some companies may want to be apt and abrupt, other

Don’t Overdo Personalization Whenever Kevan Lee signs up for a new e-mail list, he enters his name in lowercase letters. “When someone tries to personalize it to me, I’ll notice that my name is lowercase and be turned off right away,” says Lee, director of marketing at Buffer, a social media management app. “It’s easy to tell when someone is just being a token. Like, yeah, we know your name, but it’s not personalized. It needs to go deeper than that.” Just as lazy e-mail marketing can turn customers off, there’s also danger in being too proactive and personal. InMoment’s most recent CX Trends Report states that 75% of consumers find most personalization “somewhat creepy,” and 40% of the marketers surveyed agree. At Buffer, Lee says his team tries to avoid laziness and creepiness by sending personalized messages to a targeted audience rather than a specific person. Using a targeted audience instead of a targeted individual ensures subscribers receive relevant content without feeling weird.

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CORE CONCEPTS

Test, Measure and Trust Your Data “The best practice for sending is a lot of testing,” Klein says. “Testing the message, testing the creative, testing the content, testing the timing.” Testing, Klein says, improves the results of a campaign and boosts marketers’ confidence by replacing guesswork with knowledge. Testing is also easier than it used to be, as most e-mail marketing software now has built-in A/B and multivariate testing tools. “Recipients will surprise you,” Klein says. “It’s hard to tell which [message] is going to win, and it usually comes down to compelling creative and simplicity of message.”

Go Beyond Conventional Wisdom Shorter is better, according to the conventional wisdom of e-mail subject lines. But that’s not always true, Lee says; Buffer’s most successful e-mail subject lines are often 15 to 20 words long. To find what length works best, marketers must continue to test their messages and trust their data. “When I joined Buffer, I was a big proponent of shorter subject lines,” he says. “But we do really long ones. ... That was a good learning experience for me; we trust what works, not necessarily what best practices are.” Lee says marketers should also use the “from” name and the pre-header—the space that previews the e-mail’s body content before it’s opened—to entice subscribers into opening a message. “That tells the fuller story before someone even clicks,” Lee says. “We think of all those together as this big mechanism and big opportunity that we have to get someone to open.”

Optimize for Mobile Devices As more consumers buy smartphones, tablets and smart watches, more e-mail is opened on small screens. A 2017 report from Return Path found that 55% of e-mails are opened on mobile devices, up from 29% in 2012. “We create e-mails and check links on desktop, but our recipients are opening them on mobile devices,” Lee says. Marketers should be testing how their

e-mails look on mobile devices, he says, but also testing how the links within a message look on mobile after they’re opened. Again, trusting data becomes crucial when figuring out which platforms subscribers use to read their e-mail. If most subscribers open their e-mails through a desktop Gmail interface, spending hours formatting a message for an Apple Watch is a waste of time.

Know the Law Internet privacy laws continuously change; marketers who get lost amid these shifts could make an expensive mistake. In the U.S., the CAN-SPAM Act requires marketers to allow subscribers to easily opt-out or unsubscribe from a list, include a valid physical postal address within messages and prohibits marketers from using deceptive or false subject lines. CAN-SPAM also outlawed the practice of buying or selling of e-mail lists. Violators of CAN-SPAM face a fine of up to $41,484. In 2018, the European Union strengthened its privacy laws with potentially extreme penalties. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the newly implemented EU law, ensures that users consent to the data being collected from them. Companies with a presence in the EU now must be clear about the data they are collecting from subscribers and website visitors—notification of data collection can no longer be limited to the fine print. The EU is taking this protection seriously; low-level GDPR fines are up to $12.3 million or 2% of global annual turnover, and upper-level fines are up to $24.6 million or 4% of global annual turnover.

Automate Messages and Have a Regular Cadence “There’s an old e-mail adage,” Klein says. “You just need to do two things: Build your list and send to your list.” That’s still true, Klein says, but many marketers don’t regularly send messages to their subscribers. Regular messages take discipline, something many find difficult. Instead of worrying about writer’s block or a busy schedule interrupting a regular cadence, Klein

answers in action

suggests setting up automated messages: a welcome message to new subscribers, a special offer to current subscribers or an abandoned-cart message to potential e-commerce customers. Subscribers have given you permission to have a conversation with them, Klein says, so establish that conversation and keep it going. MailChimp sends subscribers a weekly message, which discusses the company’s features and challenges, and a monthly e-mail, which discusses company news. With both e-mails, subscribers know what to expect and when to expect it. “Establish your ground rules at the beginning,” he says.

Every E-mail Should Have One Job Lee holds content sacred, but he also knows that most readers merely skim e-mails. Litmus, an e-mail marketing software company, found the average person spends 11.1 seconds reading an e-mail. Therefore, Lee says each e-mail should only have one job, and that job should be obvious. “Even if someone is not reading the content, make it obvious what the buttons are with one link, not 10 links,” he says. “Make it very clear with what you want people to the take from that e-mail.” Marketers can vary the length and type of e-mail while keeping in mind its singular job. Even longer e-mails in plain text—those that look as though they are from a friend—usually only have one link at both the top and bottom, Lee says.

Get Feedback Some subscribers will inevitably unsubscribe from a marketing list; rejection is part of the business. Instead of letting subscribers go in silence, Klein says marketers should ask why they’ve unsubscribed. If marketers are collecting data on what people dislike about their campaign, it’s a good idea to occasionally ask what subscribers enjoy about a campaign, too. Feedback can be another useful data point, Klein says, but consumers likely won’t volunteer feedback without being asked. m

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ama intelligence

THE MIDDLE MARKET

How to Plan for Disaster in the Middle Market After 2017’s long string of natural disasters, middle market businesses need to ask themselves how susceptible they are to destruction. They cannot, however, limit themselves to floods and wildfires. BY ZACH BROOKE | STAFF WRITER

 zbrooke@ama.org

unning a business is a stressful job in the best of times. When disaster strikes, the fallout can be enough to compel unprepared executives to close up shop. It’s easy to become complacent regarding risk exposure when operations are running without interruption. However, a new report from the National Center for the Middle Market shows that in the past two years, half of all middle market businesses experienced some sort of disruption—an unforeseen event outside the normal course of business that damages a company’s health. Disaster is a straightforward word that signifies large-scale losses. Yet its association with catastrophic physical events can obscure other types of risks that middle market companies can incur. For clarity, the NCMM report breaks down threats facing middle market businesses into three distinct categories. Operational Disruption These are the incidents that wreak havoc on entire

communities and show up on the nightly news. Think hurricanes in the Gulf Coast, or earthquakes and wildfires in the West. These forces of nature are unpreventable but predictable and therefore mitigated by readiness. Operational disruptions also include a class of less dramatic, human-led crises such as port closures or labor strikes. Perhaps because they are the risks that property owners and managers are most keenly aware of, operational disruptions are the least impactful over the long term. They also tend to occur with regularity, giving operation managers experience in preparedness and crisis management. Business readiness is reflected in reported data. Operational disruptions are the second-most frequent of the three—21% of middle market companies report experiencing a disruption of this type within the last few years—but they leave a lower revenue impact and have the highest rate of full recovery.

Digital Disruption A distinctly 21st-century risk, digital disruption encompasses data breaches and other cybersecurity threats. These disruptions are often targeted at specific entities, such as the city of Atlanta, which had its municipal operations held hostage for $50,000 in bitcoin in March. But digital disruptions can also be widely cast, as was the case with the far-reaching WannaCry ransomware attack in 2017. Digital disruption is the least frequent category of disaster, affecting 17% of respondents. However, the report notes that

digital disruptions are likely significantly underreported, as companies take an average of 200 days to discover their computer systems have been comprised. Digital disruptions are estimated to sap 11.7% of revenue on average. Sixty percent of affected respondents report complete recovery. Middle market businesses might be particularly vulnerable to digital attacks precisely because they believe they are too small to be a tempting target. “A lot of smaller businesses think, ‘The hackers aren’t after me. They want Target. They want Sony,’”

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ama intelligence

says NCMM director Thomas Stewart. “Ransomware is a for-profit business. … [Hackers] are just trying to get a thousand bitcoin. They’ll hit anybody.” Strategic Disruption If the previous two categories are crises occurring at the speed of a flash, strategic disruptions occur at a glacial pace. “Strategic disruptions are slow-moving events that affect not only the business of today but the business of tomorrow,” Stewart says. “They are the things that upend the pillars of your strategy or undercut the premises of the business.” Strategic disruption is a way to describe marketplace changes over time. Technological innovations, industry consolidation, resource abundance or scarcity and overall economic trends all present certain measures of risk that grow in challenging periods or over long stretches of in-house inertia. Retail is currently in the midst of a highprofile strategic disruption decades in the making. The same can be said of private automobile transportation companies such as taxis, car rentals and parking garages, all of which have come under enormous pressure due to the rise of Lyft and Uber. Multinational advertising and public relations firm WPP is currently dealing with an in-house strategic disruption caused by the departure of its founder. For businesses in some countries, new tariffs on steel and aluminum imposed by the U.S. represent a strategic challenge. Strategic

THE MIDDLE MARKET

disruption can also be selfinflicted, as was the case in the disastrous merger of HewlettPackard and Compaq. While strategic disruption does not carry the urgency of other potential disasters, it does pose the greatest threat. It’s a bit analogous to the human body: Physical trauma or viruses are acutely lethal, but chronic illness causes death in the majority of people. Strategic challenges are the most prevalent, the hardest to prevent and the most difficult to recover from. Twenty-seven percent of respondents report facing a strategic disruption in the past two years. Almost two-thirds say the effects of the disruption still hamper business, and they have not fully recovered. Mitigating Risks How should middle market companies prepare for these disasters? Each comes with its own subset of action items, but the uniting principle is access to money. “In times of disruption, there is no greater importance than to have ample liquidity, for it provides the flexibility for actions that lead to recovery,” says Manuel M. Perdomo, head of international risk for SunTrust Banks. The checklist for operational risk should include an annual assessment of natural disaster likelihood or supply chain disruption, as well as a review of all insurance and banking agreements. Backup plans for key suppliers should be drafted in case one or more vendors are taken out of commission by unforeseen

circumstances. Aside from pure business concerns, make sure worker safety plans are in place to minimize injury or loss of life. Again, access to an ample supply of emergency funds will prove critical during any recovery period. “Natural disasters have a unique effect upon human capital. The stress that is created by anticipation (in the case of a hurricane) or by the sudden shock (earthquake, flash flood, etc.) and the aftermath brings out different reactions. Cash on hand, for example, can be used to support a stressed workforce and allow them to return to work sooner.” Digital disruption requires the most skilled expertise. Cisco security architect Joseph Muniz says that a defense strategy for cyber vulnerabilities should be layered with different objectives before, during and after an attack. “Resilience is accomplished using high-availability concepts such as redundant hardware and networking,” Muniz says. “Also, denial of service technologies should be considered to avoid targeted attacks designed to interrupt service. Ultimately, digital threats change and grow rapidly, which means that executives must ensure that risk and resilience efforts remain robust and up to date.” Specific protection strategies include real-time threat monitoring, fully backed-up data stores, legal review of culpability in the event of a breach and a communication plan to share information with clients and vendors if a risk is detected.

As with digital disruption, successful navigation of strategic risk requires vigilance and early detection. Adam Schrock, managing director at Grant Thornton advocates for the formal adoption of enterprise risk management (ERM), a process that proactively identifies business risk. “In simple terms, ERM provides a top-down, holistic view of risks to effectively identify and manage threats to financial and strategic objectives,” Schrock says. “ERM seeks to move beyond the quantification of nearterm potential losses to envision longer-term financial, strategic, operational and people risks. “ERM will effectively balance risk and growth opportunities, such as digital strategies, technology innovation, and Big Data analytics. Striking the right balance allows your organization to transform into a risk-aware culture that protects the business, improves performance and creates stakeholder value,” he says. While shifts in business tend to be unforeseeable, one of the best ways to guard against finding oneself on the wrong side an economic tide is to conduct an annual boardlevel assessment of known industry changes and probable economic trends. Determine how available resources are for rapid investment should unforeseen competition emerge. Review and strengthen key relationships and succession plans, and develop capability to execute on them if called upon. m

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executive insights

CONTENT MARKETING

Finding Topics Your Audience Will Love Stop guessing: Ask your audience what content they want, and deliver it

BY ANDY CRESTODINA

 andy@orbitmedia.com

lance back at your internet browsing history. Take a trip through that list of websites you recently visited, and think back to your

mindset in those moments. Why did you visit each site? What were you looking for? Did you find what you needed? This is a useful exercise for marketers

because it immediately reminds you of the basic reason we all visit websites: information and answers. In 2016, user experience consultancy Nielsen Norman Group analyzed 215 visits to 45 websites, measuring visitors’ success at finding what they sought. When those visitors failed to meet their goals, the group analyzed why. The visitors failed because they didn’t find the answers to their questions, so they gave up at completing their tasks. Data-driven Empathy If the main reason people visit websites is to find information, the job of the brand is to provide it. Visitors ask, websites answer. This sounds simple, but it’s surprisingly difficult to write great

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executive insights

CONTENT MARKETING

question ever posed through it should be accessible to you in its reporting tools. These reports also show where visitors were when they started their dialogs. What did they ask, and where did they ask it? You just found another content gap.

Key Phrase Research The first step in search optimization is key phrase research. What is your audience searching for? What phrases do you have a chance of ranking for on search engines? An SEO expert picks these battles carefully. This is another bit of data-driven empathy; keyword research is an act of reading the minds of millions. Within minutes, you’ll see dozens of topics that may be relevant to your business. Many of these are likely content gaps and questions your website can answer.

web copy because it’s not obvious what information visitors are looking for. Luckily, clues are everywhere. Here are a few places you can listen and learn about the information your visitors need.

Competitive Analysis What phrases are your competitors ranking for? There are tools, such as Similar Web, that will show you. What questions are answered on their sales pages? Read them carefully. Do they have an FAQ section? Should you? Some competitors answer the tough questions, such as pricing. Some will offer specific examples and results. Seeing how much information competitors are willing to share may inspire you to be more forthright. The more vague and indirect your sales copy, the less compelling the experience will be for your visitors.

Site Search If your website has a search tool, you can report on what your visitors are searching for. Every query typed into your search box is reportable in your analytics, and is a clue into what your visitors need but aren’t finding. Visitors prefer the mouse to the keyboard. If they had to search, there was probably some friction, frustration or a content gap.

Chat Logs If your website has a chat tool, every

Sales Conversations Listen to sales call, and you’ll hear the questions of your prospects firsthand. While the sales associate is providing answers, you should write down the questions. Within an hour, you may learn: • What was happening in the customer’s business that sent them looking for a solution. • What is most important to them in their buying decision. • What else they have tried and why that didn’t work.

The first tells you their context. The second tells you their priorities. The third tells you how you need to differentiate.

Online Tools and Forums Enter your business category into Quora. Find your industry and review the top up-voted answers. See anything you haven’t explained to your visitors? Enter your business category in BuzzSumo, which will show you the most-shared articles on any topic. Enter your business category into Answer the Public, an online service that scrapes the web for top questions. In seconds you’ll see the questions people ask related to your industry. Here’s one more: There’s a LinkedIn group for virtually every job title. Search for groups named for the job title of your typical buyer and ask to join. You’ll be able to scan through the posts and discussions to see what people are asking and discussing. If you uncover a topic you haven’t addressed or a question you haven’t answered, you’ve found an opportunity to help your visitors a bit more.

Search for Your Brand Before you hit enter on Google, see if the site suggests any key phrases. Hit the spacebar after your name, then type a letter or two. See a few more suggested phrases? If you’re a big brand, you probably found quite a few. These are the topics that people search for when they search for you. These are the brand-specific information needs that must be answered. This is what prospects want when they search for you. They’re asking. The phone is ringing. You need to answer that call, or at least know how the search results are answering it for you. m ANDY CRESTODINA is the co-founder and CMO of Orbit Media. He’s an international keynote speaker and the author of Content Chemistry: The Illustrated Guide to Content Marketing.

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executive insights

B-TO-B MARKETING

The 6 Competencies of B-to-B Companies To satisfy customers and increase profits, B-to-B companies must stop emulating consumer brands and understand what their own customers value

BY VIKAS MITTAL

 vmittal@rice.edu

enior executives at B-to-B companies strive to help their customers improve sales and margins. Yet very few systematic frameworks exist to guide their customer focus. Last year, I was discussing the content of a B-to-B strategy course with the dean of a top 10 business school in Asia who lamented, “Most of what B-to-B companies do relies on recycled concepts from consumer companies. Consumer goods and services are focused on customer experience, customer delight and hedonic consumption, and rightly so. But B-to-B is different. It has so many utilitarian value drivers like sales, bidding, billing and project management that go beyond experiential aspects of value. Simply put, B-to-B customers are different than traditional consumers of goods and services.” B-to-B companies have important differences from B-to-C companies. B-to-B companies typically sell complex products and services that are purchased by clients through a systematic purchase process involving multiple stakeholders, such as end users, evaluators and purchase managers. In terms of consumption, B-to-B cycles are long and complex, sometimes lasting several decades and involving hundreds of employees. Considering these differences, B-to-B companies can satisfy the needs of their customers by developing customer-based competencies. Research by C-CUBES (the

Collaborative for Customer-Based Execution & Strategy) has identified six customer-based competencies pertinent to B-to-B customers. Unlike functional competencies (technology, finance, innovation or creativity) based on silos—such as manufacturing, finance, technology or innovation—the six customer-based competencies rely on six specific domains of perceived customer value. Each of these competencies represents an element of the customer-driven value

proposition. Functional competencies are needed to deliver the perceived value associated with these customer-based competencies. However, superiority on functional competencies is not enough, unless they can become inputs to delivering customer value. Customer value is linked to the six customer-based competencies. These competencies were developed as part of a research project by scholars at Rice, Iowa State and Texas A&M universities. They are based on in-depth interviews and surveys of more than 600 managers and executives from the supplier and client sides in B-to-B firms. The description of each competency also includes direct quotes from clients of a diverse set of B-to-B companies.

Bidding and Sales Process Though consumers respond to displayed prices in stores, B-to-B customers typically go through an elaborate bidding and sales process. Customers evaluate suppliers’ understanding of their need to provide accurate proposals, and they evaluate the sales team’s competency. When asked, customers describe this

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B-TO-B MARKETING

competency as, “We get a lot of work from relationships that our sales force develops,” or, “Salespeople need to do a better job understanding our needs so that the proposals are streamlined to our needs.”

Quality of Product and Service Products and services in B-to-B can be complex, ranging from multiyear service contracts to complete power plants. For B-to-B companies, quality of product and service is based on customers’ perceived performance of a supplier’s core offerings. Customers describe this competency as, “meet(ing) performance specifications for the equipment and the service employees.”

Billing and Pricing This competency denotes customer perception of the extent to which a firm’s pricing and billing processes are fair and competitive. This goes beyond low pricing. Respondents report that they, “don’t like companies that low bid and then issue change orders to jack up price.” They also express frustration when, “accounts payable has to go back over the

“Consumer goods and services are focused on customer experience, customer delight and hedonic consumption, and rightly so. But B-to-B is different. It has so many utilitarian value drivers.”

billing because it is wrong about 50% of the time.”

Communication In B-to-B relationships, communication is a core component which can detract from perceived customer value when derailed. As a competency, communication represents the extent to which customers perceive the firm as being receptive to and sharing appropriate and accurate information in a clear and timely manner. Customers describe companies that excel at this competency as, “providing the attention required to keep accounts happy, especially the large ones.” In contrast, firms with poor communication are described as, “Everything is e-mail. I get zero in-person contact with them.”

Safety As a competency, safety denotes customer perception of the extent to which a supplier assures the safety of the products, customers and employees. Safety is a critical competency, especially in B-to-B contexts involving the oil and gas industry, manufacturing, transportation, nuclear energy and waste management. For example, the Deepwater Horizon disaster ensnared BP for several years. When asked, customers describe safety as: “Many complex jobs have problems … safety is one of the major problems,” and, “TRIR (total recordable incident rate) is very important.”

Sustainability and Social Responsibility Sustainability and social responsibility are not merely fads but critical elements of B-to-B customer value. They represent customer perception of the extent to which a supplier voluntarily incorporates societal and stakeholder concerns in its value proposition. In describing the benefits of these competencies, customers state: “I know they are not doing anything dirty— they help us stay on the right side of [the Environmental Protection Agency],” and, “It is important to be a community partner by creating local jobs. We always

emphasize local content and training.” These competencies touch the entire customer journey. Research conducted by me and my colleagues from Rice, Iowa State and Texas A&M universities shows these competencies explain 70% of customer value, as measured by overall customer satisfaction. By focusing on these six competencies, B-to-B firms can satisfy more than 70% of their customers’ needs. These competencies are integral predictors of sales and gross margins— even after statistically accounting for a variety of customer-relevant factors (e.g., purchase amount and involvement), company-relevant factors (e.g., firm size and firm risk) and industry-relevant factors (e.g., industry competitiveness). Thus, satisfying customer needs through these six competencies also satisfies shareholder goals. Finally, these six competencies cut across a wide swath of B-to-B companies and are key to improving sales and margins by providing customer value to virtually all B-to-B firms. B-to-B companies should no longer emulate B-to-C companies to develop a competitive advantage. The competitive advantage for B-to-B firms resides in these six specific competencies. Though deceptively simple, they can be difficult to develop. They cannot be achieved by excelling in only marketing, finance, innovation, service or sales. Delivering each competency will require a crossfunctional approach to deliver perceived value to B-to-B customers. To focus on these competencies, companies will need to measure them through key processes and metrics, understand the relative importance of these competencies for customers and link them to sales and margins. This can provide a roadmap for achieving meaningful improvements in customer value and shareholder performance for B-to-B companies. m VIKAS MITTAL, Ph.D., is a member of the faculty at the Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University in Houston.

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STORYTELLING

• • • •

loyalty drivers, use experiences and brand relationships. Understand employees’ knowledge and approval of the organization, its values and its culture. Find opportunities that will support new offerings or programs. Create or refine an organizational purpose or brand vision. Identify programs that will break out and be on brand.

Here are some common marketing objectives that can be realized with signature story research.

Signature Stories as a Research Tool Stories can reveal important foundations for a brand, including vision, differentiation and higher purpose

BY DAVID AAKER

 daaker@prophet.com

onventional research tools are not the only means marketers have to uncovering customer sentiment. In fact, traditional research has some limitations. Survey research often reflects respondents who are unable to provide informed judgments, and it generates findings driven in part by halo effects that limit textured insights. Qualitative research is subjective and limited by the topics that surface. And quantitative

research often suffers from inadequate dependent variables (an overreliance on what is available, which is usually shortterm performance) and independent variables that lack variation. Reviewing or uncovering signature stories can be a powerful research tool because stories are often vivid, textured pictures of an organization. They can help: • Determine customers’ perceptions,

Creating a Brand Vision I was hired to create a brand vision for a nonprofit that helps seniors stay in their homes by providing basic services. Before researching customers and employees, we solicited signature stories. The results were stories in which the hero was the client, a volunteer or both. Many stories involved a client whose life was made better by acts that had love, humor and a functional benefit. This exercise gave the task of creating a brand vision an expanded set of options with proof points rather than aspirations.

Creating a Set of Guiding Principles University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business has a legacy of social consciousness, which signature stories helped reveal. There are signature stories about pioneer courses, professors, books and research programs that influenced the way that business leaders thought and acted over a century. This body of knowledge helped to conceive “beyond yourself ” as one of the four pillars of the new Berkeley-Haas.

Developing a Turnaround Strategy When an organization loses its point of differentiation, it can examine its organizational assets, strategies and market trends for turnaround ideas. The key is to return to its roots as represented by its signature stories.

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STORYTELLING

Starbucks had lost its way when Howard Schultz returned as CEO in January 2008. Two signature stories informed Schultz’s strategic moves. His working-class father had an ankle injury that cost him his job and health care. That story influenced Schultz to resist calls to reduce health care benefits for Starbucks employees to save money. On a trip to Milan in 1983, one year after first joining Starbucks, Schultz experienced the romance, ritual and the personal relationships of Milan coffee bars and the role of the baristas there. To bring back the magic of the Starbucks in-store experience, he brought 10,000 store managers to New Orleans to revitalize their passion for coffee and their ability to create a Milan-inspired experience. Signature stories helped generate on-brand ideas and guide options at a challenging time.

Understanding Customers Charity: Water told the story of Natalia, a 15-year-old girl from a small village in Mozambique. Natalia walked with pails each day to a riverbed, where she stood in line to get dirty water from a hand-dug hole. That meant she could go to school only twice each week. After her village received a well from Charity: Water, she was a regular school-goer and always on time. When Charity: Water met with the village’s five-person governing board of the well, the last member stood to introduce herself—her feet wide apart, her arms crossed proudly and a pleased half-smile on her face. “My name is Natalia,” she said. “I am the president.” Her ambition had changed. She now plans to become a teacher and then a headmaster. Her story gave emotion, depth and texture to customer insight research.

Understanding Customer Benefits A signature story from IBM Watson Health focuses on a client, Orlando Health, that had seemingly intractable problems that inhibited efforts to contain costs and care for patients.

The solution: Use Watson technology to enable a new health management system. The story details the problems of the prior system, the goals of the new system, the implemented changes and various achievement measures. The results were updated and streamlined processes and a transition from fee-forservice reimbursement to payment models, improvements on key measures and insights into the nature of benefits delivered by the brand offering.

Creating Higher-purpose Programs Many organizations seek a higher purpose that inspires employees and creates customer affinity. Developing programs that provide substance and credibility to the higher purpose is a challenge that can be met with signature stories about employees with programs and activities that represent the higher purpose.

executive insights

Reviewing or uncovering signature stories can be a powerful research tool because stories are often vivid, textured pictures of an organization.

Energizing the Brand Molson Canadian found a signature story about a prior success to serve as an operating model. The brewer created a professional hockey rink high in the Purcell Mountains in British Columbia. Players were selected based on their personal stories about their obsession with hockey. The campaign illustrated the emotional side of the brand. It also provided guidance and inspiration for future programs. Signature stories can play a role in the informed creativity that is the heart of developing strategies and programs. They provide a vivid picture that can energize and inspire with low ambiguity and high authenticity and relevance. When researching to inform the development of strategies or programs, uncovering or reviewing signature stories can be the key to the insights you need. DAVID AAKER is vice chairman of

Prophet, the author of Aaker on Branding and a member of the Marketing Hall of Fame.

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SPONSORED CONTENT | PROVIDED BY RAMIUS

The Importance of Context BY DANA CASSADY arketers make decisions based on data, but to use it most effectively, you also need context. You need to know where the data came from and how it represents a population. While the volume of data available today is rapidly expanding, essential context is also often being lost. Without this deeper understanding of what a consumer is thinking when they provide a point of data—either intentionally (i.e., from a survey) or unintentionally (i.e., from navigating a website)—it can easily be misunderstood and a risk to use when making business decisions. Fortunately, there is a straightforward solution: Capture video of your stakeholders explaining their reasoning, thinking processes and feelings. If you provide them with the opportunity to justify a poll response or share the story of an interaction they had with your brand, that essential context is captured. For example, a chart showing poll responses conveys information, but a chart showing poll results next to a highlight video of active customers explaining why they selected the options they did will inspire comprehension, contextualize the data and affect how you choose to proceed. In other words, video captures more than just your customers’ words and faces—it helps you understand that all-important question: “Why?” Smartphones and webcams make capturing and sharing video easy for consumers, especially when done via an online insight community, which: • Makes uploading simple and intuitive. • Provides a capacity for follow-up and collaboration beyond the video to ensure an accurate and complete view has been established. • Enables videos to be reviewed, analyzed and presented alongside supporting data points. By using an online insight community, research participants utilize a platform similar to the online social communities that they’re already a part of. The only difference is that content is created when a participant completes an “activity” created for the purpose of conducting research, rather than being a self-directed upload. In an insight community, your customers’ ideas, feedback, feelings and wants frame and propel your research forward over the course of days, weeks or years. So a community is an ideal environment for validating both existing and future sources of data while simultaneously collecting new responses and information in formats that are more intimately connected to your customers, like video. The opportunity for follow-up in an online insight community should also not be underestimated. For example, your first activities might be polls and to follow up on what seemed unclear or was perhaps particularly interesting. You may then ask for video content. Or vice versa, you may collect a video but have follow-up questions to deepen your understanding of what the participant has communicated in it. Modern insight community platforms like Recollective

include integrated tools for managing and processing video. For example, they automatically review the videos and produce text transcripts so that you can quickly zone in on the themes of interest or generate a word cloud to assess the overall sentiment. Better still, the option to pull video clips of just the most relevant parts allows for the creation of highlight reels enabling even more concise reporting and faster decision-making. Beyond these advantages, it is important to keep in mind that respondents perform differently in a video shared with their peers versus one viewed only by researchers. So the familiar setting of a research community fosters both a genuine expression from consumers and provides the researcher with more room to experiment. Essentially, the capability of an online community to integrate social

dynamics with research enables you to better assess how your brand will ultimately be discussed and received by wider audiences. Taking a recent example, a major U.S. sports broadcaster is currently optimizing a newly launched streaming service using a research community. Within the community, members are sharing journals that track their use of the service. Within the journals, the sports fans have been grading each session that they spend watching a game or TV show through the app. Most importantly, members are also uploading videos explaining what key factors are influencing their viewing experiences as their impressions vary for better or worse from visit to visit. The freedom of the video format is providing more room for expression to demonstrate what separates a B-plus from an A. What’s more, the community interface is making for easy review of findings, displaying charts of the overall grades alongside the member videos. In conclusion, a research community is an ideal environment for validating the context of your existing sources of data and collecting new responses and information that deepen your understanding. DANA CASSADY is a recollective account manager at Ramius. JUNE / JULY 2018 | MARKETING NEWS

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The 2018

AMA Gold Top 50 Report

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PHOTO: JACQUELINE FROLE

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2018 marks the 45th year of the publication of the AMA Gold Top 50 Report of U.S. market research and analytics companies. Jack Honomichl, who in 1974 was the research beat reporter for Advertising Age, first published the Top 10 Report of U.S. Research Companies in Advertising Age. The industry and this report have changed and grown substantially in 45 years, but there are many longestablished and respected research institutions (some whose names have changed) included in this report that reflect the tradition as well as the transformation of our storied industry. The total research revenue for the top 50 companies in 2017 was $24.08 billion. More than 46% of that revenue, $11.24 billion, was generated in the U.S. while more than 53%, $12.83 billion, was generated outside the country. The total market research industry, represented by the top 50 and 148 full-service companies comprised by the Insights Association (the national association of the marketing research and analytics industry, which was formed through the 2017 merger of Council of American Survey Research Organizations (CASRO) and Marketing Research Organization (MRA)), is valued at a total worldwide revenue of $25.55 billion ($12.34 billion of which was earned in the U.S. and $13.20 billion of which was earned outside the country). In early 2018, invitations to participate in the annual top 50 ranking of U.S. research companies were sent to about 75 companies whose annual U.S. revenue was estimated to be about $15 million. These companies were asked to submit their 2017 research revenue figures for inside and outside the U.S., as well as the comparable data for 2016, to determine the annual rate of revenue growth or decline of each. If a firm made an acquisition or divestiture during 2017 or 2016, we made adjustments to ensure an apples-to-apples comparison.

U.S. Growth Rate in 2017

The growth rate for the top 50 companies in the U.S. market in 2017 was 3.4%.

The growth rate for the 198 companies included in the report was 3.5%. After adjustment for inflation— Consumer Price Index (CPI) of 2%—the real-growth rate for 2017 is 1.5%. This is a substantial decrease in growth as compared to the previous two years, when the growth rate reported for all of the companies included in the report was 5.7% (4.4% real growth) in 2016 and 4.8% (4.7% real growth) in 2015. Figure 1 compares the reports from 2010 to 2017, showing the slow and intermittent recovery from the recession, followed in 2015 and 2016 by 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 as another benchmark. In Figure 2, the annual U.S. GDP shows the yearly growth of the estimated value of all the country’s produced goods and provided services. As previously reported, the U.S. research industry’s annual growth rate has historically tracked ahead of the annual GDP real-growth rate, except during the recession of 2009 and in 2012. The U.S. research industry’s growth rate exceeded the GDP growth rate by 2% in 2015 and in 2016 doubled that figure to 4%. In 2017 the U.S. research industry is tracking slightly ahead of GDP at 1.2%.

Global Growth Rate in 2017

The growth rate of the top 50 companies’ global revenue in 2017 was 3.7%, slightly higher than the 3.4% growth rate for U.S. revenue. The total non-U.S. revenue for the top 50 companies continues to be greater than their total U.S. revenue. In Figure 3, the non-U.S. revenue for the top 50 companies represents 53.3% of the total 2017 revenue. One significant reason for this global focus is that almost one-fourth of the top 50 companies

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FIGURE 1: MARKET RESEARCH INDUSTRY GROWTH BY YEAR, 2010 TO 2017 5% 4% 3% 2% 1% 0 -1% 2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

FIGURE 2: CHANGES IN GDP AND MARKET RESEARCH GROWTH RATES BY YEAR, 2010-2017 6%

Top 50 U.S. Research Companies Growth Rate 4%

U.S. Research Industry Positive/Negative Difference Compared to GDP Real-Growth Rate

GDP Real-Growth Rate*

-1% 2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

*Figures provided by the Bureau of Economic Analysis and World Bank.

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FIGURE 3: TOP 50 REVENUE AND WHERE IT CAME FROM BY YEAR, 2010 TO 2017

NON-U.S. REVENUE U.S. REVENUE

PORTION OF REVENUE FROM OUTSIDE THE U.S.

PORTION OF REVENUE FROM THE U.S.

$25

REVEN U E I N BIL L IONS

$20

$15

52.9%

53.8%

54.2%

53.9%

54.7%

52%

53.6%

53.3%

47.1%

46.2%

45.8%

46.1%

45.3%

48%

46.4%

46.7%

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

$10

are headquartered in other countries. Seven are headquartered in the U.K.—Cello Health, dunnhumby, Informa Financial Intelligence, Kantar, Nielsen, Wood MacKenzie and YouGov—and two are headquartered in France—Ipsos and PRS IN VIVO. GfK is headquartered in Germany. Macromill is headquartered in Japan, and Maru/Matchbox is headquartered in Canada. It is interesting to note that almost 20% of the top 50 companies are not engaged in any international research, although this number has decreased since 2010.

The Employment Picture

In 2017 the number of full-time U.S. employees working for the top 50 companies was 38,890, an increase of 5.8% from the previous year. The U.S. average revenue earned per full-time employee in 2017 was $287,000.

Changes in Top 50 List New This Year

There are five new companies on the list. • At No. 7, comScore rejoins the top 50 after not participating last year. ComScore is a global, multipleplatform measurement company that specializes

in media planning, audience measurement and segmentation and competitive intelligence. • At No. 11, Forrester Research Services is the research and analytics division of Forrester, a global research and advisory firm that works with business and technology leaders to develop customer-centric strategies that drive growth. • At No. 31, FocusVision is a survey research, reporting and analytics company that also provides live video, digital qualitative research and research technology solutions to U.S. and global clients. • At No. 41, ScreenEngine/ASI is a market research and information company that specializes in and serves the entertainment industry, focusing across the four screens: movies, television, computers and mobile. • At No. 47, Edelman Intelligence is a boutique and global research and analytics consultancy that helps organizations and businesses measure markets, environment and audience to improve impact and outcomes. Not Here This Year

There are five former top 50 companies that are not on the list this year. Abt Associates, MarketCast, Service

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Management Group and Simmons Research chose not to participate in the report this year. Acturus was acquired by Macromill.

2017 Top 50 Revenue Increases and Decreases

Figure 4 compares U.S. revenue increases and decreases for the top 50 companies for the past three years. In 2017, one-fifth of the companies reported doubledigit increases in year-over-year revenue, with an average increase of 18.6%. Of the companies that experienced double-digit growth, three achieved 20% or more yearover-year growth in 2017. • SSRS, a social science, public opinion and policy research company, recorded a 33.2% increase. • Edelman Intelligence, a global research and analytics consultancy, grew by 28.1%. • YouGov, an international data and analytics company, increased its 2017 revenue by 21.6%. Nearly half of the top 50 companies reported that revenue was flat or decreased in 2017, averaging a 4.7% drop. One-third of the top 50 companies reported singledigit increases in year-over-year revenue, averaging 5.5% growth. The number of companies with single-digit increases has remained stable over the past three years. The greatest swing, particularly from 2016 to 2017, has been the decline of double-digit increases in year-overyear revenue and the corresponding rise in companies whose year-over-year revenue decreased in 2017.

of Abt Associates change the composition of this year’s top 10, and the lineup has changed slightly. Three companies moved down one position to accommodate comScore’s No. 7 position in the top 10: • At No. 8, GfK, which leads the list with the largest percentage of non-U.S. revenue at almost 82%, provides market research, data science, technology and knowledge to support business clients around the globe. • At No. 9, The NPD Group combines its information assets, analytic solutions focused on market forecasting and expertise in more than 20 industries to help clients measure, predict and improve. • At No. 10, ICF is a global consulting services provider with 5,000 professionals designing and implementing

FIGURE 4: CHANGES IN REVENUE AMONG THE TOP 50

DOUBLE-DIGIT INCREASES

Moving Up Companies Moving Up Three or More Positions

• Cello Health plc (up eight positions from No. 42 to No. 34) combines health insight, consulting, communications and digital capabilities. • SSRS (up six positions from No. 39 to No. 33) is a social science, public opinion, and policy research company. • Informa Financial Intelligence (up five positions from No. 22 to No. 17) is a research, analysis and intelligence company for the financial industry. • Macromill (up four positions from No. 29 to No. 25) is a global provider of online panel research and market and consumer insights. • YouGov (up three positions from No. 27 to No. 24) is a national and international data and analytics company. • Gongos (up three positions from No. 45 to No. 42) is a decision intelligence and customer experience company.

The Top 10

The addition of comScore to the top 10 and the absence

SINGLE-DIGIT INCREASES THAT EXCEED INFLATION RATE

FLAT (INCREASE DOES NOT EXCEED INFLATION RATE) AND DECREASES

YEAR

2016

2017

NUMBER OF COMPANIES

AVERAGE RATE OF CHANGE

21.2%

18.6%

TOTAL REVENUE (BILLIONS)

$2.45

$1.88

NUMBER OF COMPANIES

AVERAGE RATE OF CHANGE

4.3%

5.5%

TOTAL REVENUE (BILLIONS)

$3.49

$6.15

NUMBER OF COMPANIES

AVERAGE RATE OF CHANGE

-3.7%

-4.7%

TOTAL REVENUE (BILLIONS)

$4.59

$3.21

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complex research projects for national and international government agencies, universities, nonprofits and commercial organizations.

FIGURE 5: REVENUE BY INDUSTRY SERVED MEDIA, ADVERTISING, ENTERTAINMENT HEALTH CARE PRODUCTS, SERVICES, OVER-THE-COUNTER MEDICINES GOVERNMENT, ASSOCIATIONS, NONPROFITS, PUBLIC SERVICE CONSUMER DURABLES, NONDURABLES CONSULTING TECHNOLOGY 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 TRANSPORTATION PROFESSIONAL SERVICES (PUBLIC, SOCIAL, ENVIRONMENTAL) 0

PERCENT OF U.S. REVENUE

The top six companies have maintained their positions in the lineup. • At No. 6, Westat is a 100% employee-owned professional services firm providing statistical, behavioral, employment and social policy research as well as evidence-based evaluations and solutions for government agencies, foundations and commercial businesses. • At No. 5, Ipsos provides strategic research, digital platforms, Big Data analytics and advisory services. Ipsos in the U.S. has centers of expertise in data science, neurosciences and behavioral sciences at Duke University, Yale University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University. • At No. 4, IRI’s five key areas of expertise are market performance and strategy; consumer and shopper intelligence; media; analytics and retail execution; and data management, cloud and software solutions. • At No. 3, Kantar, WPP’s data investment management division, has nine operating brands, each respected in its particular sphere of expertise: Kantar Consulting, Kantar Health, Kantar IMRB, Kantar Media, Kantar Millward Brown, Kantar Public, Kantar TNS, Kantar WorldPanel and Lightspeed. • At No. 2, IQVIA, formed through the 2016 merger of Quintiles and IMS Health, is a global provider of information, innovative technology solutions and contract research services helping health care clients find better solutions for patients. • At No. 1, Nielsen is a global media and consumer measurement company, utilizing technology and digital capabilities and platforms to develop a comprehensive understanding of what consumers watch and what they buy. The top 10 companies’ total 2017 revenue of $20.37 billion represents nearly 80% of the total 2017 revenue for all 198 companies included in this year’s report. Nielsen accounts for 25% of the total 2017 revenue for all of the 198 companies. The top 10 companies represent 73.5% ($9.07 billion) of the total U.S. revenue and 85.6% ($11.30 billion) of the total non-U.S. revenue for all of the 198 companies in this year’s report.

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FIGURE 6: REVENUE BY TYPE OF SERVICE PROVIDED AUDIENCE MEASUREMENT

Methodology

CUSTOM RESEARCH

Invitations to marketing research firms with

SYNDICATED RESEARCH

estimated revenue greater than $15 million are sent in February of each year requesting

ADVISORY AND CONSULTING

revenue information for the prior calendar year, and for the year preceding to assess the growth

ONLINE PANELS/COMMUNITIES/SAMPLING

rate. Other company data are also requested, including a description of the company’s

DATA COLLECTION

management, services, specializations, etc. Top 50 rankings are based on U.S. revenue.

DATA AND TEXT ANALYTICS

The rate of growth from year to year has been

AD TRACKING/COPY TESTING

adjusted to account for revenue gains or losses

QUALITATIVE

of revenue is required of each private firm for

ETHNOGRAPHY

accounting firm.

SOCIAL MEDIA ANALYTICS AND MEASUREMENT

working cooperatively with Michigan State

from acquisitions or divestitures. Verification ranking by a third party, generally it’s an outside The Insights Association and AMA have been University’s Research Transformed Collaborative

ENTERPRISE FEEDBACK MANAGEMENT

under the leadership of Michael Brereton, adjunct professor at the Broad School of

AUDITING (MYSTERY SHOPPING)

Business at MSU. We owe a special thank you to Brereton and Michigan State University for their

BIOMETRICS AND SENSORY (E.G., EYE TRACKING, FACIAL ANALYSIS, NEUROSCIENCE)

support and for providing the Qualtrics platform for hosting the Top 50 questionnaire. We will

DATA PROCESSING

continue to collaborate with our national and international association colleagues, especially

EXPERT WITNESS (JURY/LEGAL)

the other national research associations in the Global Research Business Network (GRBN), as

SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

well as with ESOMAR. For further information, contact Diane Bowers

GAMIFICATION

at diane.bowers@insightsassociation.org.

INFLUENCER RESEARCH 0

PERCENT OF U.S. REVENUE

About the Author DIANE BOWERS is a consultant to research and data analytics businesses and industry associations, including the Insights Association, the national association for the research and analytics industry and profession, established in 2017 through the merger of CASRO and MRA. Formerly, she was the president of CASRO, board chair of the Global Research Business Network and a board member of the Americas Research Industry Alliance. Bowers currently serves on the board of directors of The Roper Center for Public Opinion Research at Cornell University. 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.

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U.S. Rank 2018 2017

MACROMILL*†

YouGov*

Convergys Analytics†

Market Strategies International

ORC International

Burke

C Space†

NRC Health

Informa Financial Intelligence*

dunnhumby†

Lieberman Research Worldwide (LRW)

MaritzCX

DRG (Decision Resources Group)†

Wood Mackenzie†

Forrester Research Services†

ICF

The NPD Group

GfK†

comScore

Westat

Ipsos

Information Resources, Inc. (IRI)

Kantar†

IQVIA†

Nielsen

Organization

Cincinnati, OH

Redwood City, CA

Cincinnati, OH

Livonia, MI

Princeton, NJ

Cincinnati, OH

Boston, MA

Lincoln, NE

Boston, MA

Cincinnati, OH

Los Angeles, CA

Lehi, UT

Burlington, MA

New York, NY

Cambridge, MA

Fairfax, VA

Port Washington, NY

New York, NY

Reston, VA

Rockville, MD

New York, NY

Chicago, IL

New York, NY

Danbury, CT; Durham, NC

New York, NY

U.S. Headquarters

2000

1998

1989

1938

1931

1999

1981

2016

2001

1973

1990

1973

1983

1969

1966

1934

1999

1963

1975

1979

1993

2016

1923

Year Founded

macromill.com

today.yougov.com

convergys.com/analytics

marketstrategies.com

orcinternational.com

burke.com

cspace.com

nrchealth.com

financialintelligence.informa.com

dunnhumby.com

lrwonline.com

maritzcx.com

decisionresourcesgroup.com

woodmac.com

forrester.com

icf.com

npd.com

gfk.com

comScore.com

westat.com

ipsos.com/en-us

iriworldwide.com

kantar.com

iqvia.com

nielsen.com

Website

$49

$56.3

$63

$65.1

$67

$67.3

$67.6

$99.6

$102.4

$103

$107.8

$124.4

$129.5

$132.7

$166.7

$170.6

$289.4

$300

$332.3

$551.1

$569

$733.4

$970

$1,430

$3,730

U.S. Market˚

8.9%

21.6%

4.7%

1.2%

-12.1%

-5.3%

1.5%

9.3%

-1.3%

-3.7%

16.8%

-3.2%

1.2%

0.1%

4.2%

11.7%

-3.3%

4.9%

10.1%

0.2%

14.7%

-2.4%

5.3%

2.9%

U.S. Market YOY % Change

$281.5

$87.3

$0.9

$36

$7.9

$17.8

$4.7

$34

$355

$40.1

$42.9

$51.3

$312

$49.8

$57.9

$93

$1,350

$71.2

$6.4

$1,405

$416

$3,025

$2,035

$2,842

Non-U.S. Market˚

$330.5

$143.6

$71

$66

$103

$75.2

$85.4

$104.3

$136.4

$458

$147.9

$167.3

$180.8

$444.7

$216.5

$228.5

$382.4

$1,650

$403.5

$557.5

$1,974

$1,149.4

$3,995

$3,465

$6,572

Worldwide Total˚

2017 Research Revenue

TOP 50 REPORT

T H E 2 0 1 8 AMA Gold

85.2%

60.8%

11.3%

1.4%

35.%

10.5%

20.8%

4.5%

24.9%

77.5%

27.1%

25.6%

28.4%

70.2%

23%

25.3%

24.3%

81.8%

17.7%

1.1%

71.2%

36.2%

75.7%

58.7%

43.2%

% Non-U.S.

275

182

710

270

231

263

300

413

484

230

534

574

560

300

400

1,028

1,100

890

1,478

1,877

2,191

1,746

3,300

5,525

10,149

2017 U.S. Full-time Employees

$45

$46.3

$60.2

$64.3

$76.2

$71.1

$66.6

$91.1

$103.8

$107

$92.3

$128.5

$128

$132.8

$165.7

$163.7

$259

$310.2

$316.8

$500.7

$568

$639.2

$994

$1,358

$3,626

U.S. Market˚

$266.2

$83.3

$7.2

$1.1

$42.3

$8.9

$16.8

$4.9

$33.3

$360

$39

$40.7

$50

$310

$49.5

$59.6

$82

$1,367

$82.7

$10.8

$1,391

$387.5

$2,853

$1,943

$2,683

Non-U.S. Market˚

$311.2

$129.6

$67.4

$65.4

$118.5

$80

$83.4

$96

$137.1

$467

$131.3

$169.2

$178

$442.8

$215.2

$223.3

$341

$1,677.2

$399.5

$511.5

$1,959

$1,026.7

$3,847

$3,301

$6,309

Worldwide Total˚

2016 Research Revenue

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MarketVision Research

RTi Research

KS&R (Knowledge Systems & Research, Inc.)

Hypothesis, Inc.

Edelman Intelligence

Chadwick Martin Bailey

Bellomy Research

NAXION

The Link Group

Gongos, Inc.

Screen Engine/ASI

Kelton Global

LRA, a Deloitte business

Norwalk, CT

Syracuse, NY

Los Angeles, CA

New York, NY

Boston, MA

Winston-Salem, NC

Philadelphia, PA

Atlanta, GA

Royal Oak, MI

Los Angeles, CA

Culver City, CA

Horsham, PA

Cincinnati, OH

Chicago, IL

1979

1983

2000

1999

1984

1976

1911

1994

1991

2010

2003

1981

1983

2016

2002

RTiResearch.com

ksrinc.com

hypothesisgroup.com

edelmanintelligence.com

cmbinfo.com

bellomyresearch.com

naxionthinking.com

tlg.com

gongos.com

screenengineasi.com

keltonglobal.com

www2.deloitte.com/us/lra

mv-research.com

marumatchbox.com

forsmarshgroup.com

radius-global.com

$14.5

$16.9

$18.5

$18.7

$19.7

$21.8

$24

$24.6

$26

$27.2

$30.7

$31.9

$32

$32.8

$34

$36.5

$36.9

3.5%

2.6%

3.4%

-14.7%

-11.1%

4.5%

28.1%

4.8%

-0.5%

-9.1%

16.6%

18.2%

3.8%

-22.3%

-8.3%

5.3%

6.5%

14.8%

33.2%

9.4%

2.9%

7.3%

-2.4%

-4.2%

-12.2%

$13,208.7

$369

$12,839.7

$1.4

$9.1

$0.5

$1.7

$7.2

$6.2

$10

$94.8

$1.4

$2.8

$11

$2.4

$47

$5.5

Non-U.S. Market˚

$25,552.3

$1,462.9

$24,089.4

$14.5

$18.3

$18.5

$27.8

$19.7

$21.8

$24.5

$26.3

$26

$34.4

$36.9

$31.9

$42

$32.8

$35

$131.3

$38.3

$40.2

$50.5

$44.9

$43.9

$93

$55

$54.3

Worldwide Total˚

2017 Research Revenue U.S. Market YOY % Change

* Percent change calculation reflects adjustment of previously reported 2016 U.S. research revenue due to acquisition/divestiture activity or other business change during 2017. † Some or all figures are not made available by this company, so figures are based on research and estimation by the report author. -- This company did not participate in last year’s Top 50 Report. ° Data are represented in millions of dollars.

$12,343.6

Maru/Matchbox

Arlington, VA

1960

ssrs.com cellohealthplc.com

$37.4

$39.5

$42.5

$43.9

$46

$48

$48.8

U.S. Market˚

Total

Fors Marsh Group*

New York, NY

2004

1983

phoenixmi.com

focusvision.com

hanoverresearch.com

directionsresearch.com

prs-invivo.com

marketforce.com

morpace.com

Website

$1,093.9

Radius GMR

New York, NY

Glen Mills, PA

1999

1990

2003

1988

1972

2005

1975

Year Founded

$11,249.7

SSRS*

Cello Health plc*†

Rhinebeck, NY

Stamford, CT

Arlington, VA

Cincinnati, OH

Teaneck, NJ

Louisville, CO

Farmington Hills, MI

U.S. Headquarters

All Other Insights Association Research Company Members (148 companies not included in the Top 50)

Phoenix Marketing International

FocusVision†

Hanover Research

Directions Research

PRS IN VIVO, a BVA Company*

Market Force†

Morpace

Organization

Top 50 Total

U.S. Rank 2018 2017

51.7%

25.2%

53.3%

7.7%

32.7%

6.5%

20.9%

16.8%

23.8%

2.9%

72.2%

3.7%

21.8%

5.3%

50.5%

12.7%

10.1%

% Non-U.S.

43,390

4,500

38,890

116

125

133

340

135

175

260

181

145

353

332

144

172

300

210

2017 U.S. Full Time Employees

$11,931.1

$1,055.4

$10,875.7

$17

$19

$17.7

$14.6

$18.8

$19.8

$21.8

$26.4

$21.1

$22

$26.2

$39.5

$34.8

$30.4

$30.8

$33

$31.8

$27.7

$34.2

$38.4

$39.6

$45

$48

$55.6

$12,732.8

$356.1

$12,376.7

$1.5

$9.1

$1.6

$2.1

$6.6

$7.3

$0.2

$10

$90.2

$9.6

$1.3

$49

$4.4

Non-U.S. Market˚

$24,663.9

$1,411.5

$23,252.4

$17

$20.5

$17.7

$23.7

$18.8

$19.8

$21.8

$28

$23.2

$22

$32.8

$46.8

$35

$40.4

$30.8

$34

$122

$28.7

$36.2

$48

$40.9

$45

$97

$55

$60

Worldwide Total˚

2016 Research Revenue U.S. Market˚

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Nielsen nielsen.com

FOUNDED: 1923 2017 U.S. REVENUE: $3.73 BILLION PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: +2.9% 2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: $2.84 BILLION PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: 43.2% 2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $6.57 BILLION U.S. EMPLOYEES: 10,149

Dwight M. Barns CEO; B.S., MIAMI UNIVERSITY

2017 Acquisitions: • vBrand, a technology start-up with an advanced machine-learning platform. • Vision IQ, an independent provider of multitouch attribution modeling of advertising on digital platforms. • Gracenote, the industry’s premier provider of media and entertainment metadata spanning across platforms, including multichannel video programming distributors, smart televisions, streaming music services, connected devices, media players and in-car infotainment systems. Nielsen provides a comprehensive understanding of what consumers watch, what they 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 manage supply and demand, media spend and supply chain issues as well as better understand behavior. Representing about 49% of consolidated revenues in 2017, 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 51% of 2017 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 and by advertising clients to plan and optimize their spending. Nielsen measures eight hours a day per person of dynamic media consumption, which includes streaming audio, out-of-home measurements for television consumption and deeper measurement of multicultural audiences in the U.S.

IQVIA† iqvia.com

FOUNDED: 2016 2017 U.S. REVENUE: $1.43 BILLION PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: +5.3% 2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: $2.03 BILLION PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: 58.7% 2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $3.46 BILLION U.S. EMPLOYEES: 5,525

Ari Bousbib CHAIRMAN AND CEO; MBA, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

unique and actionable insights at the intersection of large-scale analytics, transformative technology and extensive domain expertise, as well as execution capabilities to help biotech, medical device and pharmaceutical companies; medical researchers; government agencies; payers; and other health care stakeholders tap into a deeper understanding of diseases, human behaviors and scientific advances in an effort to advance their path toward cures. IQVIA 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 30 petabytes of proprietary data sourced from more than 120,000 data suppliers and covering 900,000 data feeds globally. Based on this data, IQVIA delivers information and insights on more than 85% of the world’s pharmaceuticals. We standardize, organize, structure and integrate this data by applying our sophisticated analytics and leveraging our global technology infrastructure. This helps our clients run their organizations more efficiently and make better decisions to improve their clinical, commercial and financial performance. With more than 55,000 employees, we conduct operations in more than 100 countries. Above all, IQVIA 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. † Some or all figures are not made available by this company, so figures are based on research and estimation by the report author.

IQVIA is a global provider of information, innovative technology solutions and contract research services focused on helping health care clients find better solutions for patients. Formed through the 2016 merger of Quintiles and IMS Health, IQVIA applies human data science, leveraging the analytic rigor and clarity of data science to the ever-expanding scope of human science, to enable companies to reimagine and develop new approaches to clinical development and commercialization, speed innovation and accelerate improvements in health care outcomes. Powered by the IQVIA CORE, we deliver

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Kantar† kantar.com

FOUNDED: 1993 2017 U.S. REVENUE: $970 MILLION PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: -2.4% 2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: $3.02 BILLION PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: 75.7% 2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $3.99 BILLION U.S. EMPLOYEES: 3,300

Eric Salama CHAIRMAN AND CEO; M.S., BIRKBECK COLLEGE, LONDON Kantar is home to some of the world’s leading research, data and insights brands. For the benefit of our clients, including more than half of the Fortune 500 companies, Kantar connects these specialists and provides access to the wider WPP Group of companies and other partners. Kantar comprises nine specialized operating brands, each of them highly respected in its particular sphere of expertise: • Kantar Consulting is a specialist growth consultancy with more than 1,000 analysts, thought leaders, software developers and expert consultants. • Kantar Health is a global health care consulting firm and trusted adviser to pharmaceutical, biotech and medical device and diagnostic companies. • Kantar IMRB provides comprehensive research support for 40 of the top 50 brands in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. • Kantar Media provides strategic advice and competitive intelligence to brands, publishers, agencies and industry bodies. • Kantar Millward Brown is a global research agency specializing in advertising effectiveness, strategic communication, media and brand equity research. • Kantar Public works with its clients to build a better public realm, advising on public policy, service delivery and communications. • Kantar TNS advises clients on specific growth strategies around new market entry, innovation, brand switching and stakeholder management. • Kantar WorldPanel is a global provider of consumer panels that offer continuous measurement and analysis of consumer purchasing and usage behavior. • Lightspeed is a global provider of

online quantitative and qualitative research from proprietary access panels, custom panels and innovative mobile surveys. Kantar’s value to clients lies increasingly in the connections we can make between these operating brands. Our offerings cover the breadth of techniques and technologies from purchase and media data to predicting long-term trends, from neuroscience to exit polls and from large-scale quantitative studies to qualitative research, incorporating ethnography and semiotics. Our strength lies in the unrivalled diversity of our people, methodologies, specialisms and points of view that seamlessly fuse to give us a unique and complete understanding of people across the world. We go beyond the obvious with intelligence, passion and creativity to discover new directions, set strategies and plan actions that inspire extraordinary success. † Some or all figures are not made available by this company, so figures are based on research and estimation by the report author.

Information Resources, Inc. (IRI) iriworldwide.com

FOUNDED: 1979 2017 U.S. REVENUE: $733.4 MILLION PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: +14.7% 2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: $416 MILLION PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: 36.2% 2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $1.14 BILLION U.S. EMPLOYEES: 1,746

Andrew M. Appel PRESIDENT AND CEO; MBA, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

Richard H. Lenny CHAIRMAN; MBA, NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY IRI delivers market, consumer and media exposure information; prescriptive analytics; technology platforms; and the foresight that leads to action. The New York-based private equity firm New Mountain Capital is the majority investor. In 2013, IRI acquired Aztec, gaining a presence in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, New Zealand, South Africa, Sweden and

the U.K., enabling personalized crossmedia, one-to-one shopper insight, activation measurement and optimization. In 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 2018 IRI will drive consumer personalization by continuing to integrate multiple, disparate Big Data sources to create sophisticated end-to-end capabilities that enable its clients to more effectively plan, target, activate, measure and optimize their businesses for growth in real time. The IRI partner ecosystem includes such companies as 84.51°, Adobe, Alphonso, The Boston Consulting Group, comScore, Experian, GfK, Gigwalk, Ipsos, Limbik, MasterCard Advisors, MaxPoint, Oracle, Pinterest, Research Now, Simulmedia, SPINS, Survey Sampling International and Univision, Viant and others. Retail Coverage in 2018: IRI Data Cloud integrates previously unavailable de-identified frequent shopper program data from top retailers, including Ahold Delhaize U.S.A BevMo!, BJ’s, Rite Aid, Southeastern Grocers, Walgreens Boots Alliance and others, to provide clients with insights into consumer and shopper behavior for improved audience development and advertising targeting, measurement and optimization. IRI delivers growth to our 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 that empower 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.

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Ipsos

ipsos.com/en-us

FOUNDED: 1975 2017 U.S. REVENUE: $569 MILLION PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: +0.2% 2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: $1.4 BILLION PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: 71.2% 2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $1.97 BILLION U.S. EMPLOYEES: 2,191

Didier Truchot CHAIRMAN AND CEO; B.S., PANTHEONSORBONNE UNIVERSITY

Pierre LeManh CEO, NORTH AMERICA; MBA, ECOLE SUPERIERE SCIENCES ECONOMIQUES ET COMMERCIALES Ipsos delivers information and analysis that provide our clients with a total understanding of people, markets and societies. Operating across 89 markets worldwide, Ipsos supports our clients’ objectives through specialized expertise in social and opinion research, market strategy and understanding, qualitative and social intelligence and analytics. These clients span across industries including tech, consumer goods, retail, auto, government, health care and financial services. Ipsos 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. Ipsos supports our clients’ marketing strategies to optimize their brand portfolio, leverage consumers’ path to purchase, innovate effectively, improve products or services and maximize commercial effectiveness thanks to 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. We also measure, manage and improve customer relationships and employee engagement. Leading-edge solutions integrating technologies for the voice of the customer and the employee provide real-time and predictive insights for key stakeholders. Our 2015 acquisition of RDA continues to provide expanded solutions in automotive satisfaction and quality. We also measure and weigh our clients’ brands, advertising and media, optimizing

communications and content in a highly digitized world with fragmented audiences. Ipsos continues to be 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 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: developing and conducting research and experiments on the practical application of behavioral sciences principles in key areas of consumer marketing. • Duke/Ipsos Research Center: progressing our understanding of the science of decision-making, focusing on in-store shopper marketing and consisting of manufacturers, retailers, Duke and Ipsos experts.

Westat westat.com

FOUNDED: 1963 2017 U.S. REVENUE: $551.1 MILLION PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: +10.1% 2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: $6.4 MILLION PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: 1.1% 2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $557.5 MILLION U.S. EMPLOYEES: 1,877

James E. Smith CEO; PH.D., UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

Scott Royal PRESIDENT; PH.D., JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY Westat is a 100% employee-owned research and professional services company. In 2017 we welcomed Scott Royal as Westat president. Royal brings extensive experience in research services executive management, as well as a substantive background in public health and epidemiology. During 2017, we expanded our capabilities in integrated mental health and employment practices, behavioral health, justice and child welfare and statistical research and analysis. Our research assists clients with evidence-

based evaluations and solutions in health, education, social policy, transportation and other areas. Clients include the U.S. government, state and local agencies, commercial businesses and foundations. Westat provides extensive survey design and operations capabilities in support of modern data collection from households, institutions, businesses and individuals. We apply multiple modes of data collection and survey management to achieve maximum response rates. The company’s focus areas and capabilities include: • Statistical analysis and methodological research in survey design, experiments and testing, data science and analytics, statistical disclosure control and qualitative research. • Program, process and outcome evaluation using diverse methodologies from design to implementation to guide each program to success. • Health research (including behavioral and mental health), clinical studies and clinical trials, public and international health, health care delivery, patient safety and health communications campaigns. • Social policy research and technical assistance for implementing innovative evaluation, quality improvement and service delivery systems. • Education programs for supporting teachers, conducting evaluations and providing technical assistance. • Transportation studies of travel behaviors, safety and human factors using advanced technologies such as instrumented vehicles and simulators, field observational studies and online and mobile device-based surveys. To support our research projects, Westat designs tailor-made approaches for clients and invests in many general and specialized IT technologies and products. Westat also provides licensing, training and support for Blaise, a major data collection software system produced by Statistics Netherlands and used internationally. Westat will continue its commitment to quality work as we grow our capabilities in each of these areas to meet clients’ needs.

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comScore comscore.com

FOUNDED: 1999 2017 U.S. REVENUE: $332.3 MILLION PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: +4.9% 2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: $71.2 MILLION PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: 17.7% 2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $403.5 MILLION U.S. EMPLOYEES: 1,478

Bryan Wiener CEO; MBA, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY ComScore is a global leader in crossplatform measurement of audiences, advertising and consumer behavior. ComScore combines proprietary TV, digital and movie-viewing data with vast demographic details to measure consumers’ multiscreen behavior at scale. ComScore’s products and solutions are powered by industry-leading census, Big Data and panel information assets. ComScore has more than 3,200 clients and a footprint in 70 countries. ComScore offers solutions to support

every phase of the advertising life cycle across all platforms. Since 2015, comScore has delivered cross-platform campaign and audience ratings, integrating over five platforms, including behavior across 69 million television screens, 194 million computers and 240 million mobile devices and tablets in the U.S. ComScore tracks satellite, telco, cable and over-the-air television viewing built from the ZIP code level up. In February 2018, comScore integrated an additional 9 million TV households into its national and local TV measurement systems, expanding its coverage to 69 million TVs across the U.S. With this integration, comScore now measures nearly one of every two TV households within 52 of the 210 local markets and nearly one in every four TV homes nationally. ComScore provides audience measurement using its “unified digital measurement” methodology, which accounts for all site visitors and helps customers understand the size and quality of their audiences. Its unduplicated measurement enables users to properly quantify and monetize their unique audiences by removing repeat consumers as they move between screens.

ComScore offers several solutions to help advertisers maximize cross-platform marketing effectiveness, be it measuring brand impact, viewability or ad and audience delivery validation, as well as power cross-platform advertising for better targeting and stronger advertising ROI. ComScore "Advanced Audience" segments go beyond age and gender to help advertisers better target consumers based on lifestyles, behaviors, demographics and interests. ComScore pioneered this concept in digital, local and national TV. ComScore provides solutions for film exhibitors and distributors in 65 countries around the world. Measuring approximately 95% of the global box office, comScore offers movie analytics and measurement services to help marketers and theaters optimize ticket sales and improve efficiencies across their businesses.

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GfK† gfk.com

FOUNDED: 1934 2017 U.S. REVENUE: $300 MILLION PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: -3.3% 2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: $1.35 BILLION PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: 81.8% 2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $1.65 BILLION U.S. EMPLOYEES: 890

Peter Feld CEO; M.S., RWTH AACHEN UNIVERSITY Our world is changing fast. Consumers, users and buyers are calling the shots. New things become possible every second. And more complicated, too. Our clients are businesses around the globe. To make the best possible decisions every day, they need to really know what is going on, now and in the future. We don’t have a crystal ball, either. But we love data and science, and we understand how to connect the two. We care about attention to detail and accuracy. We are digital engineers who build world-class research, powered by high technology. Because people who know best lead the way. This is why GfK means, “Growth from Knowledge.” Understanding client challenges with expertise across a variety of industries, GfK helps clients take on some of their most important challenges: • 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-launch, 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. Research we provide includes: brand and customer experience, consumer panels, digital market intelligence, distribution and supply chain management, geomarketing, market opportunities and innovation, media measurement, mystery shopping, online pricing intelligence, point-of-sales tracking, product catalogs, promotion and

causal retail, public communications and social science, retail analytics, shopper, 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 serve include: automotive, consumer goods, fashion and lifestyle, health, media and entertainment, public services, retail, technology and travel and hospitality. † Some or all figures are not made available by this company, so figures are based on research and estimation by the report author.

The NPD Group npd.com

FOUNDED: 1966 2017 U.S. REVENUE: $289.4 MILLION PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: +11.7% 2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: $93 MILLION PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: 24.3% 2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $382.4 MILLION U.S. EMPLOYEES: 1,100

Tod Johnson EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN; M.S., CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY

Karyn Schoenbart CEO; B.A., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS

2017 Acquisitions: • Nielsen Book Scan, a data provider and market research company for the book publishing industry. • CiR, a travel retail specialist. 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 help our clients measure markets, predict trends and improve performance. Information is available for the following industries: apparel, automotive, appliances, beauty, books, consumer electronics, e-commerce, entertainment, fashion accessories, food, food service, footwear, home, jewelry, juvenile products, mobile, office supplies, retail, sports, technology, toys, travel retail, video games

and watches. NPD Tracking Services encompass retail tracking, distributor tracking and consumer tracking, including "Checkout," which delivers the most comprehensive view of consumer purchase behavior for general merchandise and food service categories across all retail channels over time. NPD offers weekly tracking, store-level enabled data (for looking at geographies or custom store groupings) and accountlevel information (for participating retailers). Information is collected from more than 1,300 retailers representing bricks-and-mortar and e-commerce, 12 million consumer interviews conducted annually and more than 3 million consumers who make physical and/or digital receipts available for Checkout, some of which is done in partnership with Slice Intelligence. NPD also offers analytic solutions focusing on market forecasting, new-product forecasting, pricing and promotion evaluation and segmentation. The firm’s advisory services include "Connected Intelligence," which offers reports and analysis on the connected world including content, devices and services. In addition to its data and analytics, NPD is known for their thought leadership in retail trends and their deep industry expertise across the industries that they track. In 2017, NPD expanded its Checkout service with new longitudinal buyer-based metrics and advanced analytics. It also enhanced e-commerce tracking to cover marketplaces (first- and third-party sales) for Amazon, Jet and Walmart; more than 400 e-commerce retailers; and direct-toconsumer and emerging players. NPD acquired the book point-of-sale business from Nielsen and acquired CiR, a travel retail specialist. In 2018, NPD will hold its executive summit, “IDEA: Under Fire. On Fire.” It will continue development of its Checkout offering and its portfolio of analytic solutions and analyses to help clients understand shifting consumer preferences and behaviors and the evolving retail landscape.

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ICF icf.com

FOUNDED: 1969 2017 U.S. REVENUE: $170.6 MILLION PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: +4.2% 2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: $57.9 MILLION PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: 25.3% 2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $228.5 MILLION U.S. EMPLOYEES: 1,028

Sudhakar Kesavan 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’s 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 new 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 tackling problems with ingenuity on issues that matter profoundly to our clients.

Forrester Research Services† forrester.com

FOUNDED: 1983 2017 U.S. REVENUE: $166.7 MILLION PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: +0.1% 2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: $49.8 MILLION PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: 23% 2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $216.5 MILLION U.S. EMPLOYEES: 400

George F. Colony CHAIRMAN AND CEO; B.A., HARVARD UNIVERSITY Forrester Research Services is the research component of Forrester, one of the most influential research and advisory firms in the world. We work with business and technology leaders to develop customer-obsessed strategies that drive growth. Forrester’s unique insights are grounded in annual surveys of more than 675,000 consumers and business leaders worldwide, rigorous and objective methodologies and the shared wisdom of our most innovative clients. Our primary syndicated research product, "Research in 2017," provides clients with access to our core syndicated research designed to inform their strategic decision-making. Research includes our playbooks, a set of integrated reports, tools and guidance for critical business initiatives and our reports, designed to deepen clients’ understanding of market, customer and technology trends through data-driven reports, case studies, predictions and strategic road maps. Our syndicated research also includes “The Forrester Wave,” our primary mechanism for evaluating enterprise technologies, which provides a detailed analysis of vendors’ technologies and services based on transparent, fully accessible criteria and measurement of characteristics weighted by us, allowing

clients to compare products and develop a custom shortlist based on the client’s unique requirements. In 2017, we also introduced our first “Forrester Industry Waves,” which evaluate the digital experiences of firms that serve end customers. Our “Age of the Customer Research” offering, which combines our business technology and marketing and strategy research offerings, is closely aligned with our strategy of addressing our clients’ and prospects’ opportunities and challenges in the age of the customer. Our research offerings consist of a library of crosslinked documents that interconnect our playbooks, reports, data, product rankings, best practices, evaluation tools and research archives. Research access is provided through role-based websites that facilitate client access to research and tools that are most relevant to their professional roles, including community tools that allow interaction between and among clients and our analysts. Forrester Research’s research and decision tools enable clients to better anticipate and capitalize on the disruptive forces affecting their businesses and organizations, providing insights and frameworks to drive growth in a complex and dynamic market. † Some or all figures are not made available by this company, so figures are based on research and estimation by the report author.

Wood Mackenzie† woodmac.com

FOUNDED: 1973 2017 U.S. REVENUE: $132.7 MILLION PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: -2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: $312 MILLION PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: 70.2% 2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $444.7 MILLION U.S. EMPLOYEES: 300

Stephen Halliday CEO; B.S., UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH Acquired by Verisk Analytics in 2015, Edinburgh, Scotland-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

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thousands of individual assets and companies around the world, evaluating economic indicators and analyzing market

decisionresourcesgroup.com

supply, demand and price trends. The firm produces research and analysis across oil, gas, power, coal, chemicals, metals and

DRG (Decision Resources Group)†

FOUNDED: 1990

mining, giving clients a forward-looking

2017 U.S. REVENUE: $129.5 MILLION

view of the challenges, opportunities and

PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: +1.2%

risks facing their business and sector.

2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: $51.3 MILLION

Wood MacKenzie offers a combination of: • Robust proprietary data, through which Wood MacKenzie can forecast and value

Kong. † Some or all figures are not made available by this company, so figures are based on research and estimation by the report author.

PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: 28.4%

2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $180.8 MILLION

FOUNDED: 1973

U.S. EMPLOYEES: 560

2017 U.S. REVENUE: $124.4 MILLION

with confidence, providing clients with

Jon Sandler

strategic advice.

CHAIRMAN AND CEO; MBA, HARVARD UNIVERSITY

• Expert, knowledgeable and collaborative people: The firm’s global teams of experts rigorously evaluate the data to ensure in-depth understanding of our

DRG is a global information and

chosen markets.

technology services company that provides

MaritzCX maritzcx.com

PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: -3.2% 2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: $42.9 MILLION PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: 25.6% 2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $167.3 MILLION U.S. EMPLOYEES: 574

proprietary data and solutions to the health

Mike Sinoway

depth and breadth of the firm’s research

care industry. We have brought together

and the collaboration between sector

best-in-class companies to provide

PRESIDENT AND CEO; MBA, ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY

and regional teams ensures a thoroughly

end-to-end solutions to complex

integrated view, combining global

challenges in health care. DRG reframes

MaritzCX is a customer experience

understanding with detailed regional

these challenges, enabling our customers

software and research company that

knowledge.

to see the opportunities. Pharmaceutical,

focuses on customer experience

biotechnology, medical technology and

management for big business. We believe

Wood Mackenzie’s clients include

managed-care companies rely on this

organizations need CX programs that drive

international and national energy and

analysis and data to make informed

high value and high return. We help

metals companies as well as financial

decisions critical to their success.

increase customer retention and lifetime

• Integrated analysis and advice: The

institutions and governments. The firm

Framing the current status and future

value by ingraining customer experience-

works with a range of diverse teams within

trends in target health care markets using

driven insight and action into the DNA of

those client companies, from strategy and

data, primary research and secondary

business operations.

policymakers to business developers and

research is a core competency of DRG.

market analysts through to corporate

Product offerings include: high-value

award-winning CX software, industry-

finance, risk teams and investors.

analytics, syndicated research, proprietary

leading data and research science, deep

databases, decision support tools and

vertical market expertise and managed

advisory services.

program services. We provide a full-service,

Wood MacKenzie’s research, analytics and consulting services help clients to understand their markets, value assets,

DRG has a number of key specialties,

MaritzCX offers a unique combination of

professional CX approach designed to

reduce risk, identify and screen

including syndicated research focused on

continuously improve the customer

opportunities, assess competitors,

new therapeutic opportunities, portfolio

experience across an enterprise’s

strengthen strategy and pitch for new

planning, changing industry dynamics and

customers, employees, prospects and

business. We have been careful to maintain

global treatment patterns, insights and

partners. In 2017, the company saw its

our commitment to insight based on

data on physician and consumer health

global CX platform revenue increase by

proprietary information and deep industry

care e-marketing and proprietary

35% year over year and subsequently

knowledge as we have grown and entered

databases and analytics covering more

realized a 19% growth in revenue outside

new markets.

than 90% of the U.S. managed-care

the U.S.

With 25 offices in 20 countries, our

markets.

We are committed to being our client’s

teams work across every sector of energy,

Also included are longitudinal data and

metals and mining, covering more than 150

analytics on marketed-drug reimbursement

countries to provide an integrated

profiles, qualitative insights on drug-

perspective across entire industries.

specific reimbursement drivers for existing

industries, including automotive, financial

and emerging therapies, managed markets

services, retail, technology, B-to-B and

training and evidence-based market access

many more. MaritzCX’s global reach

solutions.

includes more than 830 full-time

† Some or all figures are not made available by this company, so figures are based on research and estimation by the report author.

including New York, London and Hong

DRG, which was acquired by Piramal

customer experience partner, helping them drive high-value customer experiences. MaritzCX specializes in solutions for key

employees and more than 800 part-time,

Group in 2012, has more than 1,000

contract employees in 19 offices around the

employees in 17 offices worldwide,

world. MaritzCX provides solutions to more

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than 500 clients and 1.6 million users who

Symposium showcasing innovations in the

customer at the heart of their business

speak 72 languages in 100 countries.

areas of digital and behavioral analytics,

decisions. Analyzing data from millions of

path-to-purchase methodologies and

customers across the country, we enable

models, brand health measurement and

clients to use this insight to deliver a better

advanced frameworks and tools in

shopping experience and more relevant

“pragmatic brain science.” Also in 2017,

marketing to their customers.

Lieberman Research Worldwide (LRW)

lrwonline.com FOUNDED: 1973

2017 U.S. REVENUE: $107.8 MILLION

LRW increased the integration of

By putting best customers at the center

LRWTonic and LRWMotiveQuest in the

of every decision, dunnhumby’s approach

areas of online communities, creative

delivers measurable value, competitive

qualitative techniques and social media

edge and even more customer data to fuel

anthropology, respectively.

ongoing optimization, setting clients up for

In 2018, LRW plans to make more

long-term success.

PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: +16.8%

targeted acquisitions to bolster and expand

2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: $40.1 MILLION

its digital analytics capabilities, CX,

retailers and manufacturers in grocery,

innovations and consulting practices. LRW

consumer goods, health, beauty, personal

will increase research and development

care, food service, apparel and advertising,

efforts in the area of machine learning and

among others. Clients include: Tesco,

AI, and it will expand its tracking business

Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola Co., Macy’s

unit to meet client demand.

Inc. and PepsiCo Inc.

wholly owned subsidiary of Tesco PLC,

PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: 27.1% 2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $147.9 MILLION U.S. EMPLOYEES: 534

David Sackman CHAIRMAN AND CEO; B.A., UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES

Jeff Reynolds PRESIDENT AND COO; M.A., NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY

Dunnhumby serves a prestigious list of

Dunnhumby Ltd., a privately held and

dunnhumby† dunnhumby.com

FOUNDED: 2001 2017 U.S. REVENUE: $103 MILLION

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.

PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: -3.7% LRW is a leading global analytics and insights consultancy, providing full-service custom research and consulting engagements for top global brands. Known for its ability to turn insight into impact, LRW translates sophisticated data analytics

2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: $355 MILLION PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: 77.5% 2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $458 MILLION U.S. EMPLOYEES: 230

and deep human understanding into

Jose Luis Gomes

business success.

MANAGING DIRECTOR, NORTH AMERICA; B.S., ALLIANCE MANCHESTER BUSINESS SCHOOL

LRW leverages its proprietary “so what?” consulting model and industryleading “Marketing Science” and

this company, so figures are based on research and estimation by the report author.

Informa Financial Intelligence*

financialintelligence.informa.com

FOUNDED: 2016

“Pragmatic Brain Science” teams. They use

Dunnhumby is a customer science

tech-enabled methods to acquire, integrate

company that analyzes data and applies

2017 U.S. REVENUE: $102.4 MILLION

and analyze multiple streams of data to

insights for nearly 1 billion shoppers across

PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: -1.3%

solve client business problems.

the globe to create personalized customer

2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: $34 MILLION

LRW has been advising top global

experiences in digital, mobile and retail

PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: 24.9%

brands on issues of strategy, branding,

environments. Our strategic process,

communications, product development,

proprietary insights and multichannel

innovation and customer experience since

media capabilities build loyalty with

1973. LRW conducts research in more than

customers to drive competitive advantage

90 countries worldwide in 66 languages

and sustained growth for clients.

Craig Woodward

and is recognized for its innovation in

Dunnhumby uses data and science to

PRESIDENT; B.S., BABSON COLLEGE

marketing research and for its tracking

understand customers, then applies that

innovations business unit, which conducts

insight to create personalized experiences

Informa Financial Intelligence is a leading

large, custom, multicountry tracking

that build lasting emotional connections

provider of business intelligence, market

programs for top global brands.

with retailers and brands. It’s a strategy

research and expert analysis to the financial

that demonstrates when companies know

industry. The world’s top global financial

including entertainment, pharmaceuticals,

and treat their customers better than the

institutions and banks look to Informa

technology, consumer packaged goods,

competition, they earn more than their

Financial Intelligence for our authority,

retail, food service, financial and business

loyalty, they earn a competitive advantage.

precision and forward-focused analysis.

LRW serves a wide range of industries

services, automotive and many more. In 2017, LRW held its 12th Annual Client

† Some or all figures are not made available by

Dunnhumby was established in the U.S. to help retailers and manufacturers put the

2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $136.4 MILLION U.S. EMPLOYEES: 484

Informa Financial Intelligence consists of key research, analysis and industry experts,

MARKETING NEWS | JUNE / JULY 2018

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implement change, prove marketing ROI

such as Informa Research Services, EPFR

Corporation) has helped health care

Global, Informa Global Markets, iMoneyNet,

organizations illuminate and improve the

Informa Investment Solutions,

moments that matter to patients, residents,

eBenchmarkers and Mapa Research.

physicians, nurses and staff for more than

database gives partners access to the

37 years. The company offers performance

opinions of 310,000 health care

fund and wealth managers, traders,

measurement and improvement services to

consumers in 300 markets and resources

insurers, analysts and investment and retail

hospitals, health care systems, physicians,

to better understand target audiences

bankers with the intelligent advantage to

health plans, senior care organizations,

and gauge consumer response to

make informed decisions, understand past

home health agencies and other health

communications. Partners receive

trends, forecast future performance, drive

care organizations.

tailored insight that helps validate and

Informa Financial Intelligence provides

profitability and increase returns. Because of their strong background in

NRC Health solutions help organizations stay at the forefront of health care by

and ultimately grow market share. • Market Insights: This large U.S. consumer

optimize marketing strategies. • The Transparency Solution: Star ratings

the financial industry, the research teams of

understanding the totality of health care

are calculated from existing patient,

Informa Financial Intelligence are highly

consumer and staff experiences. Primary

resident and family survey data and

qualified to help financial institutions with

solutions include:

published to organizations’ websites.

their market research needs. Informa’s

• Experience solutions: Real-time

NRC Health leverages feedback from

researchers are experts in benchmarking

feedback, CAHPS, workforce

survey vendors to publish consumer

studies, competitive intelligence,

engagement, post-acute customer

ratings and reviews to provider profile

new-product development and usability

experience, care transitions and clinician

pages, service line pages and clinic

testing, customer/member satisfaction and

experience capture personal experiences

pages. This enables health care

loyalty research, brand/advertising

while delivering insights to power a new

organizations to paint a true picture of

awareness research and mystery shopping

benchmark: n=1. Developing a

services for sales and service quality

longitudinal profile of customers’ health

evaluation, legal and match-pair testing,

care wants and needs allows for

partners with organizations to improve

compliance, discrimination and misleading

organizational improvement, increased

governance efficiency and effective

sales practices testing. Informa is

provider and staff engagement, loyal

decision-making by providing trusted,

considered a leader in the use of market

relationships and personal well-being.

independent information, tools and

research to limit the risk associated with

• The Loyalty Index: Composed of seven

the care they provide. • The Governance Institute: NRC Health

resources to board members, executives

allegations of discrimination, UDAAP

aspects that combine to provide a

and physician leaders, supporting the

(unfair, deceptive or abusive acts or

360-degree view of health care

efforts of health care boards across the

practices), predatory lending and

consumer loyalty, the index is a single,

nation to lead stronger organizations

misleading sales practices.

trackable metric to identify emerging

and build healthier communities.

Informa Financial Intelligence serves

trends in consumer behavior and

more than 1,700 client firms in 63 countries

benchmark against peers. Health care

with more than 40,000 end users.

marketers develop an informed marketing strategy, proactively

* Percent change calculation reflects adjustment of previously reported 2016 U.S. research revenue due to acquisition/ divestiture activity or other business change during 2017.

NRC Health nrchealth.com

FOUNDED: 1981 2017 U.S. REVENUE: $99.6 MILLION PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: +9.3% 2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: $4.7 MILLION PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: 4.5% 2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $104.3 MILLION U.S. EMPLOYEES: 413

Michael D. Hays CEO; B.S., UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA NRC Health (formerly National Research

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C Space† cspace.com

FOUNDED: 1999 2017 U.S. REVENUE: $67.6 MILLION PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: +1.5% 2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: $17.8 MILLION PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: 20.8% 2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $85.4 MILLION U.S. EMPLOYEES: 300

Charles Trevail CEO; B.A., UNIVERSITY OF DURHAM

Jessica DeVlieger PRESIDENT, AMERICAS; B.A., CORNELL UNIVERSITY

customer-inspired organization. And, we

brand development. The combined

were recognized by the Market Research

organization is a world-class consultancy

Society by winning three coveted awards:

with the unique ability to meet clients’

Best Agency, Business Impact of the Year

needs with a seamless marriage of Burke’s

and Healthcare Research Award.

research-based decision support and Seed

In 2018, C Space will continue to invest in its people, existing capabilities such as data and analytics, as well as new initiatives such as the Co-Lab Accelerator.

employee engagement. They work across various industries in the U.S. and abroad,

author.

including: packaged goods, financial services, restaurants, travel/hospitality,

Burke burke.com

2017 U.S. REVENUE: $67.3 MILLION PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: -5.3%

customer insight and business change.

2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: $7.9 MILLION

the ways companies work and deliver on “customer-inspired growth.” By building

PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: 10.5% 2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $75.2 MILLION U.S. EMPLOYEES: 263

real, ongoing relationships with customers,

Jeff Miller

online and in-person, brands can stay

PRESIDENT AND CEO; MBA, UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI

relevant, deliver superior experiences, launch successful products and build loyalty. C Space’s customized programs are

Burke is an employee-owned, full-service custom marketing research supplier.

telecom, retail, health care and automotive.

ORC International orcinternational.com

FOUNDED: 1938 2017 U.S. REVENUE: $67 MILLION PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: -12.1% 2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: $36 MILLION PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: 35% 2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $103 MILLION U.S. EMPLOYEES: 231

Brian Cruikshank PRESIDENT, NORTH AMERICA; B.A., UNIVERSITY OF ST. THOMAS

tailored based on specific business needs

Burke’s reputation for excellence derives

and include private online communities,

from our ability to consistently deliver

ORC International helps global leaders

immersive storytelling, data and analytics,

actionable decision support solutions to

uncover the truth about their business and

activation events, innovation projects and

clients worldwide. Using an objectives-

fuel their most important decisions, so they

business consulting.

driven focus, Burke researchers are known

can optimize today, differentiate tomorrow

for their expertise in defining business

and win in the future. A top 20 global

year of business growth due to our

objectives, crafting smart research designs

business intelligence firm, ORC works with

expanded and new client engagements. C

utilizing both traditional and emerging

some of the world’s leading organizations

Space also announced an official

tools and approaches, executing complex

to better understand their employees,

partnership with Interbrand, the world’s

projects, employing advanced data analysis

customers and markets and transform their

leading branding agency, bringing the

techniques and communicating the

business performance. ORC operates in 16

worlds of brands and customer experience

business significance of research results.

countries with more than 500 associates

together to drive future growth for clients.

This expertise extends across a range of

worldwide.

C Space launched the third annual

industries, both domestic and international,

"Customer Quotient (CQ)" report, proving

and across many data collection platforms.

our core expertise is providing in-depth

once again that the companies that act

All of Burke’s core competencies are

data and insight, but our value is putting

more human outperform the ones who

supported by a dedication to continuous

those findings into context for clients,

don’t.

research and development efforts. In

uncovering important points of

addition, Burke shares best practices in

differentiation/distinction, helping clients

Trevail, has topped the business podcast

marketing research and consumer insights

navigate disruption and most importantly,

charts with the launch of the “Outside In”

through courses conducted by its

providing strategic guidance on activation,

podcast, where he interviews leaders from

educational group, the Burke Institute.

execution and measurement to help clients

In 2017, C Space had another successful

CEO of C Space and Interbrand, Charles

business, media and academia to discuss

customer engagement, health care and

research and estimation by the report

marries art and science to create rapid

Samsung and IKEA to build customers into

Burke’s primary areas of focus include: brand strategy, innovation, product

this company, so figures are based on

C Space is a global customer agency that

We work with some of the world’s

implementation.

development, retailer and shopper insights, † Some or all figures are not made available by

FOUNDED: 1931

best-known brands such as Walmart,

Strategy’s expertise in innovation and

In 2014, Burke acquired Seed Strategy, a

With clients in more than 50 countries,

transform their organizations. This is our

how consumers are changing and share

growth acceleration firm that specializes in

focus and a true differentiator for our firm.

best practices on how to create a

new-product innovation and strategic

As part of Engine Group, an independent,

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collaborative agency network, ORC is

world’s most successful businesses thrive.

well-positioned to provide clients

We have earned a reputation as a leader in

end-to-end business insights integrated

scientific research services, innovative

with digital, brand and media capabilities.

techniques and marketing and data science

ORC continues to be a leader in the

capabilities—skills we use to help clients

Convergys Analytics†

convergys.com/analytics

FOUNDED: 1998

market as industry experts with the

grow their businesses by applying

2017 U.S. REVENUE: $63 MILLION

integrated and prescriptive solutions

exceptional insight through the lens of

PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: +4.7%

aligned with our clients' changing needs.

deep industry knowledge.

2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: $8 MILLION

Solutions include: • Strategy: growth and expansion,

We specialize in consumer and retail, energy, financial services, health,

innovation, competitive intelligence and

technology and telecommunications.

expert network.

Focusing on select industries allows us to

• Markets and products: brand/

PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: 11.3% 2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $71 MILLION U.S. EMPLOYEES: 710

function as a trusted business partner who

communication, product development

not only understands but enhances our

Andrea J. Ayers

and demand generation.

clients’ knowledge and experience. This

PRESIDENT AND CEO; B.A., LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY

• Employee: employee engagement, employee lifecycle and employee polling.

fosters powerful, lasting partnerships. Our custom research specialties include brand, communications, CX, product development

Convergys is a world leader in customer

acquisition, customer experience and

and segmentation. Our syndicated

experience outsourcing with 115,000

customer retention.

research, known as “Cogent Reports,”

employees in 150 locations in 33 countries

offers a portfolio of traditional products in

around the world. We partner with our

online digital communities, generational

the wealth management, energy and health

clients to improve customer loyalty, reduce

consumer trends and insights.

spaces as well as portal-based research

costs and generate revenue through an

solutions that provide continuous data

extensive portfolio of services, including

In 2017, ORC began the process of evolving

collection and online reporting. But it’s the

customer care, analytics, voice of the

its offerings to incorporate integrated

blending of data streams that truly leads to

customer, technical support, collections,

solutions and tools designed for enhanced

better consultative insights.

home agent and sales.

• Customer: customer maturity, customer

• Tools: CARAVAN omnibus surveys,

decision-making. Combining research

Market Strategies’ consultants combine

Convergys has a dedicated team of 700

expertise, strategic and consultative

primary research with data from our

professionals who deliver data-driven

approach and global program execution,

syndicated studies, benchmarking and

insights to improve the customer

our offerings will continually give clients

self-funded studies to deliver the most

experience through analytics and

reliable, measurable and trustworthy

complete and accurate insights available in

consulting solutions, including journey

insight to grow their businesses. ORC also

the industry. Our dedicated information

mapping, post-contact surveys, relational

plans to evolve its technology platform,

design team transforms findings into

loyalty research, customer segmentation

further incorporating predictive analytics

stories by creating concise, infographic-

and profiling, call elimination analysis,

and solutions and enhancing Accesspoint

style deliverables and sticky portal

customer effort analysis, digital channel

through best-in-class technology

solutions. Each year, Market Strategies

optimization and integrated contact center

partnerships and providers.

conducts several international tracking

analytics.

programs and custom research

Market Strategies International marketstrategies.com

FOUNDED: 1989 2017 U.S. REVENUE: $65.1 MILLION PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: +1.2% 2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: $0.9 MILLION PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: 1.4% 2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $66 MILLION U.S. EMPLOYEES: 270

Melissa Sauter PRESIDENT; M.A., UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

In 2017, we achieved a client net

assignments for its clients, involving work

promoter score of 84, a 12-point increase

in more than 40 countries across five

over 2016. We soft-launched ConvergysCX,

continents.

a new voice-of-the-customer platform,

We are headquartered in Livonia,

which integrates customer experience

Michigan, with regional offices in Atlanta;

feedback in real time from disparate data

Cambridge, Massachusetts; Little Rock,

sources into a centralized CX view driven

Arkansas; and Portland, Oregon.

by in-platform text analytics, data visualization and predictive modeling capabilities. In March 2018, Convergys announced ConvergysCX to the market. ConvergysCX forms the foundation of our customer experience as a service (CXaaS) delivery model that combines services and technology to transform the way companies use feedback. ConvergysCX incorporates inner loop, outer loop and service recovery components into a single

Market Strategies International is the

solution. Our services overlay adds a

research consulting partner that helps the

deeper level of analytic insight to drive

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action in the enterprise. During 2018, the platform will evolve to include additional data integration technologies and onboard analytic capabilities. We will continue

YouGov* yougov.com

FOUNDED: 2000

YouGov BrandIndex, YouGov Profiles and the Affluent Perspective. • YouGov BrandIndex: Through this daily measure of brand perception, tracking

transitioning existing clients to

2017 U.S. REVENUE: $56.3 MILLION

ConvergysCX.

PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: +21.6%

industry sectors, subscribers gain a

2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: $87.3 MILLION

real-time picture of brand performance

Later in the year, Convergys will open a state-of-the-art center of excellence that will accelerate our digital innovation and design initiatives. Convergys’ global headquarters is

PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: 60.8% 2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $143.6 MILLION U.S. EMPLOYEES: 182

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.

located in Cincinnati with 28 international Middle East, Africa and the Asia-Pacific

Stephan Shakespeare

region, including China.

CEO AND FOUNDER; M.S., OXFORD UNIVERSITY

offices in South America, Europe, the

thousands of brands across dozens of

• YouGov Profiles: Profiles is a segmentation and media-planning product for brands and their agencies. Powered by the world’s largest

YouGov is an international data and

connected data set, Profiles gives

this company, so figures are based on

analytics group headquartered in the U.K.

marketers a richer, more detailed portrait

research and estimation by the report

Our core offering of opinion data is derived

of their customers’ complex lives across

author.

from our highly participative panel of 5

more than 200,000 variables, including

million people worldwide. We combine this

demographics, attitudes and opinions,

continuous stream of data with our deep

brand usage and perception, media

research expertise and broad industry

consumption, lifestyle and social media

† Some or all figures are not made available by

experience into a systematic research and marketing platform. YouGov, which began operating in the

and digital engagement. • YouGov Omnibus: a 24-hour, nationally representative omnibus with specialist

U.S. in 2007, provides custom research, as

studies including B-to-B, children,

well as syndicated products such as

homeowners, international and citybus

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and an extensive field and tab division. • Custom research: YouGov offers a full

merged with MetrixLab, creating the Macromill Group. The Macromill Group

Morpace morpace.com

range of research and consulting

operates several brands in 25 offices with

services to help companies make

1,600 research experts across the

smarter decisions about their markets,

Americas, Europe and Asia. The group’s

2017 U.S. REVENUE: $48.8 MILLION

customers and offerings. YouGov

leading business units are Macromill and

PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: -12.2%

addresses business questions related to

MetrixLab.

2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: $5.5 MILLION

market structure and composition,

Macromill, one of the leading marketing

innovation and product development,

research companies in Japan, stands at the

product/service optimization, customer

forefront of innovation, delivering unique

experience branding and market

marketing solutions. We offer exclusive

effectiveness.

access to the highest-quality online panel

FOUNDED: 1975

PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: 10.1% 2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $54.3 MILLION U.S. EMPLOYEES: 210

with more than 2 million members,

Duncan Lawrence

research group provides full-service

including 1 million Yahoo! Research Monitor

survey research for academics, health

members. Using our self-developed

PRESIDENT AND CEO; MBA, MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY

researchers, policy think tanks and

platform “AIRs,” we provide full-service

corporate clients. Survey methodologists

online research, including automated

As a group of inquisitive researchers,

serve clients who conduct survey

survey creation and completion, data

Morpace views each of our client’s

research intended for peer-to-peer

tabulation and analysis. Our business

initiatives as a journey to bring them closer

review. Survey research includes

portfolio has rapidly grown and is

to their customers. We are truth-seekers

multiwave panels, cross-national studies,

constantly evolving. Today, it includes

who understand that data is about

surveys with complex experimentation

services such as offline quantitative

humanizing numbers for business impact.

and hard-to-reach target populations.

research, mobile research, point-of-sale

Our band of truth-seekers are experts in

database research (QPR), digital marketing

automotive, financial services, health care,

(Accessmill), a DIY survey platform

retail and consumer goods, helping clients

adjustment of previously reported 2016 U.S.

(Questant) and more. Headquartered in

make smarter decisions in three core

research revenue due to acquisition/

Tokyo, our global network can reach 87

research pillars: brand, product

divestiture activity or other business change

countries across the world.

development and customer experience.

• Scientific research: The scientific

* Percent change calculation reflects

MetrixLab, headquartered in Rotterdam,

during 2017.

the Netherlands, is one of the fastest-

The Macromill Group* † group.macromill.com

FOUNDED: 2000 2017 U.S. REVENUE: $49 MILLION

Proud moments of 2017: • Developed DataDialogue: a suite of

growing providers of market and consumer

solutions that combine Internet of

insights. We turn data from online surveys,

Things data collected directly from

social media, mobile devices and enterprise

customers’ devices with market research

systems into valuable business information

insights to provide ongoing contextual

and actionable consumer insights. This

understanding of user behavior and

helps leading companies drive product innovation, brand engagement and

product usage. • Insight community expansion: Spread

PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: +8.9%

customer value. Owned and group panels

expertise into new industries including

2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: $281.5 MILLION

provide expansive access to global

agriculture, financial services and

respondents in mature and emerging

education while increasing impact of

PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: 85.2% 2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $330.5 MILLION U.S. EMPLOYEES: 275

markets. Our teams deliver strategic and

deliverables and flexibility of service.

tactical decision support by pushing the

• Journey and experience mapping (JEM)

boundaries of data analysis innovation,

growth: Thinking of their future strategy,

combining cutting-edge technology with

clients found JEM’s holistic view of the

Scott Ernst

data science and proven marketing

entire customer experience with their

GLOBAL CEO AND REPRESENTATIVE EXECUTIVE OFFICER; B.S., UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

research methodologies. Clients across the

company invaluable, particularly the

globe rely on our hyper-efficient data and

insights into how customers feel at each

2017 Acquisitions: • Acturus, Inc., a U.S.-based marketing research company • Centan, a neuromarketing company in Japan Macromill was founded in 2000, listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in 2004 and

insights ecosystem to deliver fast and affordable results.

touch point. • Leveraging of ROI Brain: a media optimization solution working with

Morpace’s “Brand Tracking of the Future” to provide actionability that improves marketing effectiveness. • Testing “System 1” versus “System 2” thinking: conducted a pilot test of “System 1” measurement using

moved to its First Section in 2005. In

this company, so figures are based on

automotive designs and semantic

January 2014, Macromill was acquired by

research and estimation by the report

priming, allowing Morpace to help its

Bain Capital. In November 2014, Macromill

author.

clients design research that captures

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both types of reactions, which influences

emerging brands with high growth

decision-making.

potential. Our clients’ success is our own,

• Quantifying qualitative: leveraged

and with that comes a deep commitment

emerging technology solutions to

to helping our clients optimize growth for

capture emotional qualitative insight at

every location.

quantitative scale. • Continued syndicated tracking of essential automotive topics: powertrain, mobility, autonomy and electrification to keep ourselves and our clients relevant.

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

Looking forward to 2018: • DataDialogue: expanding contextualization of Big Data in custom solutions offered across the four industries we serve.

28 PRS IN VIVO

prs-invivo.com

FOUNDED: 1972 2017 U.S. REVENUE: $46 MILLION PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: -4.2% 2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: $47 MILLION PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: 50.5% 2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $93 MILLION U.S. EMPLOYEES: 172

surveys. • Manage more than 100,000 inbound calls to our contact center. • Host more than 1 million user logins on

Scott Young PRESIDENT; MBA, NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY

our KnowledgeForce reporting platform.

• DataDialogue | Pulse: releasing an

At PRS IN VIVO, we believe primarily in

innovative mobile solution for fleet

Our multilocation solutions provide a

what people do, rather than what they say.

professionals that harnesses vehicle

robust framework for measuring and

We know that real-life purchase decisions

data; combines it with context, business

improving operational excellence, customer

are overwhelmingly behavioral (“thinking

operations and environmental data; and

experience and financial KPIs.

fast”), rather than rational (“thinking slow”)

delivers actionable insights to improve

• Measurement channels: mystery

and that they are greatly influenced by

fleet profitability. • Insight communities: continuing to grow this powerful service to new clients and

shopping, customer experience surveys,

context. These core principles are reflected

contact center calls, social media,

in all of our research methodologies, which

employee engagement surveys

emphasize shoppers’ behavior and

• KnowledgeForce technology platform

industries. • Journey and experience mapping: hosting a four-part webinar series that

and Eyes:On mobile app • Predictive analytics to determine what

will explore different qualitative research

matters most and the ROI for investing

methods used within our JEM

in improvements

methodology.

Market Force† marketforce.com

FOUNDED: 2005 2017 U.S. REVENUE: $48 MILLION

• Market research services (e.g., customer

purchase selections and focus on confirming that brands are seen, understood and shop-able at shelf. They also guide our investments in unique offerings to understand, document and predict shopper behavior, including a

segmentation, attitude trial and usage

global network of more than 20

studies, custom research projects)

ShopperLabs and unmatched scope,

• Strategic advisory services to design

database and expertise in eye-tracking. We

and implement effective measurement

have more than 45 years of expertise and

systems and improve performance

have conducted research in 49 countries.

†Some or all figures are not made available by

PRS IN VIVO helps consumer marketers to

PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: --

this company, so figures are based on

succeed through:

2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: $7 MILLION

research and estimation by the report

• In-store and online studies to better

PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: 12.7% 2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $55 MILLION U.S. EMPLOYEES: 300

author.

understand shopper behavior, in both physical and e-commerce shopping contexts. • Qualitative studies to develop, screen and refine new product, packaging and

Ray Walsh CEO; B.S., OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY

merchandising concepts. • Quantitative studies to pretest and quantify new packaging, merchandising and display systems (for physical stores

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

and e-commerce). • Volume forecasting and product testing for both innovations and brand restages. • “Nudge” initiatives to facilitate behavioral change, create new consumer habits and drive category growth.

our global presence with offices in the U.S., Canada, U.K., France and Spain. We are

BVA, one of largest market research

proud to serve more than 350 clients

companies in France, is the majority

ranging from the Fortune 10 brands to

shareholder in PRS IN VIVO. The firm has

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approximately 300 employees across

collection techniques and combining those

provides tailored research through an

offices in New York; Chicago; Paris;

findings with existing client knowledge.

annual, fixed-fee model.

London; Geneva; Rome; Frankfurt,

Technology plays a large role in everything the firm touches. Combining the

organizations and companies worldwide,

clients include Nestle, Colgate, L’Oreal SA,

speed and actionability of client-facing

from established global organizations to

Amazon, Johnson & Jonhson, Walgreens

digital dashboards with deep analytics and

emerging companies to educational

and Pfizer Inc.

data modeling, Directions delivers

institutions. From CEOs and CMOs to

industry-leading insights to broad

superintendents, provosts and chief

audiences quickly.

academic officers, to vice presidents of

* Percent change calculation reflects adjustment of previously reported 2016 U.S.

Directions’ staff has an excellent mix of

finance and heads of advancement, our

research revenue due to acquisition/

client- and supplier-side experience. The

research informs decisions at any level and

divestiture activity or other business change

organization allows senior researchers to

across any department, capitalizing on the

during 2017.

work with clients on a day-to-day basis.

exposure to myriad industries and

The company’s staff averages more years

challenges.

Directions Research

directionsresearch.com

FOUNDED: 1988 2017 U.S. REVENUE: $43.9 MILLION

of insight experience per person than most other research firms. Directions invests in research and

Founded in 2003, Hanover Research’s partnership with clients provides them access to a team of high-caliber

development designed to examine issues

researchers, survey experts, analysts and

of interest to clients and the industry.

statisticians with diverse skills in market

Recently, these efforts included:

research, information services and

• The launching of CrowdSight, an

analytics. There is no limit on the type of

PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: -2.4%

advanced idea-screening platform that

challenge that can be asked or on the

2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: --

combines predictive markets, choice

quantitative and qualitative approaches

design and interactive open-ends.

Hanover utilizes to deliver solutions, most

PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: -2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $43.9 MILLION U.S. EMPLOYEES: 144

• AppTrack, tracking the use and satisfaction of restaurant apps offered to mobile order and deliver loyalty program

Jim Lane PRESIDENT AND CEO; MBA, NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY Directions Research is a privately held firm based in Cincinnati with multiple regional offices. Ownership of the firm is in the

of which are very difficult to replicate internally. Custom research services: • Secondary research: market

benefits.

segmentation and evaluation, labor and

Hanover Research

hanoverresearch.com

FOUNDED: 2003

demographic trends and forecasts, vendor and product reviews and best practices reports. • Survey: survey design, administration and analysis and open-ended response coding.

hands of 37 members of its entrepreneurial

2017 U.S. REVENUE: $42.5 MILLION

senior staff.

PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: +7.3%

group design and administration and

2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: $2.4 MILLION

in-depth interview design, outreach,

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

PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: 5.3% 2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $44.9 MILLION U.S. EMPLOYEES: 332

clients value how the firm combines primary and connected data from various inputs to create a holistic picture and

Wesley Givens CEO; B.A., WASHINGTON AND LEE UNIVERSITY

disseminate the story in a way that

Peter Dodge

influences decisions effectively. Through

CHAIRMAN, FOUNDER; B.A., WASHINGTON AND LEE UNIVERSITY

digital dashboards, infographics, written

• Qualitative primary research: focus

administration and analysis. • Data analysis: data segmentation and mining, conjoint analysis, linear regression, descriptive and predictive analytics and data forecasting and

answer pressing business issues. Directions’

modeling. Core practice areas: • Hanover’s corporate practice drives growth with a customer-centric lens on which markets to enter, products to develop, messaging to refine and sales

reports and other unique visualizations, the firm communicates its knowledge in a

Headquartered in Arlington, Virginia,

manner that is right for today’s leaders.

Hanover Research is a brain trust designed

strategy to deploy. • Hanover’s higher-education practice

to level the information playing field.

provides key insights across both

optimization, customer and brand

Hanover is made up of hundreds of

academic and administrative areas,

experience, strategic business intelligence

researchers who support thousands of

including enrollment management,

and visualization across a wide range of

organizational decisions every year. One of

academic development, student

industries. The firm offers B-to-C and

the industry’s fastest-growing companies,

experience, finance, advancement,

B-to-B services globally, surveying

Hanover attributes this market success to

marketing and grants solutions.

audiences using a broad selection of data

its unique positioning as the only firm that

• Hanover’s K-12 education practice

Directions excels in innovation and

Hanover serves more than 1,000

Germany; Singapore; and Shanghai. Major

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provides key insights for leadership

FocusVision is a full-spectrum, research

across instructional and administrative

technology solutions provider.

departments, including ensuring college

In 1992 we were the first company to

In 2017, we ran more than 35,000 projects, including more than 60 million survey completes and 21,000 research days of live video.

and career readiness, evaluating

live-stream focus groups. This saved our

programs, building safe and supportive

clients a lot of time and money. As we grew

environments, engaging families and

and learned more, and as the world of

technology solutions to professional

communities, recruiting, retaining and

research technology matured, we realized

research agencies and directly to client

developing talent and improving

no single-track research approach was

enterprises. We are trusted by 18 of the top

operations.

satisfying clients’ requirements. So, we

20 Fortune 100 companies, the top 10

acquired market-leading companies in

health care companies and the top 10

surveys, reporting and digital qualitative

consumer packaged goods companies.

FocusVision† focusvision.com

FOUNDED: 1990 2017 U.S. REVENUE: $39.5 MILLION

research and refined our own video

FocusVision provides its research

Our clients include Facebook, Procter &

solution. These companies were Decipher,

Gamble Co., Microsoft Corp., General

Revelation, InterVu, 24Tru, Research

Motors Co., eBay Inc., Eli Lilly and Co.,

Reporter and Kinesis.

McDonald’s Corp., PepsiCo Inc., Pfizer Inc.,

We now operate globally as one

Salesforce, Ipsos, 3M Co., Procter & Gamble

PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: +2.9%

company under the FocusVision brand with

Co., L’Oreal SA, Universal Music, Comcast

2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: $11 MILLION

more than 400 employees and offices in

Corp. and Walmart Inc.

PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: 21.8% 2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $50.5 MILLION U.S. EMPLOYEES: 353

Zlatko Vecutic CEO; MBA, COPENHAGEN UNIVERSITY

the U.S., U.K., Bulgaria and Singapore. Our offering allows our clients to gather,

Our focus is to bring together the best in surveys and reporting, live video and digital

analyze and share data for various

qualitative research solutions, so our clients

purposes, including customer satisfaction

can get the best insights possible from

surveys, brand tracking, live remote focus

anywhere and everywhere.

groups, building and engaging with online

Our vision is to provide them with the

communities, communications testing,

most flexible, secure and productive

segmentation, NPS, product testing and so

research environment in the world.

on.

In 2018, we’re staying ahead of industry

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shifts by focusing on innovating our

intelligence-building resource to inform

research firm managed by a core of

technology for the modern insights

future campaigns.

dedicated professionals with advanced

professional at the enterprise level and beyond.

Our unique communications platform is

degrees in the social sciences. SSRS

made up of custom and syndicated

provides the analytical, administrative and

solutions, including a large-scale tracking

management capabilities needed for

advertising/communication audit and

project execution. The company designs

this company, so figures are based on

performance evaluation system (AdPi and

and implements solutions to complex

research and estimation by the report

BrandPi Audits).

strategic, tactical, public opinion and policy

† Some or all figures are not made available by

Our customer experience platform is a

author.

Phoenix Marketing International

issues in the U.S. and in more than 40

sophisticated and highly flexible solution,

countries worldwide. Its in-house resources

which allows for custom survey design

include two interviewing centers and the

combined with an immediate, case-based,

corporate headquarters.

state-of-the-art technology platform with a

SSRS focuses on public opinion polling,

sophisticated analytics and graphical

social science research, policy research,

reporting dashboard. However, we built a

multicultural research and sports/leisure.

technology platform to enable the CX

SSRS has expertise surveying

program, not to be the CX program.

low-incidence populations, creating

Decades of experience and bright minds

sophisticated sample designs and with all

PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: +9.4%

meld research and technology together to

modes of data collection.

2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: $2.8 MILLION

take customer experience programs to a

phoenixmi.com

FOUNDED: 1999 2017 U.S. REVENUE: $37.4 MILLION

PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: 7% 2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $40.2 MILLION

whole new level. Our innovative analytics group is expert

SSRS is also a provider of omnibus research services in the U.S., including the SSRS Omnibus, a weekly nationally

in helping test and develop new innovative

representative survey of 1,000 adults, with

marketing opportunities and model these

interviews in Spanish and 600 interviews

utilizing advanced data integration and

on cellphones. SSRS assures coverage of

Allen R. DeCotiis

analytic capabilities.

the growing millennial population by

CHAIRMAN AND CEO; PH.D., EMORY UNIVERSITY

always pushing the industry by developing

Martha Rea

techniques resulting in faster, more

research, including the SSRS Probability

disruptive insights. Phoenix has a truly

Panel, which recruits panelists through the

global footprint and continues to invest in

SSRS Omnibus. Surveys are designed to

top-tier talent and stay true to our brand

ensure a positive panelist experience.

U.S. EMPLOYEES: 145

PRESIDENT; B.S., UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA

Research is reborn every day at Phoenix, and applying new approaches, tools and

Phoenix Marketing International, with its

promise: to be “boldly intelligent” research

flagship office in Rhinebeck, New York, is a

professionals, utilizing state-of-the-art

privately owned company founded in 1999

methods.

Phoenix Marketing International helps clients improve their brand and communications, create and refine the products and services that they deliver and

SSRS*

FOUNDED: 1983

by those commitments. By utilizing the

PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: +33.2%

strengths of senior industry specialists,

2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: $1.4 MILLION

services, health care, converged technology and media, restaurant, consumer goods and travel/leisure sectors.

PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: 3.7% 2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $38.3 MILLION U.S. EMPLOYEES: 181

With the recent acquisition of TV Brand

Melissa J. Herrmann

Effect assets from Nielsen, Phoenix now

PRESIDENT; M.A., UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

provides a global and comprehensive

* Percent change calculation reflects

divestiture activity or other business change during 2017.

ssrs.com

2017 U.S. REVENUE: $36.9 MILLION

insights across the automotive, financial

The company also conducts online

research revenue due to acquisition/

optimize the customer experience, driven

Phoenix provides its clients with disruptive

respondents on cell phones.

adjustment of previously reported 2016 U.S.

by Allen R. DeCotiis, Ph.D., chairman and CEO, and Martha Rea, president.

interviewing a minimum of 80% of

Cello Health plc* †

cellohealthplc.com

FOUNDED: 2004 2017 U.S. REVENUE: $36.5 MILLION PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: +14.8% 2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: $94.8 MILLION PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: 72.2% 2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $131.3 MILLION U.S. EMPLOYEES: 260

family of ad and brand performance

measures in the industry, offering a

SSRS (formerly known as ICR and SSRS/

one-stop solution for the most timely and

Social Science Research Solutions) is a

accurate information to make decisions

subsidiary of Mount Laurel, New Jersey-

along the campaign continuum—

based AU.S. Inc., a privately held company.

pre-launch, in-flight, as well as an

SSRS is a full-service market and survey

Stephen Highley GROUP COO

Cello Health plc consists of four global

MARKETING NEWS | JUNE / JULY 2018

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capabilities that enable us to offer

research revenue due to acquisition/

best-in-class services and an integrated

divestiture activity or other business change

partnership approach to our clients. This unique mix of capabilities, combined with

conduct. • Strengthening our behavioral and neuroscience offerings in our current

during 2017. † Some or all figures are not made available by

solutions.

our collaborative approach, results in a

this company, so figures are based on

unique fusion of expertise, providing

research and estimation by the report

industry conferences on topics ranging

powerful advisory and implementation

author.

from Big Data, implicit association

solutions. 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

• Sharing our knowledge at leading

versus MaxDiff, brand tracking and

Radius GMR radius-global.com

FOUNDED: 1960

segmentation. Radius partners with Fortune 1,000 and other growth-oriented organizations in the following industries: beverage,

our clients’ questions, using a large pool of

2017 U.S. REVENUE: $34 MILLION

creative and academic resources and

PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: +3%

utilities, financial services, food services,

providing design of materials and

2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: $1 MILLION

health care pharmaceuticals, home

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

PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: 2.9% 2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $35 MILLION U.S. EMPLOYEES: 97

delivering business results by unlocking the

Chip Lister

potential within organizations, people,

MANAGING DIRECTOR; B.A., TEMPLE UNIVERSITY

assets and brands. Cello Health Consulting works alongside clients to create practical

communications, education, energy and

improvement and durables, media and entertainment, packaged goods, personal care, retail, technology, transportation and travel/hospitality.

Fors Marsh Group* forsmarshgroup.com

solutions, which ensures buy-in and builds

Radius Global Market Research is one of

relationships. Cello Health Consulting

the largest custom market research

focuses on four key practices: brand and

companies in the world. Our goal is to

2017 U.S. REVENUE: $32.8 MILLION

portfolio strategy, business sciences, early

provide a clear view of the dynamics for

PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: +6.5%

product commercialization and

success in today’s complex and

organizational excellence.

competitive marketplace. We partner with

2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: --

Cello Health Communications combines

leading global organizations in the U.S.,

science, strategy and creativity to unlock

Europe, Asia and the Middle East to help

the potential of brands and assets. It

drive their brands’ growth.

focuses on “Evidence2Engagement,”

FOUNDED: 2002

PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: -2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $32.8 MILLION U.S. EMPLOYEES: 175

Our attitudinal and behavioral solutions

Sean M. Marsh

building a foundational evidence base and

are focused on providing strategic insights

translating that into outcome-focused

into three critical areas of brand

behavior change. It also focuses on how

performance: optimizing brand offerings,

data and other insights are applied in a

identifying differentiating innovations and

strategic framework to support clinical and

delivering compelling customer

Fors Marsh Group (FMG) applies behavioral

commercial success. Cello Health

propositions.

and data science to improve organizational

Communications services underpin

CEO; PH.D., GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY

processes, business solutions and customer

differentiated positioning and deliver brand

In 2017, Radius experienced the following

experiences. This work is conducted within

optimization, focusing on multiple areas of

business growth:

seven core U.S. markets: health, defense,

development and launch through to

• 20% increase in number of returning

technology, finance, homeland security,

commercial maturity. Cello Signal is a full-service digital capability bringing impactful messages alive in communications campaigns, content and film. In February 2017, Cello Health announced further expansion in the U.S.

clients. • 12% increase in new clients. • 62% increase in number of brandtracking studies. • 50% growth in qualitative projects

policy and consumer. As a certified B Corporation, FMG’s business practices create positive impact beyond our client portfolio, extending into the community through pro bono service

through integrating in-the-moment

to nonprofits that are aligned with FMG’s

approaches.

corporate values. FMG was created with

with the acquisition of New Jersey-based

the vision of becoming a refreshingly

Defined Healthcare Research Inc., a leading

Our client initiatives for 2018 include:

different type of research and consulting

business development strategy firm

• Continuing to deliver story-driven

firm by solving challenges through

servicing life sciences firms with a

reports by increasing our information

solutions steeped in scientific theory,

particular focus in biotech.

design capabilities.

methodological rigor and feasibility. This

• Focusing on driving even deeper * Percent change calculation reflects adjustment of previously reported 2016 U.S.

vision has shaped core capabilities led by

insights by bringing our advanced

experts in their field, which include health

analytics team into 100% of the work we

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management, policy evaluation, surveys

Maru/Matchbox is a sector-driven

and data collection, digital marketing and

consumer intelligence firm focused entirely

that will allow clients to improve

design and data science.

on better client outcomes. Their expert

business decisions by pairing research

teams are deeply invested in key sectors of

data with other sources, such as financial

Last year, FMG worked with the Food and Drug Administration to reduce

the economy, including consumer

smokeless tobacco use in teenagers, with

packaged goods, financial services, retail,

Oculus to propel the innovation of the next

technology, agency, public affairs and

offering multimode data collection,

generation of virtual reality platforms, with

media and entertainment. They deliver

analysis and reporting.

the Department of Defense to provide

insights and analysis backed by superior

understanding and insights on the

quality data, knowledge, understanding

Maru/Matchbox is also committed in 2018 to

American youth market, with the Coast

and real-world context.

continuing to demonstrate innovation and

Guard to improve internal communications

Maru/Matchbox began pioneering

or operational, to identify relationships. • HUB is our globally scalable ecosystem

thought leadership through its ongoing

among a globally positioned workforce and

insight communities almost 20 years ago.

publication of articles, e-books and white

with the Newseum Institute to help

Insight communities help clients gain a

papers.

understand citizens’ perceptions and

real-time window into their customers’

attitudes toward the five freedoms of the

needs and motivations. They deliver

First Amendment.

actionable customer intelligence based on

In 2018, FMG opened a second office in Columbus, Ohio, to oversee the growing volume of data collection and analysis that

meaningful relationships between brands and their customers. In 2017, Maru/Matchbox focused on

MarketVision Research mv-research.com

FOUNDED: 1983

support national and global programs and

bringing deeper, faster and ongoing access

established two new divisions—the learning

to their customers and stakeholders more

2017 U.S. REVENUE: $31.9 MILLION

and training division and the customer

than ever before through solution

PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: -8.3%

experience division—providing a greater

innovation.

range of consultancy and implementation

• They launched Global Connect, a

2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: --

multimarket community platform

services. New client partners include the Postal Service, Pew Research Center, the Chamber of Commerce, Deltek and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The success of FMG’s approach is reflected in 15 years of sustained growth since its inception, continued hiring of notable subject matter experts and business leaders and long-term client relationships. * Percent change calculation reflects adjustment of previously reported 2016 U.S. research revenue due to acquisition/

designed to fuel global and local learnings. • They developed Innovation Forum, a

PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: -2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $31.9 MILLION U.S. EMPLOYEES: 135

community of tech enthusiasts who

Tyler McMullen

inform innovation trends across sectors.

PRESIDENT AND CEO; MBA, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA

• They constructed MoneyScreen, the most extensive monitor and predictor of innovation in financial services. • They built MiTelemundo Hispanic

MarketVision Research is a full-service marketing research consultancy, providing

Community, the most robust community

clients with actionable insights about their

of Hispanics in the U.S.

markets, customers, brands and products.

• Connection Compass was developed to help charities increase their donor base. • They created Virtual Mailbox and Inbox,

Research areas of focus include product and portfolio development, pricing, branding, segmentation and customer

divestiture activity or other business change

an interactive platform for improving

satisfaction. The company offers a full suite

during 2017.

direct mail and e-mail marketing

of quantitative and qualitative research

campaigns.

capabilities and works across industry

Maru/Matchbox marumatchbox.com

FOUNDED: 2016 2017 U.S. REVENUE: $32 MILLION PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: +5.3% 2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: $10 MILLION PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: 23.8% 2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $42 MILLION U.S. EMPLOYEES: 69

groups. The firm invests significantly in its In 2018, Maru/Matchbox is releasing a

education program and frequently shares

series of innovative research solutions.

findings with the research community.

• Idea Filter is idea testing honed to the

MarketVision also leads a variety of

essentials, allowing clients to test widely

research training and development

and identify fresh ideas that make a

programs for clients and individuals.

difference. • Instant Insights pairs sector-focused research advisors with agile survey and

Ged Parton CEO; M.A., OXFORD UNIVERSITY

The “Research on Research” program explored the following topics: • Conjoint and mobile participation: in

data aggregation technology to offer

coordination with the GRBN, research

insights at the speed of your business.

evaluating the impact of excluding

• Assurance shortens the validation process without sacrificing depth of

• Eye is a consumer intelligence platform

insight or quality of data and allows their customers to reliably validate qualitative insights in days—not months.

mobile participants from pricing research conducted using discrete choice techniques. • Impact of rising oncology medication costs on patients: exploring the topic of

MARKETING NEWS | JUNE / JULY 2018

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rising costs of medication and the trade-offs patients make to maintain treatment.

• Participant engagement initiative: in coordination with the GRBN, research to assess the impact of a poor participant experience in survey research and

LRA, a Deloitte business

www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/ risk/solutions/lra-by-deloitteservice-offerings.html

FOUNDED: 1981

identify new ways to improve the

2017 U.S. REVENUE: $30.7 MILLION

relationship we have with this valuable

PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: -22.3%

resource.

2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: $6.2 MILLION

Unique capabilities: • Optimization: MarketVision’s “marketing sciences” group is recognized as a leader in discrete choice modeling and

PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: 16.8% 2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $36.9 MILLION U.S. EMPLOYEES: 340

optimization with application to areas

Rob Rush

such as product and service

MANAGING DIRECTOR; B.S., CORNELL UNIVERSITY

development, branding, packaging and pricing. • Online communities (MROCs): Since

• Conjoint/decision modeling studies. • Customer segmentation and personae development studies. • Touch point/“moment of truth” focused surveys. • Modeling the “emotional connection” of customers to company and its impact on behavior, spending and share of wallet. We are somewhat 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.

LRA, a Deloitte business, is a leading global

We gained a number of clients outside

2007, MarketVision has provided online

provider of customer experience

of our core hotel vertical, with new client

communities that are managed and

measurement services for multinational

wins in restaurants/food service,

developed entirely in-house. We released

companies with complex customer

automotive, life sciences/health care,

version 3.0 of our communities platform

interactions. LRA’s innovative brand

consumer products and retail.

in 2017 with a focus on improving

standards audits, quality assurance

participant engagement and with

inspections, mystery shopping programs,

development and scaling of our TrueView

additional support for mobile

research and consulting services have

technology platform, which combines

participation.

helped ensure our clients deliver

mobile data collection, visual dashboards

consistent, memorable and differentiated

and reporting and data aggregation and

own product fulfillment center and

experiences to their customers. Many of

analytics capabilities to provide clients a

warehouse to support client needs for

the world’s preeminent global hospitality

holistic view of their customer experience

product testing. We expanded our

brands, as well as companies in the

and operational data from multiple sources,

warehouse capabilities in 2016 and

gaming, dining, health care, sports and

helping enhance operational decision-

doubled the amount of product we

entertainment, real estate, retail and travel

making and overall strategic focus.

manage year over year in 2017. This

industries choose LRA to help them

continues to be an important one-stop

measure and improve the customer

shop for our clients’ product testing

experience in more than 145 countries

needs.

around the globe.

• Product testing: MarketVision has its

LRA’s research offerings are focused on

Plans for 2018 include the further

Kelton Global keltonglobal.com

FOUNDED: 2003

Major activities in 2017:

helping our clients to define and measure

• Company headquarters relocation:

the “current state” of the customer

2017 U.S. REVENUE: $27.2 MILLION

MarketVision headquarters relocated to

experience and then identify measures to

PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: +3.8%

a larger facility in northern Cincinnati.

enhance or reinvent that experience in

2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: $7.2 MILLION

• MROC 3.0: We released our third-

order to drive customer satisfaction,

generation software platform for online

loyalty, advocacy and positive customer

community research.

outcomes and behaviors. Our standard offerings include:

PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: 20.9% 2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $34.4 MILLION U.S. EMPLOYEES: 94

• Field/operational research. • Audits and inspections (quality assurance, brand standards, operational excellence, emotional audits, etc.). • Mystery shopping (service, sales, operations, brand). • Customer/employee research. • Qualitative/exploratory research (focus

Tom Bernthal CEO AND CO-FOUNDER; B.S., UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON

Gareth Schweitzer PRESIDENT AND CO-FOUNDER; B.A., MCGILL UNIVERSITY

groups, IDIs). • Customer “tracking” survey research.

Kelton Global is an insights and strategy

• Customer “relationship” studies.

consultancy. We help businesses grow by

• Employee engagement studies.

uncovering human truths and transforming

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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

Screen Engine/ ASI screenengineasi.com

FOUNDED: 2010

sessions, LifeStories, In-Situ

2017 U.S. REVENUE: $26 MILLION

observations, Kelton SmartCommunities,

PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: +18.2%

trend scanning, semiotic analysis,

2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: --

archetype studies and analysis, co-creation and digital anthropology. • Quantitative research: customer brand health tracker; people, ideas and trends

PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: -2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $26 MILLION U.S. EMPLOYEES: 83

tracking; customer segmentation;

Kevin Goetz

modeling; price perception and

CEO; B.A., RUTGERS UNIVERSITY

elasticity; line extension analysis; portfolio optimization; messaging/

Robert Levin

positioning optimization; package

PRESIDENT; B.A., UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

testing; new-product testing and brand and ad optimization.

what is both driving as well as limiting the audience’s intensity of recommendation. • The marketability of content: both from a strategic and tactical view, what marketing communications have the potential to generate the greatest urgency to see and view the content. • The “buzzability” of content: from critics offline, what will be the likely volume and sentiment of opinion and discussion. SE/ASI’s growth has been driven by the top-tier talent the company has attracted to serve its clients with research and insights that help them in making their

Screen Engine/ASI (SE/ASI) is a full-service

many critical management decisions. As it

communications innovation; customer

research and analytics firm focused

has since its founding and as it will

journey mapping; prototype

primarily on serving the entertainment and

continue to do so, the company

optimization; visual merchandising;

media industries with research products

consistently invests in both improving its

information design; concept ideation;

designed to help our clients realize their

products and innovating with new

path to purchase; and new-product

goals and objectives.

approaches and methodologies.

development. • Communications: information design,

SE/ASI conducts research across all entertainment distribution platforms,

video documentary, language and

including film, television and over-the-top

message development, strategic

(OTT) platforms. Clients include all the

thought-leadership research and data

major and mini-major movie studios,

for dissemination.

independent movie studios and

Gongos gongos.com

FOUNDED: 1991

distributors, broadcast and cable networks,

2017 U.S. REVENUE: $24.6 MILLION

analysis, brand positioning, marketing

OTT platforms, production companies,

PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: +16.6%

strategy, agency search and briefing and

home entertainment, gaming and new

new concept generation and launch

technologies.

2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: $1.7 MILLION

• Strategic consulting: brand landscape

strategy.

Founded in 2010, Screen Engine soon became a leading resource for the movie

PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: 6.5% 2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $26.3 MILLION U.S. EMPLOYEES: 133

In 2017, Kelton focused on growing

industry, not only for content research (the

relationships with new clients while

company conducts recruited audience

continuing to provide our innovative,

research screenings on more than 70% of

Camille Nicita

qualitative, quantitative and cultural

all domestic wide-release movies), but also

insights work for clients like Coca-Cola Co.,

for marketing and pre-greenlight research

PRESIDENT AND CEO; MBA, WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY

Pfizer Inc., Revlon and Harley-Davidson. We

as well.

increased our international revenue by

In 2014, Screen Engine expanded

As a decision intelligence company,

offering services to additional global

beyond the movie industry with the

Gongos brings a consultative approach in

brands, developing more proprietary

acquisition of ASI, for decades the leader in

developing growth strategies grounded in

products to compete at the highest level in

TV pilot testing. Since the acquisition, SE/

operationalizing customer centricity.

the market research space and growing our

ASI has significantly expanded its television

unrivaled team to support our consistent

research activities beyond just pilot testing

management, customer experience to

revenue growth.

with clients that include both broadcast

consumer journeys, pricing strategies to

and cable networks as well as the leading

marketing optimization and trend analysis

OTT platforms.

to predictive modeling, Gongos builds a

In April 2018 Kelton Global was sold to LRW (Lieberman Research Worldwide).

From product innovation to portfolio

The company provides clients with

laser-sharp consumer orientation across

research data and insights to help them

organizations to drive greater customer

better assess:

attraction, retention and lifetime value.

• The capability of their content: prior to

content in front of an audience to assess

to audience reactions, both online and

attitudes and usage; consumer choice

• Design: product, service and

audience appeal. • The playability of content: putting the

Partnering with its clients’ insights and

greenlighting production, understanding

analytics, marketing, strategy and customer

what is the content’s DNA and depth of

experience groups, Gongos serves as a

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translator to help cross-functional teams

The Link Group (TLG) is a privately held

customers in a way that is relevant and

fuel the competency to gain and apply

market research consultancy founded in

accessible to them.

consumer wisdom, transform decisions into

1994, with offices in Atlanta and Durham,

action and navigate organizational change.

North Carolina. TLG has been exceeding

Coalescing enterprise data with primary

clients’ expectations for more than 20

research and curating insights for multiple

years by offering a strategic partnership

audiences further empowers stakeholders

approach to designing and executing

to achieve greater ROI by ensuring

custom, qualitative and quantitative market

information is designed to influence actions

research.

and behaviors from executives to the front line.

principles since its inception: “Smarter

In 2017, Gongos launched its Decision

Research. Better Service.” Their

Intelligence|Customer Experience (DICE)

commitment to smarter research has

assessment that enables executives to

allowed TLG to take a creative, custom,

evaluate how their organizations perform

immersive approach to their clients’

on 11 key measures related to

business needs that results in actionable

operationalizing customer centricity.

and insightful reports. TLG delivers better

Real-time output generates comparative

service by maintaining consistent, singular

and cumulative results relative to their

points of contact across projects, allowing

industry peers.

them to collaborate nimbly and

Gongos’ consultative tools also include its Decision Intelligence Framework and its Human Decision-Making Framework, which

NAXION†

naxionthinking.com

FOUNDED: 1911 2017 U.S. REVENUE: $21.8 MILLION PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: -2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: -PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: -2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $21.8 MILLION U.S. EMPLOYEES: 76

Susan Schwartz McDonald P RESIDENT AND CEO; PH.D., UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

responsively, which results in 99% of revenue coming from repeat clients. “Smarter Research and Better Service”

Established as the world’s first market research unit in 1911 by Curtis Publishing

helps to determine what clients already

start and end with TLG’s people. TLG hires

Company, NAXION operated independently

know about consumers from the rational,

an inquisitive brand of outgoing problem-

as National Analysts for a quarter-century

emotional and physical aspects of decision-

solvers and gives them the autonomy and

and for another two decades as a division

making; identify the gaps that exist; and

flexibility they need to succeed in a highly

of the global consulting firm Booz Allen

design approaches to fill in those gaps.

collaborative environment, which translates

Hamilton, spurring an evolution beginning

In 2018, the company introduced the

to quality work for their clients. TLG boasts

in 1970 from market research organization

Gongos Innovation Studio, an agile process

an extremely low turnover rate of just 4%,

to data-powered boutique consultancy. The

to guiding customer-centric growth

which means clients can count on

firm was spun off as an independent

through human-centered design.

consistent relationships and the

organization in 1992 and reorganized as a

Additionally, this year Gongos is also

fundamental knowledge across projects,

woman-owned ESOP (employee stock

exploring ways to leverage its

which helps TLG deliver more strategic

ownership plan) in 2004.

i°Communities platform to enhance its

insights.

clients’ capacity to engage and empower

TLG continues to expertly execute

NAXION guides strategic business decisions globally in health care,

employees to fulfill their customer

research primarily for Fortune 500 firms in

information technology, financial services,

experience strategy.

the health care, retail, consumer packaged

energy, heavy equipment and other B-to-B

goods and finance industries across

markets, drawing on depth of marketing

methodologies. In addition, TLG has

experience in key verticals and skilled

recently been using innovative

application of sophisticated and inventive

methodologies to uncover deep insights

methodologies. The firm’s "NAscence

and build on those insights across

Group" helps life science innovators

customer groups:

develop commercialization strategy

• LinkEQ: TLG has developed a validated,

through clinical trials design and selection

The Link Group tlg.com

FOUNDED: 1994 2017 U.S. REVENUE: $24 MILLION PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: -9.1%

proprietary methodology based on the

of target indications, forecasting, launch

2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: $0.5 MILLION

principles of behavioral economics that

planning and other research-based

allows TLG and their clients to reveal

consulting services.

PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: 2% 2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $24.5 MILLION U.S. EMPLOYEES: 75

Brad Camrud

TLG has been guided by two key

emotional associations that respondents

Engagements routinely include market

may themselves be unable to access

segmentation, opportunity assessment and

directly over the course of a traditional

innovation, demand forecasting and

market research survey.

pricing, positioning, brand health, market

• Lexicon research: By allowing one

monitoring and lifecycle management. The

PRESIDENT; MBA, UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA

customer group to listen to and offer

firm deploys multiple data streams,

feedback on interviews with another

including primary research (qualitative and

Tom Pfeil

customer group, TLG has helped clients

quantitative), secondary data, customer

CO-FOUNDER AND PARTNER; MBA, UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN

successfully identify lexical discrepancies

databases and other complex datasets to

between these groups, which helps

develop an integrative perspective on

TLG’s clients communicate with their

business problems. The firm also builds

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solutions that yield deeper customer

In addition, Bellomy clients are able to

Project leaders with sector experience

understanding. We surround our clients’

leverage SmartIDEAS, our enterprise

and research proficiency are supported by

business challenges with an unparalleled

consumer knowledge and insight platform.

in-house methodologists and a wide

mix of knowledge and experience,

portfolio of advanced analytic tools,

marketing science and proprietary research

Center for Retail Innovation at the Wake

including proprietary modeling services

technology.

Forest University School of Business and a

custom panels for B-to-B markets.

and software, all of them highly

Our work involves both B-to-C

Bellomy is a founding sponsor of the

member of UGA’s Advisory Board in the

customized. The firm continues to invest

and B-to-B environments with qualitative

MMR program. Bellomy has client service

significant resources in intellectual capital

and quantitative insight solutions spanning

offices in Boston, Cincinnati, Dallas and Los

to enhance enterprise decision support

market segmentation, customer experience

Angeles.

with cutting-edge methods, including

and journeys (including digital user

specialized “small data” choice models,

experiences), brand equity, product

new predictive techniques using Big Data

innovation, shopper insights, marketing

and brand-customized text analytics. Its

optimization, social research platforms and

Farsight suite supports the building of

research technology. We work with clients

highly dynamic models capable of

across a broad range of categories and

producing forecasts for complex market

industries, including consumer packaged

scenarios, including paradigm-shift

goods, financial services, automotive, retail,

2017 U.S. REVENUE: $19.7 MILLION

technologies, and gives market monitoring

restaurant and hospitality,

PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: +4.8%

programs a forward-looking perspective

telecommunications and technology,

that guides timely market interventions.

apparel/textiles, utilities, health care,

2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: --

Other services include litigation and

insurance and home improvement.

regulatory support, often involving expert

Bellomy serves as an extension of its

testimony in cases involving trademark

clients’ marketing research and customer

confusion, deceptive advertising and brand

experience departments by integrating a

equity. NAXION’s strong commitment to

broad set of capabilities and areas of

operational excellence is reflected in ISO

expertise, including:

certification and in-house operations

• Segmentation: a collaborative, outcome-

Chadwick Martin Bailey cmbinfo.com

FOUNDED: 1984

PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: -2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $19.7 MILLION U.S. EMPLOYEES: 75

James Garrity CEO; MBA, BABSON COLLEGE

capabilities to deliver exceptional levels of

oriented approach to segmentation,

quality control.

ensuring actionable segments that are

Chadwick Martin Bailey (CMB) is a

stable, meaningful, differentiated and

full-service market strategy firm helping

embraced.

leading brands adapt, innovate and grow

† Some or all figures are not made available by this company, so figures are based on

• Customer (and digital) experience:

through thoughtful quantitative and

research and estimation by the report

combining marketing science and

qualitative research, advanced and

author.

technology creates our systematic

predictive analytics and strategic consulting.

approach to understanding and

The CMB team is a strategic partner

measuring differentiated customer

delivering insights and recommendations to

experiences.

the most innovative and fast-growing

Bellomy Research

bellomyresearch.com

FOUNDED: 1976 2017 U.S. REVENUE: $19.7 MILLION

• Shopper insights: our approach to understanding shoppers gets to the “why” behind consumer behavior. • Social research platforms: engages

companies around the world. CMB’s consultative approach is centered on identifying and delivering insights and recommendations that support confident,

customers and key stakeholder

strategic decision-making across each of

PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: -0.5%

communities via a broad array of

its six practice areas: digital media and

2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: --

activities, including discussions, quick

entertainment, financial services, health

polls, surveys, video chats and digital

care, retail, technology/telecom and travel/

diaries.

hospitality. CMB specializes in innovative

PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: -2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $19.7 MILLION U.S. EMPLOYEES: 125

John Sessions CEO; MBA, WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY

• Brand equity: measuring and

critical areas:

hearts and minds of the market provides

• Market strategy: target the right

direction on how to convert prospects to customers and increase devotion to the brand. • Product innovation: design, optimize and

Bellomy Research, based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, is a privately held, family-owned company. Bellomy focuses

custom solutions to help brands in four

understanding a brand’s place in the

validate innovation with insights at every stage. • Marketing optimization: tools to define

on driving successful business outcomes

the optimal mix of product, price,

through the design and delivery of

package and messaging.

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 roadmaps. • Journey: consistently deliver extraordinary and differentiating

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customer experience. In 2017, CMB made additional investments in several areas, including: • BrandFx: CMB’s consumer-powered

Edelman Intelligence edelmanintelligence.com

FOUNDED: 1999

brand measurement solution is anchored

2017 U.S. REVENUE: $18.7 MILLION

in behavioral psychology and the science

PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: +28.1%

of consumer decision-making. This

2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: $9.1 MILLION

consumer-centric lens focuses brands on what consumers want from them—social identity, emotional and functional benefits driving purchase, loyalty and

PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: 32.7% 2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $27.8 MILLION U.S. EMPLOYEES: 116

advocacy—and provides specific

respondents annually across 28 countries. • “Earned Brand,” which explores brand-consumer relationships, surveying 13,000 respondents across 13 countries. In 2017, we expanded into new markets including Seattle, Atlanta, Australia and North Asia; deepened our bench of managers; and further developed our business science and advanced analytics capability.

guidance and critically, concrete

Antoine Harary

recommendations.

GLOBAL MANAGING DIRECTOR; M.A., CELSA SORBONNE UNIVERSITY

• Thoughtful and creative co-creation

institutions, surveying 33,000

solutions: Inventive co-creation

Our plans in 2018 include launching TRU.S.T3D, a data management and visualization platform to reflect the diversity of drivers and outcomes of a

workshops put customers in the driver’s

Edelman Intelligence (EI) is the global

company’s trust capital. We will continue to

seat, utilizing principles of “System 1”

research and analytics consultancy of

develop branded capabilities and

and “System 2” thinking, improvisation

Edelman, a leading global communications

proprietary products that cut across all

practices and divergent/convergent

marketing firm. Headquartered in New York

forms of intelligence—primary, secondary

exercises to put customers in the driver’s

with 12 offices globally, EI houses more

and business science and analytics—to

seat and uncover unique and meaningful

than 250 consultants, strategists,

solve business challenges and

insights.

researchers, data scientists, data

communications issues facing our clients

visualization specialists and analysts

and the world.

• Groundbreaking research on the role of emotion and identity in the adoption of

worldwide. Our specialists are method-

virtual assistants: Findings included

agnostic and leverage the best of primary

analysis indicating that how much a

research, secondary research, advanced

current virtual assistant category

analytics and business science to solve

rejecter relates to their image of the

business and communications issues for

type of person who uses a virtual

our clients.

Hypothesis hypothesisgroup.com

FOUNDED: 2000 2017 U.S. REVENUE: $18.5 MILLION

assistant is the No. 1 predictor of

Our intelligence offering spans the

whether they are likely to try the

spectrum of client needs, from mapping

PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: +4.5%

technology in the future.

the current environment and targeting key

2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: --

audiences, to optimizing content and In the fall of 2017, CMB became a wholly

measuring business impact. In addition to

owned subsidiary of ITA Group, a worldwide

having access to more than 70 technology

leader in engagement and experiential

platforms and partnerships, we have

solutions. This partnership provides a strong

proprietary tools in measurement, business

foundation for expanded insights and

science and analytics, as well as behavioral

solutions in the incentives, engagement and

content testing, including:

cultural transformation categories in 2018. In

• Command Center: an offering inclusive

addition to these expanded capabilities,

of technology, process and human

CMB will continue to invest in the advanced

expertise built to monitor, measure and

and predictive analytics, creative storytelling

analyze mentions of any brand, topic or

and consulting initiatives that help leading

issue and visualize data via customized

brands make critical, game-changing decisions.

PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: -2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $18.5 MILLION U.S. EMPLOYEES: 48

Maria Stark FOUNDER; MBA, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

Jeff Seltzer MANAGING PARTNER; M.A., SAN DIEGO STATE UNIVERSITY

dashboards with advanced KPIs. • SWIPE: a mobile, browser-based

Hypothesis is a consumer-centric insights,

research tool that functions like an app

design and strategy agency located in Los

and allows teams to test content and

Angeles and Seattle.

gather insights from a target audience

The Hypothesis approach is

before publication to optimize strategy

foundational, forward-looking, empathetic

for engagement and impact.

and emphasizes cross-category learning. Hypothesis clients include many of the

Beyond client engagements, EI conducts

“most dynamic companies” and several of

two annual international intellectual

the top five “most admired companies of

property studies:

the world.”

• “The Edelman Trust Barometer,” now in its 18th year, explores trust in

We continued our rapid growth in 2017, driven by a combination of new clients and

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influence decisions.

custom projects, including in-context,

entire initiative—from crisp identification of

immersive qualitative research, brand

the business issues to detailed

positioning and custom brand tracking.

recommendations. KS&R uses established

Connecticut Top Workplace Award: Only

We are a four-time winner of the

qualitative and quantitative research

happy employees can make happy clients!

developing our qualitative practice,

methodologies, but also employs

Through our extraordinarily talented,

emphasizing our design-forward

innovative tools, including video open ends,

passionate and dedicated team, we provide

deliverables, adding to our overall

instant chat during online surveys and

unparalleled marketing-focused research

capabilities and our talented team. This

mobile capabilities such as geofencing and

and brand strategy services to the largest

year, we’re excited to announce the launch

ethnographies.

and most highly regarded brands and

In 2018, we’ll continue our growth by

companies within their respective

of our brand strategy practice, Momentum

In 2017, KS&R acquired Delta Marketing

by Hypothesis. The Momentum group will

Dynamics (DMD) to provide our health care

help clients bridge insights and brand

clients with a more complete view of the

strategy and help clients with their “now

ecosystem in which they operate. KS&R can

traditional research tools and methods, RTi

what” question through a range of

now offer key insights from our pharmacy

continuously develops specialized products

consulting and workshop offerings.

(specialty, retail and hospital) expertise and

leveraging technology, advances in data

access to our proprietary high-quality

collection modes and analytics as

panels of decision-makers and influencers.

imaginative as they are rigorous. All of this

KS&R (Knowledge Systems & Research) ksrinc.com

KS&R’s marketing sciences team

industries. In addition to our broad offering of

is in support of helping our clients make

continues to pioneer new approaches from

increasingly complex business decisions in

text analytics using "Theme Finder" to

an increasingly complex and fast-moving

predictive modeling, including Bayesian

business environment.

Network Predictive Driver Analytics. In 2017,

What really distinguishes RTi is how we

KS&R launched Knowit, a suite of easy-to-

translate research findings into a coherent

use, value-priced research solutions to help

and meaningful story, something that can

small businesses grow. Knowit uniquely

be easily communicated throughout an

PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: -11.1%

combines affordable insights with

organization and, most important of all,

2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: $1.4 MILLION

professional guidance and consultation.

acted upon. Increasingly, we are doing this

FOUNDED: 1983 2017 U.S. REVENUE: $16.9 MILLION

PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: 7.7% 2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $18.3 MILLION U.S. EMPLOYEES: 88

Rita L. Reicher CHAIRMAN AND PRESIDENT; PH.D., YALE UNIVERSITY

Our focus for 2018 is continuing to

videos that transform research insights into

increasing the effectiveness of our

memorable, emotionally engaging stories

consulting engagements through

that can be easily and quickly shared

innovative tools and high-impact

throughout the organization. Supporting

socialization approaches such as white

that effort and endeavoring to teach these

paper publications, business intelligence

concepts to our clients, we are excited to

tools, gallery walks and operationalization

have just introduced our online course,

workshops.

“From Data to Meaning, Storytelling for Market Research.” We find that clients

KS&R (Knowledge Systems and Research), based in Syracuse, New York, is a privately held, full-service custom marketing research company. For seven years in a row, KS&R has received the highest Gold Index composite score of any provider in the

RTi Research rtiresearch.com

FOUNDED: 1979

Prevision/Inside Research survey of

2017 U.S. REVENUE: $14.5 MILLION

marketing research buyers. This is a strong

PERCENT CHANGE FROM 2016: -14.7%

testament to our passion for excellence and

2017 NON-U.S. REVENUE: --

client-first business philosophy. KS&R’s clients range from Fortune Global 500 companies to startups. We have diverse industry experience with

by providing high-quality, highly creative

deliver agile research to clients while

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.

PERCENT FROM OUTSIDE U.S.: -2017 WORLDWIDE REVENUE: $14.5 MILLION U.S. EMPLOYEES: 54

particular strengths in technology, entercom, business services and health care sectors. We often engage with clients at the beginning of their planning and

David Rothstein CEO; MBA, UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER

initiatives with approaches such as “insight

fusion” and “knowledge planning”

RTi turns data into meaning. We are an

workshops. Our customized,

innovative, global, full-service market

multidisciplinary solutions enable KS&R to

research company, and for more than three

lend strong partnership and thinking to

decades, our clients have counted on us to

inform business decisions throughout an

connect the dots, tell the story and

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Wading Through a

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Data Swampland Marketers can lead the way in a post-Cambridge Analytica world, where data collection rules are murky and consumers are creeped out

BY SARAH STEIMER

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Facebook changes its policies frequently, like a child switching up the rules to a game of his own making: a sly update when it’s personally beneficial, a knee-jerk pivot when in trouble. Everyone else— the platform’s users and advertisers—is left scampering and contorting to comply. The Cambridge Analytica scandal shed a light on the social platform’s inner workings perhaps more than any algorithm or design update prior. The Guardian and The New York Times found the data firm paid to acquire Facebook users’ personal information through an outside researcher, Aleksandr Kogan, who created a data-harvesting personality quiz app that told users (in fine print) that it was collecting the information for academic purposes—a claim Facebook did not verify and was not true. Although only 305,000 people participated in the quiz and consented to having their data harvested, their friends also had their profiles scraped, bringing the estimated number of those affected to 87 million. Facebook rescinded the ability to obtain data from friends of consenting users without their permission in 2015, but it’s unclear if companies that engaged in this sort of data collection deleted the information they pulled before the access was denied. The old policy was part of Facebook’s open platform style, which saw CEO Mark Zuckerberg inviting developers to build their apps on the website. Cambridge Analytica’s ability to circumvent the rules left consumers feeling uneasy (even though most

marketers were well aware of this practice already). What followed was a cascade of realizations about Facebook’s fast and loose policies. For instance, apps like the personality quiz aren’t the only way that companies harvest user profiles: In April, Facebook’s chief technology officer Mike Schroepfer told Slate that he believes most users on Facebook could have had their public profile data harvested by third parties through contact information. The comment was related to a Facebook feature that allowed users to search for other users via phone number or e-mail address, a practice that Facebook says was abused by hackers who scoured Facebook using lists of contact information to locate and grab users’ public profile information. The feature was subsequently disabled, but Schroepfer said, “we believe most people on Facebook could have had their public profile scraped in this way.” The ability to collect more granular data continues to grow, sometimes faster than guidelines can be written. In a blow to Facebook’s freewheeling practices, Zuckerberg was called to Congress. Europe handed down its own set of data collection rules, too. As Facebook policies continue to morph, marketers

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are mulling over whether the social platform is still the golden child of online ad targeting, or if guidance and filtering could help Facebook reach its potential.

Facebook-Advertiser-User Codependence

Facebook needs advertising to sustain its business, advertisers need Facebook users to sell their products, and Facebook users need the platform to remember their aunt’s birthday. It’s Facebook’s codependent world, and we’re all just living in it. Users’ reliance on the platform hasn’t been monetized (for now), but advertisers and Facebook itself can put a dollar sign on their relationship: In its first quarterly earnings report since the Cambridge Analytica news broke, Facebook reported $11.8 billion in advertising revenue, a 50% increase since the same period last year. On the marketing side, Facebook remains a great deal for advertisers. The cost per thousand impressions on Facebook is $5.12 (compared with LinkedIn at $16.99, Instagram at $4.20, Pinterest at $3.20 and Snapchat at $2.95), according to data science and martech firm 4C’s “The State of Media

Q1 2018” report. Facebook also yields the highest click-through rates at 1% (compared with Pinterest at 0.48%, Snapchat at 0.37%, LinkedIn at 0.25% and Instagram at 0.17%), making its cost-per-click of 48 cents the most efficient when compared to other social media platforms. The accuracy of its ad reporting, however, has recently been questioned. Facebook’ has admitted to measurement issues, including miscalculations of average watch time of videos, organic reach of posts, video ad completion rate, average time spent on instant articles and referral traffic from Facebook to websites and mobile apps. Even if users’ attachment to Facebook can’t be financially quantified, perhaps the fact that they didn’t peel themselves off the platform after the Cambridge Analytica story is illustration enough. Facebook lost about 2.8 million U.S. users under age 25 last year, but it still boasts more than 1 billion daily active users. And despite the momentary media commotion, the #deleteFacebook movement didn’t catch fire. A Reuters/Ipsos survey of 2,194 American adults following the Cambridge Analytica news found about half of Facebook users said they did not recently change the amount that they used the site,

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and another quarter reported they were using it more. Only the remaining quarter said that they were using it less, had stopped using it or deleted their account entirely. The codependence among all parties may be one reason why the ethics of data collection have become murky. Though Cambridge Analytica’s data-gathering might have been a shock to users, many in the marketing industry were well aware of the practice. Alexandra Samuel, an independent technology writer and the former vice president of social media for Vision Critical, wrote an article in The Verge about the siren song of shady data-gathering tactics, such as those used by Cambridge Analytica. She wrote that Facebook’s “generous access” to friend data was known to many marketers and software developers, as was the tactic of disguising data-mining as fun apps, pages or quizzes. “I don’t think we can generalize about whether, when and why specific companies or marketers venture into unethical or ethically nebulous territory when it comes to data collection and targeting,” Samuel wrote in an e-mail. She says a marketer’s willingness to dive into these waters can depend on their business model; whether they’re working in a company or industry with clear guidelines around how data is collected and managed; their level of tech knowledge (that is, do they know what kind of data is available or have the skills to collect and use it?) and their own personal ethics. In her Verge article, Samuel wrote that it may be difficult to reform the industry of data collectors and marketing shops, which have grown to maximize the amount of data collected and the precision of

Though Cambridge Analytica’s datagathering might have been a shock to users, many in the marketing industry were well aware of the practice.

ad targeting. “Social networks and other advertising platforms may set up various processes that notionally screen out data aggregators or manipulative advertisers, but as long as these companies run on advertising revenue, they have little incentive to promote transparency among data brokers and advertisers,” she wrote.

Facebook Reels It In

One of the only controls on shady user privacy practices may be the fear of bad publicity, Samuel says. “At this point, the real check [would be] the availability of competitive platforms that behave better,” she says. “There certainly is a market opportunity for a social media platform to build a user base on the strength of respect for privacy, though so far none of those efforts have really taken off. I do believe it’s just a matter of time before that happens. The fear of that alternative may motivate Facebook and others to make some real changes.” Whatever the motivation, Facebook has moved to take some interest in user privacy. There were rumblings, prompted by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, of making a paid version of Facebook where users would not see ads. More immediately, Facebook tweaked its advertising program. Marketers on Facebook could traditionally leverage three types of data streams for ad targeting: data gathered by Facebook, which could include information on users’ habits and usage of the platform, web browsing history and cellular location; data that advertisers collected themselves and uploaded, such as names and e-mail addresses of the customers who visit their stores; and data provided by third parties. This final source, from companies known as data brokers, includes insights gleaned by firms such as Acxiom, Oracle, Epsilon and Experian. These companies build profiles by gathering data over a period of years from government and public records, consumer contests, warranties and surveys and private commercial sources (namely, loyalty programs and subscription lists). At the end of March, Facebook made an unusual and succinct announcement: It plans to shut down “partner categories,” a product that “enables thirdparty data providers to offer their targeting directly on Facebook.” “While this is common industry practice, we believe this step, winding down over the next six months, will help improve people’s privacy on Facebook,” the statement read. The decision centers around the idea that Facebook has less control over where and how third-party data

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Thinking Like a Market Researcher

arket researchers are quick to point out that Cambridge Analytica is not a market research firm, but the datadriven industry’s principles may be worth a review by digital marketers. A core tenet of market research ethics is transparency. Firms like Forrester, Nielsen and Kantar follow guidelines that require researchers to be up-front with subjects: providing interviewees with clear descriptions of their work, keeping recorded conversations classified and generally withholding all personally identifiable information. These are ethics that allow for segmentation, not personalization. Julia Clark, senior vice president of public affairs in the U.S. for Ipsos, emphasizes the need in market research for informed consent, in which research participants provide information with knowledge of how that data will be used and by whom. “The first thing I think of when I think of ethics in research is the ethical responsibility we have toward participants and respondents,” Clark says. “That means protecting their information and data and utilizing the best data control protocols. It also means not stressing them out. You don’t want to administer a survey that’s going to leave them with a real sense of unease or ask them questions that are going to make them so uncomfortable they want to stop.” GDPR seems to take a cue from these guidelines and gets at the heart of a

modern challenge for market researchers: how to ensure that people do not suffer adverse consequences as marketing relies increasingly on secondary data, defined as information collected for another purpose and subsequently used in research, versus primary data collection (surveys). “One stream is useful but messy,” Clark says of secondary data. “The other (primary data) is very clean but probably not as comprehensive and loose. Navigating between those two is at the crux of all of this.” Reg Baker, executive director of Marketing Research Institute International, says the industry is working to expand the ethics that cover primary data to also address secondary data. He says it is essential that no one is harmed related to the use of data, whether obtained in person, on the phone, through Facebook posts or via Amazon transactions. The International Chamber of Commerce and European Society for Opinion and Marketing Research (ESOMAR) revised its International Code in 2016 to account for this concern, adding a new article addressing secondary data. The code defines harm as “tangible and material harm (such as physical injury or financial loss), intangible or moral harm (such as damage to reputation or goodwill), or excessive intrusion into private life, including unsolicited personally-targeted marketing messages.” This last point, perhaps appealing to

advertisers, is what market researchers want no part of. It’s one of the industry’s historic principles, and it has no plans to change that in the digital era. “We don’t deliver data to clients that allows them to identify individual data records and associate them with a person,” Baker says. “As part of the research, we may develop a profile on a whole bunch of people whom we have information on, but that remains protected and confidential, and it’s not what we would deliver to a client. We’re here to help companies make decisions, a bet based on the information about the marketplace. But we’re not in the business of actually giving them the weapons to go at individuals so that they can change their behavior or sell them something.” That’s the business Cambridge Analytica was involved in. The company mined users’ data and created profiles, then used those profiles to reallocate advertising and other communications. It was a full feedback loop. This is compared with market research where the data are used to create segments. Individuals whose data were used in the research might receive the segmented marketing communication, but never in a personally targeted manner. “We (market researchers) are capturing the information, but we are not deploying that directly back to the person we captured it from,” Clark says. “It’s being aggregated, it’s being anonymized.”

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General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) What is it?

The regulation is a new set of rules from the European Union that are designed to improve individuals’ control over their personal data. The rules replace the 23-year-old Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC, and aim to harmonize data privacy laws across Europe. GDPR affects organizations located within the EU, but it also applies to organizations located outside of the region if they monitor the behavior of EU data subjects. It applies to all companies processing and holding the personal data of subjects residing in the EU, regardless of the company’s location. Under the regulation, personal data is defined as any information related to a natural person or “data subject” that can be used to directly or indirectly identify the person. It can be a name, a photo, an e-mail address, bank details, posts on social networking websites, medical information, a computer IP address or a host of other identifiers. Parental consent will be required to process the personal data of children under the age of 16 for online services.

How are marketers affected?

Organizations need to pay attention to the rules: Penalties could lead to fines as high as $24.6 million or 4% of global annual revenue, whichever is larger.

GDPR limits the amount of data that marketers can collect on European consumers, who have more options about what data companies can see about them. Customers must be able to give consent, and implied consent is unacceptable. The consent must be informed, specific, unambiguous and revocable. That means consent may not be within long-winded terms and conditions that use complex legal language. The customer is also given the right to remove their consent at any time. The type of data collected must be adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary for the intended purpose of collection. Information may not be used in a way that would be incompatible with the intended purpose for which it was collected. Data may not be shared or transferred to another organization without consent from the person to do so. Customers also reserve the right to be forgotten, meaning they may request that their personal data be removed from any database or cookie pool. Marketers will need to have processes that can erase collected data should a user submit a request for withdrawal. Users also reserve the right to correct or update any data. Additionally, the data that an organization obtains from a consenting user must be protected. Any data breaches must be reported within 72 hours to all consumers and respective bodies.

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aggregators collect their data, which is risky. This wouldn’t have stopped the Cambridge Analytica debacle, but the development could have major repercussions for the broader digital advertising ecosystem. Should others in the industry follow Facebook’s lead and distance themselves from data brokers, it could also mean an increase in transparency into their work with personal data. Kristen Walker, a marketing professor at California State University, Northridge, cautions that this move may be less privacy-oriented and more lip service from Facebook. “If they were really concerned about ending this service to improve people’s privacy, they’d explain how it violated people’s privacy,” Walker says. “And how does it violate people’s privacy? Is it the storage, the use, the rental? Maybe the real concern for Facebook, beyond meeting [General Data Protection Regulation] guidelines, is maintaining people’s trust with illusions of transparency and concern for their privacy. And, really, isn’t Facebook a data broker, anyhow? The entire distribution system and access to consumer data is undergoing a change. Whether it is an improvement for privacy or not is still a question.” Walker says ending partner categories doesn’t necessarily mean that Facebook won’t use these partners or access their data to boost targeting; it may just mean that marketers won’t have visible access to that information. “It actually could mean less transparency at a certain level for marketers who may be interested in the source of Facebook data they use to target consumers,” Walker says. “Marketers want access to consumers and data broker info can help, but this service makes Facebook less of a dealer and more an intermediary. Nothing’s stopping them from buying the data and repackaging it as theirs for marketers to utilize.” In another move to improve customer privacy (feigned or otherwise), Facebook is also changing its “custom audiences” policy by adding a tool that will require advertisers to verify that they gained consent to use e-mail addresses uploaded to the platform. Custom audiences allow advertisers to target users on the site by uploading e-mails, phone numbers and other information and cross-referencing it against Facebook user profiles. The permissions tool Facebook is developing will require an advertiser, along with the agencies or other organizations that obtain the information, to confirm that the third-party data in a custom audience has been responsibly sourced. There’s a strong chance that these moves were at

least hastened in response to Cambridge Analytica and GDPR, the latter of which restricts how personal data is collected and handled and focuses on ensuring that users comprehend and consent to the data collected about them. The European Union rule requires companies to spell out why data is being collected and whether it will be used to create profiles of people’s actions and habits. Consumers in the EU have to opt in, not search for ways to opt out; and they have a right to access the data companies store about them, to correct inaccurate information and to limit the use of decisions made by algorithms. Whatever the reason for change, it’s not entirely clear whether these policy shifts increase transparency. It may be up to marketers to come armed with flashlights in the social media swampland.

The Argument for Draining (or at Least Straining) the Swamp

It’s not easy convincing marketers that not all data is worth gobbling up and storing, but Cambridge Analytica and GDPR may be enough to urge marketers to consider the quality of what they collect and their ethical responsibilities. “Millennials grew up in digital, meaning they had to learn all the things the hard way about what you should and shouldn’t put out in the public space,” says Jessica Best, director of data-driven marketing at Barkley. “We’re in that space on the advertising side right now, where we actually have to think about what we should and shouldn’t do morally, ethically in data. We’re going to start to take some responsibility. There’s a lot of excess data being stored in unsecure ways right now in vendor databases and company databases.

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”What’s scary is the level to which somebody can cultivate a profile of me and understand my ‘why,’ or the algorithm can construct this fairly accurate representation of what will motivate me. It’s become creepier faster than it’s become acceptable.”

We’re going to have to be a little bit more responsible, and I think that’s going to be a good thing.” Although the trend has been toward increased personalization in marketing, there comes a point where the environment begins to feel creepy to the customer. There’s a difference between seeing ads from a company you previously purchased from and receiving targeted communication that speaks very directly to your lifestyle from a brand you never interacted with. There’s precedent for this, Best says. “People have not liked being marketed to since about two years after marketing became a thing. The difference is that the scalable level to which we’re able to use and activate data has become alarming. [...] What’s scary is the level to which somebody can cultivate a profile of me and understand my ‘why,’ or the algorithm can construct this fairly accurate representation of what will motivate me. That’s where we’re not accustomed to it yet: We’ve scaled past the comfort level of those on the receiving end. It’s become creepier faster than it’s become acceptable.” In theory, any marketer could spend time on Facebook learning about users and their interests, but technology has allowed this to happen on a much larger scale, and faster. In this way, the data becomes almost weaponized—especially if used in a manner that could cause harm. At Cal State, Northridge, Walker’s research has explored the difference of shared data and surrendered data, advocating for controls on the amount and type of information that social media users provide. The amount of data coming down the pipeline is too much and not always accurate. Placing some sort of filter or slowing the trickle of information could result in more robust and appropriate targeting. “What if we asked consumers what information

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they’d like us to know?” Walker says, “because I can guarantee you that if I know what you want me to know, that’s going to help me address and serve your wants and needs.” Not only could marketers see their dollars go further, but consumers would likely appreciate seeing ads that are relevant to their lives. When Facebook made it possible for users to access the list of advertisers that uploaded their information, it was clear that not all marketers may benefit from such gratuitous access (this author included, after finding the vast majority of political groups or candidates with my information weren’t remotely relevant to me in location or ideology). When marketing works well, it works for the advertiser and the consumer.

Regulating the Flow of Data in Plain Sight

No one is expecting consumers to take the lead on how their data is collected, stored and used, as the nature of technology is to help them multitask more and move faster. In short, they’re too busy and too overwhelmed to stop and read paragraphs of technical language before downloading an app that provides a few minutes of mental escape. The onus falls on marketers to guide data policies. The industry is defensive of its ability to selfregulate, and most marketers in the U.S. hope to continue on this route, even as overseas legislation is enacted. Sentiment among Americans differs from their European counterparts: Privacy is viewed as a privilege in the U.S. and as a right in the EU. As such, marketers in the states have been freely roaming the information highways. Yet this isn’t the first time that advertisers have grappled with issues of audience deception. To potentially avoid legislation in the U.S., digital

marketers may want to focus on increased transparency and ethical behavior as it relates to personal data. In fact, advertisers can serve as guides for the relatively young technology industry. “It’s going to require demanding quality data,” Walker says. “Then it’s going to require someone to stand up and say, ‘We can help you with this.’ Marketers understand that we’re supposed to avoid deception, and we see a lot of newer industries learning that the hard way.” Despite the new policy guidelines set by Facebook, experts caution against expecting the social media giant or others in the tech industry to lead the way on data regulation. Marketers will need to play the role of middleman, filtering the rivers of customer data that pour through social media and choosing what is quality and how to use it ethically. Being transparent to consumers will be a balancing act: Data collection must have consumers’ approval, but to avoid the “ick” factor of seemingly creepy ad targeting, the curtain can’t be pulled away completely to reveal all of marketing’s tricks. Best cites a greeting card company as a theoretical example for striking an appropriate balance. Based on a consumer’s buying behavior (e.g., purchasing a “Congratulations on your new baby boy!” card), the company would know if a household has a young child. Rather than speaking directly to that knowledge (“Here’s a perfect onesie for 3-month-old Timmy!”), advertisers can simply show appropriate products. The ads are relevant, but not invasive. “I believe this entire conversation has really been about the marketer self-regulating,” Best says. As marketers use data to create segments and personas, it’s their job to regulate just how much information is collected and be transparent about the ways it’s used. m

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THE MARKET RESEARCH ARMS RACE Faced with myriad pressures in a dynamic marketplace, traditional market researchers are seeing themselves upended by technology and consultancies. Can they diversify before being subsumed by larger players, or is their reach finite? BY ZACH BROOKE

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S MARKETING EVOLVES, SO DO PRACTITIONERS' EXPECTATIONS OF MARKET RESEARCHERS.

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Much has been written about the Madison Avenue set coping with cuts and revisions to their core mission. (Look no further than the world’s biggest ad spender, Procter & Gamble, which has scaled back its advertising budget by an eye-popping $1.15 billion in recent years while pursuing an “open sourcing of creative talent and production capability.”) At the same time, agents of change are also shaking up agencies’ left-brained cousins in the world of market research. This sanctum of hard science finds itself in the midst of a years-long transformation that will conclude in widespread adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) in place of many traditional research functions performed by advanced stats nerds, who will see themselves repurposed as boardroom warriors. That human researchers concern themselves with the impact of technology is not in question. The 2017 Q3-Q4 GreenBook Research Industry Trends (GRIT) Report identifies technology and innovation as the biggest challenges facing the market research industry. Market research suppliers report feeling threatened by the pervasiveness of fraudulent survey respondents, disillusionment with the actionable value of Big Data, skills shortages in advanced statistical modeling and the looming threat of AI eliminating research jobs. That the industry has floundered amid these emerging trends also seems a given, as evinced by the 70% customer satisfaction rate noted in the GRIT report. Customers here are any client paying for research

products, who often include other people within market research, as opposed to pure marketers. In a way, researchers dumping on their own industry’s work product is an even more damning indictment than that of downstream marketers. “If you were doing a CX study of your own users, and they were only 70% satisfied, [that’d be] a big problem,” says GreenBook executive editor and producer Leonard Murphy. Another indicator of the field’s stagnation can be found on Wall Street. “Check the stock price for market research companies, the big publicly traded ones, whether they be Ipsos, GfK, Kantar,” says Jeff Reynolds, president and chief operating officer of SWHoldings, a company that includes market research giant Lieberman Research Worldwide (LRW). “These are not companies that are on fire. Most of them are generally flat over five years, indexing way below the S&P [500].” Market research companies have not ignored these problems, but they have struggled to respond to them. Converting practices to incorporate and complement new tech capabilities is a tall order, and for far too many players, gaining traction is proving elusive. Still, it’s early enough for this signal to serve as a wake-up call, rather than taps. Market research is still valued by corporations. That hasn’t changed. But market research consumers now place greater value on insights beyond what traditional market research has measured—and they don’t care where those new insights come from, which has opened the door to tech upstarts

and legacy consultancies with new research arms. Industry insiders must act swiftly to keep pace with technological advances, ward off corporate interlopers and refashion themselves as psychologists and marketforecasting tycoons, lest they be overtaken. ixing market research starts with understanding what’s wrong with it in the first place. There are a few ways to parse the dearth of confidence in and poor stock performance of market research suppliers. Murphy interprets the low customer satisfaction as a reflection of market research’s narrow product suite, which fails to meet marketers’ expectation in 2018: advice on what they should do next to grow their business. “That consultant component is something that market research struggles to achieve,” Murphy says. “A researcher’s recommendations will generally be something like, ‘Utilize ad A versus ad B,’ or ‘Add these features into this product.’ It’s not strategic.” The concentration on tactical execution to the exclusion of strategic advice often relegates research companies to also-ran status if and when CMOs decide to seek help for answering the big-picture questions about their brands. “A CMO pays McKinsey millions of dollars a year,” Murphy says, “but a CMO is not necessarily going to pay a GfK millions of dollars a year for consulting. They may pay millions of dollars a year for data that helps support their

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internal KPIs and helps drive their decision-making.” This might not appear to be a problem for market research folks, provided they maintain their position as number-crunchers. However, there are signs that role is collapsing, as outsider firms that have spent much of the last decade adding market research arms to their roster of services displace research companies. Consulting stalwarts McKinsey and Bain & Co. have beefed up analytics offerings to tackle data synthesis: The former launched McKinsey Analytics in 2011, and the latter hired market researcher Barbara Bilodeau to lead its advanced analytics group. Tech giants with plenty of capital have joined contention as well. Google’s 2016 purchase of UX platform Dialogflow was followed up by Snap Inc.’s acquisition of intelligence research platform Placed, as well as Amazon’s purchase of data aggregation and visualization brand Graphiq a year later. These businesses all want to collect the millions of dollars going to market research outfits. And for many complicated reasons related to how companies are

valued, Murphy believes it’s easier for the consulting and tech firms to acquire a market research company than vice-versa. Market research firms are answering these new demands with their own enhancements. It’s a race in which many major market research companies are playing catch-up, but not all. Reynold’s LRW, for instance, carved out an early niche in the consultancy space and is wellpositioned to market itself to companies that need strategic

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guidance. “The job of a CMO is more difficult now than it ever was in the history of marketing,” Reynolds says. “The complexity of what they’re dealing with is huge, so they need partners that can deal with that complexity.” In Reynolds’ conversations with high-placed marketers, he says it becomes clear that there’s too much data and not enough insight. “Sadly, the market research

business pretty much sat still from 1980 to 2000,” Reynolds says. “Data-[mining companies and techniques are] growing exponentially; [market research firms are] growing at inflation or less. There’s a sign of some of the dissatisfaction.” The way marketers express their dissatisfaction is not by bemoaning market researchers, but rather by looking elsewhere for partners to help them grow. Much of traditional market research isn’t formulated to provide instant feedback. Though no researcher wants to push out unvetted information, the length of time needed to digest market data is longer than the shelf life of much of its relevance. This conflicts with how much of modern marketing operates, which is responsive in real time. LRW’s consultancy roots date back to the ‘90s, when it became one of three firms chosen to partner with McKinsey to conduct broad-based engagement surveys to better understand the structure of a marketplace. Nowadays, LRW is looking more like a McKinsey competitor than a partner, however. Reynolds says LRW offers 13 different flavors of analytics to perform segmentation,

as well as many methodologies to assess client and competitor brands for untapped opportunities. LRW is one of the largest research companies in the world. Its annual revenue of $200 million places it among the top five private-owned research firms. A hefty amount of investor-backed capital allowed the company to embark on a string of acquisitions in 2016. That year, LRW gobbled up a trio of niche research providers: Sentient Services, maker of the community insight platform icanmakeitbetter; social media insights company MotiveQuest; and online community specialist Tonic Insight. The buying spree was put on hiatus in 2017 but returned with alacrity this year. In February, LRW acquired customer experience and culture design firm Strativity Group and struck again two months later, announcing the purchase of consumer insights specialist Kelton Global. Reynolds says he sold investors on the ambitious growth plan by presenting a strategy that seizes on the disruption roiling the research industry by piecing together several different components, including consulting services. “What we’re really trying to be is a data-agnostic consultant that has a full suite of skills to be able to go to clients, hear their problems and give them answers that are going to be driven by data,” Reynolds says. The pivot to consultancy services is also happening at fellow research giant Kantar. The company, which comprises 12 specialty brands, announced in January it would fold four of them into a specialist sales and marketing arm called Kantar

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Consulting. Questions abound over the future of the research outfit, as its parent company, WPP, copes with the departure of founder Martin Sorrell. London investment bank Liberum Capital Limited has gone so far as to recommend selling Kantar as a way to pay WPP’s debt and jettison a unit that is out of step with the rest of the organization. In an April statement, the bank wrote, “One outcome of the investigation may be to bring closer a sale of WPP’s data management (i.e., market research) unit, which Sir Martin has been a keen supporter of keeping, but where there has been questioning of why WPP retains the asset, given the issues in the market research area.” J. Walker Smith, head of Kantar Futures, one of the brands housed under the new consultancy, views the demand for actionable strategic advice as a symptom of shifting client needs, not necessarily a

response to overly narrow data sets compiled by researchers. Marketplace priorities have shifted over the past several decades to worship growth above all other metrics, he says. A consequence of this new objective is pressure on advisory services such as market research to deliver end-toend solutions focused not just on identifying growth opportunities but developing action plans. Not the traditional wheelhouse of math jockeys lacking MBAs. Kantar Consulting is WPP’s response to client demands to drive growth. “Our single-minded focus is around growth,” Smith says. “Research companies of all sorts are being asked to deliver marketplace solutions for clients. Not just research results, but actual marketplace solutions.” The new multidimensional intelligence offerings are on display in some of the work Kantar Consulting is performing. Its

website crows about developing Land Rover’s global master-brand positioning and business strategy prior to the automaker’s launch of the new Range Rover and Range Rover Sport. The “BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands” study released by Kantar Millward Brown reflects some results of the efforts. Land Rover’s brand value surged 17% between 2016 and 2017, more than any other top 10 auto brand besides Tesla. Other case studies include helping a global scent and flavor manufacturer identify factors that will dominate food and beverage trends over the next decade and a national homebuilder that wanted to know how to develop powerful hooks to place in customized messages pushed out to highly targeted consumers. These forecasts are far afield from focus groups and survey distribution, market research’s traditional products. They point toward an elevated form of market research. But these vaguely successful case studies trumpeted by Kantar are not the consistent,

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overwhelming success needed to push back the encroachment of established consulting firms. As Murphy says, “There is certainly an emerging category of research companies that look more like consultancies, they just have an uphill climb to fight a big consultancy.” Even Smith is quick to throw cold water on how far the broadened focus can get brands. Yes, he says, the advice might be more strategic, but at the end of the day, it’s no more than problemsolving, limited to a specific set of circumstances. “I do think we get too enamored of the notion that if we could just figure out how to analyze this bit of data, we would unlock the key to the meaning of life,” Smith says. “The challenge in marketing is that as soon as you figure out how to solve a problem, everybody knows how to solve it. … We’re never going to find a kind of data or research methodology that is going to create a permanent competitive advantage in the marketplace.” s market forces debate and refine the upper levels of what market researchers should provide, the lower and mid-levels are refashioned by advances in technology. AI and automation, with the same processing power that is remaking every facet of business from manufacturing to sales, can also be applied to quantitative data collection and analysis. Sixty percent of respondents in the GRIT Report say that their company is adopting automation. However, even as the industry

hands off increasing amounts of work to AI, the true revolution is on hold until AI’s next advancement. “A lot of people are saying AI is just rules-based automation, but the true AI is starting to take effect as well, and I anticipate it being a major trend over the next few years,” Murphy says. “If you play the idea of artificial intelligence out to its nth degree, you can say, ‘I don’t really need to ask people questions anymore because I can just take all this Big Data and apply the tools of artificial intelligence, which gives us predictive analytics to determine patterns in people’s behavior,” says Michael Brereton, a professor of marketing at Michigan State University and former CEO of Maritz Research. The change is equally troubling to many in market research, for parallel reasons: It’s seen as a threat to job security. “There’s a resistance to that idea that if we keep giving up the tasks to automation AI, eventually those tasks will continue to move upstream, and

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at some point, what’s left for the human?” Murphy says. But like consultant competitors, AI is a challenge to market research that can no longer be ignored. And of the two issues, it should be the one market research organizations address first. AI wouldn’t be hurtling toward critical mass in a host of industries if it weren’t beneficial to companies across the business intelligence spectrum. And viewed through a different lens, the tech issues that scare marketers can be spun as net-positives for the market research industry. One market research firm leaning into bots and dashboards instead of consultancies is Zappi. Formerly known as ZappiStore, Zappi was founded on the idea of providing quick, cheap and easy access to market research automation. It employs a staff of 220, grossed roughly $30 million in revenue last year and is looking to grow 70% by the end of 2018.

Zappi is the brainchild of Stephen Phillips, a lifelong qualitative researcher and serial entrepreneur. Another of Phillips’ companies is the aforementioned Tonic Insight, which became part of LRW in 2016. “The business models in market research are broken,” says Ryan Barry, chief revenue officer at Zappi. “That’s the real problem. There are tried and true ways of getting consumer feedback that are statistically validated to performance. There’re a lot of boutique-y innovations in the research space, but the macrolevel issue is: Marketing is programmatic and insights are project-based. The two haven’t been copacetic for a very long time.” Zappi’s marketing reflects this disparaging view of the market research industry as a whole. Its cheerfully framed animated video

introducing Zappi to the world nevertheless goes negative when discussing traditional market research. “Until now, market research has failed to keep pace, spending valuable time and money on writing questionnaires, recruiting samples and building reports,” its British-accented narrator intones. “Our process is simple: You choose your tool from our extensive selection, define your sample by selecting your audience demographic, upload your ideas and we deliver you results in hours, not weeks.” The video highlights the business propositions behind Zappi: to become the App Store of market research, where all the functions of research can be selected and manipulated from a single dashboard. Zappi has brought to market automated tools for data collection, statistical

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modeling, analysis, visualization and reporting. It’s a blueprint of what AI-assisted market research looks like now, but Zappi may be the first to show what phase two of AI-assisted market research looks like as well. “The irony is that we only found our true product market fit a year ago,” Barry says. “The first step of that process, when we were in that App-Store mindset, was to automate the process. … As we’ve moved forward, we figured out there’re bigger problems we can solve.” Zappi proposes that research tends to be very siloed due to heavy levels of manual input required to crunch numbers. Linking standalone data points to build an all-encompassing marketing model is the dream of every CMO, but the reality falls short as spreadsheets and PowerPoint slides recede deeper into the inboxes of individual employees like isolated puzzle pieces. Zappi’s focus now is on managing that research, and harnessing the collective knowledge revealed by those legacy learnings. Powered by an intelligence platform Zappi acquired last year in a merger, the new AI product reads reports with a semantic understanding and a computation engine sophisticated enough to overlay opinion on top of modeling. It’s computer consulting, or artificial intelligence. “It allows the researcher to say, for example, ‘OK if the brand score is X, and the purchase intent score is Y, as a new brand, we should spend more money on organic sales promotion,’” Barry says. This new series of tools allows clients to answer all the business questions they encounter when

bringing new products to market. Already, it has garnered interest from PepsiCo, which has partnered with Zappi to create an even more powerful set of digitized, automated tools that promises smarter automation informed by broad institutional knowledge. “Every time [Pepsi] learns something, they teach it back to the system, and the system just gets smarter and smarter and smarter, and they get to a place where they’re starting to teach muscle memory to the business to look at the platform first and then test and learn,” Barry says. he market research industry finds itself at a critical juncture, with the acute understanding that progress requires adaptation. As research leaders engage in unprecedented broadsides with alien business ventures, the statisticians find their very humanity a hinderance against new machines and software. Whether market research companies can act on the changes to save their place in marketing’s hierarchy remains to be seen. But as market research moves forward, its operatives should proceed with a willingness to shed the aspects of their profession that have become millstones. Along with retrofitting their offerings to include higherlevel business decisions, they must also refocus on their core charge, what Murphy calls being the “keepers of the why.” Automation of analysis can give easy answers to who, what, where and how, but often misses the creative context or the emotion that answers the why of human behavior, which remains the key question for most marketers. m

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WHAT MAKES BRANDS ICONIC?

Brands must nurture what makes them iconic instead of what makes them appear new and shiny, according to Soon Yu, author of Iconic Advantage

BY HAL CONICK

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umans will attach meaning to anything. Three years ago, Soon Yu saw an up-close example through the eyes of his five-year-old son. Yu took his family on vacation to Lake Como in Lombardy, Italy. Within days, his son lost a hand puppet he had owned since birth, one shaped like a white lamb. The trip stalled. Amid his son’s sobs and tears, Yu found a replacement lamb on Alibaba for less than $2, but he didn’t buy it; it wouldn’t have been the same—“He knew where he bit the ear off,” Yu says. Instead, Yu and his family backtracked across train cars and rebooked Italian hotels to find the lost lamb. After $1,000 and two days of searching, they found the lamb, now loaded with even more meaning. “And that was well worth it,” Yu says. “Now we have a story we can talk about as a family.” This kind of attached meaning doesn’t stop at childhood, says Yu, who formerly served as the global vice president of innovation at VF Corporation, parent company of brands such as Timberland and The North Face. Adults also attach meaning to brands, and as they form more memories and emotional connections with a brand, a brand’s signature elements become loaded with meaning—think of a Coca-Cola bottle’s shade of red, the lime in the mouth of a Corona bottle or the oval-shaped headlights of a Mercedes Benz. These elements give brands an “iconic advantage,” Yu says, which is distinctive, relevant to audiences and easily recognized.

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Iconic brands lose this advantage, Yu says, when they become pacified, give up on their search for meaning or take away what made them iconic in search of something entirely new. Instead of brands looking for a part of their image or product that is loaded with meaning for consumers, they try to create entirely new meaning. Customers want to love these iconic brands, Yu says, but a brand’s quest for what’s new often makes customers fall out of love. A classic example is Coca-Cola’s 1985 introduction of New Coke, a formula that replaced the soda’s original recipe. Customers boycotted, protested and even formed a group against New Coke, the Old Cola Drinkers of America. Coca-Cola reintroduced the old formula as Coca-Cola Classic 78 days after the launch of New Coke. “Most people like to innovate shiny new ideas around shiny objects,” Yu says. Instead of chasing after shiny objects, Yu says iconic companies take the shiny new idea and apply it against their existing business, where they already have iconic franchises or strengths. “Brand marketers understand people love iconic brands and they want to stay in love with iconic brands, but some brands believe that all people want is newness.” Yu and co-author Dave Birss, former creative director of OgilvyOne, researched what makes brands

iconic and wrote the results in their book, Iconic Advantage. With this book, Yu says he wanted to give all brands the formula to become iconic by cultivating “noticing power, scaling power and staying power.” Marketing News spoke with Yu about what makes brands iconic, how they lose their iconic status and how lesser-known brands can be iconic, too. This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

MN One of the first stories you tell in Iconic Advantage is American Apparel’s fall from grace. The company lost its iconic status and eventually had to file for bankruptcy and close its retail stores. How do brands lose their iconic status?

SY Sometimes brands understand what makes

them iconic and what makes people love their brand. Sometimes, they get it wrong. Sometimes brands don’t even know what makes them iconic, they just assume they’re loved and everything they touch is great. They think that halo is going to carry to everything, and that’s not true. The first thing for brands to understand is what makes you stand out in a way that people love you. If you don’t understand that, then you’re likely going to denigrate, disrespect or not celebrate what people love. That’s the most surefire way of losing relevance.

ICONIC BRAND PYRAMID

POINT OF DIFFERENCE

PROMISE

PERSONALITY

PURPOSE & VALUES

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You have to know what makes the brand special, and I think American Apparel lost track of that. A lot of brands lose track of what makes them special. They try to be something they’re not. Sometimes they know what makes them special, and they won’t budge. They’ll be like, “We’re going to protect it, and no one can touch this. You can’t play with this. This is the way we’re going to be until we die.” And guess what? They die. You have to know what makes you special, but infuse the right amount of newness without losing the familiarity of what makes you special. Your specialness should be encapsulated by the key point of difference. When most marketers build a brand pyramid, they talk about a key point of difference somewhere in the middle of the pyramid, with the brand’s promise to the consumer, their mission, at the very top of the pyramid. I have flipped the brand pyramid. In the book, I talk about the four rungs in this pyramid. Everything is building up to your key point of difference, your purpose, your values, what you believe in, your personality and your promise to your consumers. All of that has to include the idea of what makes you special and different. Why should people care about you versus the next brand? You build the pyramid to support what’s different, then create signatures. Think about it: If you left the room, what fragrance do you leave? What would people remember about you? What would be your signature? If the brand isn’t there, what do I remember about that brand? If that signature can be an embodiment of your key point of difference, you are kicking some butt.

MN What’s a good example of a brand that has an iconic signature?

SY Nike. You’ve got the Nike Air Max, and the

signature element is the air bubble in the sole. That encapsulates their key point of difference with the Air Max line—buoyance of performance. Most trainers will lose 40% of their support in the lifetime of the shoes, but a pocket of air will never lose its bounce. They do everything they can to showcase that difference and celebrate it. The next thing you have to do to protect the brand is infuse that signature element with new innovation. When Nike launched Air Max in 1987, the air pocket was in the back of the shoe. Over the years, it covered the whole back of the shoe, then it went to the front and back, and pretty soon it was the entire shoe. Then they put “power pockets” of air in the right places

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on the shoe. Over 30 years, they kept innovating that pocket; it never remains static. They continue to tell the story of the shoe—how it is created, which new celebrities are wearing it, new categories the shoe is going into and how they are revolutionizing those categories, whether it be golf or tennis. Nike kept evolving the story; story creates meaning, and people love meaning. If you look at the 30-year history of that shoe, they kept playing with the design to keep it current with the zeitgeist and fashion trends in the era. They protected the signature element while still infusing innovation and creating stories around that signature element, surrounding it with fresh design without violating the signature element.

Let’s take a simple one: the cross. Jesus was crucified on the cross, so it has become symbolic of sacrifice. You take the bread and the wine, and they symbolize his body and his blood, so when you take communion, it is all about your communion with Jesus and how you are literally sharing his blood and his body. The church is able to take these elements and infuse them into a story that creates meaning. Then the church gets recognition by putting symbols everywhere. If you go to a Catholic church, how many times will you see the cross? The Catholic Church is amazing about a couple things: one, creating signature elements, two, keeping those elements and celebrating them in a way that is timelessly relevant.

MN It’s amazing how Nike can do that with both

MN How can a brand that is starting fresh build

the Air Max and the Jordan brand. It seems like Nike is very good at keeping things fresh while playing on this old skeleton of the brand.

something that has potential to be iconic?

SY That’s exactly right. Old skeletons married with some fresh new meat.

MN How many brands are good at making themselves and their products iconic?

SY There are quite a few. I’ve found they’re agnostic

of product, service or category. Some brands I consider to be the category, generically, like Kleenex, Clorox, Chapstick. Then there are other iconic brands inside the niche of that category: If you wanted the most natural lip balm infused with natural ingredients, you probably think of Burt’s Bees. With any category, there are also brands that own specific niches with their own distinctive relevance. Owning a niche within a category is an opportunity to become iconic. Iconic products are recognized for their distinctive relevance. The goal is to create timeless relevance because one of the key ingredients is time. The longer you can stay relevant, the more longevity you create that leads you to become more iconic.

MN You used the Roman Catholic Church as an example of an iconic brand. Perhaps this is a useful example for readers. Can you explain how the Catholic Church became iconic?

SY One thing the Catholic Church is good at is

creating a signature element for all its beliefs and practices. It has been able to figure out its signature elements, but it also celebrates them with special holidays and special parts within the Bible that talk about those elements.

SY I have a really good friend who was a partner

at Kleiner Perkins, one of the most iconic venture capital firms in Silicon Valley. He says that iconic advantage is actually more important for startups than it is for Fortune 500 companies. His argument is that a Fortune 500 company already has iconic status, whereas startups need to create it, and the sooner they can do that, the better. Most startups are generally in a two- to fourhorse race, meaning there’s usually a competitor, or two or three, out there that is trying to do the same thing they are. The way they try to beat each other is by getting out faster, scaling up bigger or having better technology. Those are the three ways Uber and Lyft think of how to beat the competition. My argument is that it isn’t always the biggest, fastest or best mousetrap that gets the mice, it’s the one with the stinkiest cheese. What they need to figure out is how to create stinky cheese. Humans have an incredible nose for stories, meaning and relevance. How do you become more relevant? Give me a story about why your new technology is more relevant to my life and relevant to what I care about, then I’ll be more likely to remember you and associate with you in the future. For startups, it’s critically important to find meaning. You need to think about what story you are going to create for consumers around your key point of difference and what signature elements are embodied in that story. Anytime anybody sees or experiences that signature element, they’re reminded of the story behind you and your brand. Young girl selling little green boxes, what do you think of?

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SY Exactly. The Girl Scouts’ signature element is not

just cookies, but the selling of the Girl Scout cookies. Their main mission is to inspire and empower girls, yet they are having a real issue encouraging girls to get involved with STEM, science technology engineering and math. They thought, how might we take our signature element, which embodies our key point of difference about empowering young women, and use it in STEM? Two years ago, they created something called Digital Cookies, a tool that allows young girls to create their own e-commerce engine. Girl Scouts are able to learn about web design—they can customize a website with their own pictures, they can change the information architecture, flow and how the basket looks. They can also learn about e-commerce, inventory management and how to deal with credit cards and financial transactions. They are learning all of that by taking their signature element and bringing it into the 21st century.

MN How much of the iconic advantage is shown through the design of the product and how much through the story? Is there an ideal ratio?

SY I don’t know if there’s a ratio, but there’s a

framework for creating timeless relevance. Four things brands can do to stay relevant are protect the signature element to create familiarity, evolve the story of your heritage to create meaning or stay relevant, innovate the benefit to create excitement and reimagine design to keep it fresh and exciting. The only one you really have to do is protect your signature element. You could do any of the last three in varying orders or different mixes, as long as you’re trying to do one or two of those as you protect your signature element. These are the levers you can pull to protect your signature element.

MN Is creating a signature element easy to do? Some people may not think there’s anything that truly distinguishes their brand. Will the iconic advantage work with every brand, or is there something inherently special about becoming iconic?

SY The iconic advantage can work for big or small

brands. If you don’t have a distinctive quality, it doesn’t mean you can’t survive or compete, it just might be harder for you to stick around. The more you have something that’s distinctive, the more likely

ICONIC RELEVANCE MATRIX PRESENT

EMOTIONAL

RATIONAL

PAST

PROTECT SIGNATURE ELEMENTS

INNOVATE BENEFITS

EVOLVE STORY & HERITAGE

REIMAGINE DESIGN

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you’re going to stick around. It works for pizza parlors in San Francisco. This pizza parlor called Goat Hill Pizza wanted to stand out, so their signature element is sourdough pizza crust. It’s incredible that they figured out how to do it; it tastes amazing. They are signature in San Francisco, and that’s all they wanted. They could have just been any other pizza joint, but they’re the only ones with sourdough crust. That makes it extremely relevant, distinctive and iconic in the city. Or think of Amazon. They sell products, but Amazon is really a service. Amazon was born out of the idea of having the world’s biggest bookstore while selling books as cheaply as possible. But now they own the idea of 1-Click shopping. They’ve decided that they’re going to own that iconic benefit, so they’ve been religious about it, so religious that they’re willing to put the existing business out of business in order to own this iconic benefit. They went from 1-Click shopping of books to 1-Click shopping of music and movies to a physical Dash Button where you can order beer or tissue. They even went to 1-Click for your groceries. You can just tell Alexa what you want, and you don’t even need to click anything physical. With IoT and predictive analytics, we’re going to have chips implanted in our brains and they’re going to know we want a Coke before we do. What Amazon is really trying to own is this idea of no patience required. In the next 20 years, my son won’t even know that Amazon once was a website, he’ll think of Amazon as the place that instantaneously knows what he wants before he even knows he wants it.

MN How should marketers think about making their products and services iconic? Most of what you talk about goes beyond marketing to the heart of the company. How can a marketing department let the rest of the company see what needs to happen to make an iconic product?

SY Most people build brands around the idea of

delivering a promise. That is not enough if you want to become iconic. Iconic brands tend to make a lot more money than the noniconic brands. The key difference is how you develop your DNA. Your DNA should answer the question, what is your point of difference? Then, your iconic advantage is all about calibrating that key point of difference and keeping it fresh. We all have to agree that our main goal is that we are going to be distinctly different from everybody else. We’re not just going to be bigger, we’re not going to be smarter, we’re going to be different in a relevant way. m

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Directory of Marketing Research Providers

Qualitative, quantitative, focus groups, online surveys, modeling and sampling. Marketing research impacts every level of business from the products and services that are developed to the prices that are set. Since the information gleaned from marketing research can set the course of your marketing plan, finding a qualified market research provider to deliver accurate and relevant results is important. The AMA's Directory of Marketing Research Providers can help guide your choice of research practitioners. Whether you are seeking a full service research firm or someone that specializes in a specific research technique you can find information on leading firms in this special Marketing News directory! AN ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT TO THE JUNE / JULY 2018 ISSUE OF MARKETING NEWS. COPYRIGHT 2018 BY THE AMERICAN MARKETING ASSOCIATION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. JUNE / JULY 2018 | MARKETING NEWS

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Directory of Marketing Research Providers INDEX TO THE

Directory of Marketing Research Providers FULL SERVICE Gongos, Inc. Hypothesis Maru/Matchbox Morpace Inc. The MSR Group Rabin Research Radius Global Market Research SIS International

ANALYTICAL SERVICES Ascribe The MSR Group

BRAND/ BRANDING RESEARCH Morpace Inc. The MSR Group

BUSINESS TO BUSINESS RESEARCH Customer Lifecycle, LLC Radius Global Market Research

CONSUMER RESEARCH

QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

Gongos, Inc. Hypothesis YouGov

Maru/Matchbox The MSR Group Rabin Research SIS International Westat

CUSTOMER LOYALTY Ascribe

CUSTOMER SATISFACTION Ascribe Customer Lifecycle, LLC Morpace Inc.

FIELD SERVICES Adapt Inc. MindfieldOnline/The McMillion Companies The MSR Group

QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH Adapt Inc. MindfieldOnline/The McMillion Companies The MSR Group Rabin Research Westat

SEGMENTATION Customer Lifecycle, LLC

INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH Adapt Inc. YouGov

LOYALTY RESEARCH The MSR Group

ONLINE RESEARCH MindfieldOnline/The McMillion Companies

PRODUCT RESEARCH Morpace Inc.

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Directory of Marketing Research Providers

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; 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 and are SSAE16 SOC2 Security Certified and HIPAA compliant. When you need fast and accurate survey processing services, call the experts at ADAPT Inc.

Adapt Inc. dkoch@adaptdata.com www.adaptdata.com

As a decision intelligence company, Gongos, Inc. brings a consultative approach in developing growth strategies grounded in operationalizing customer centricity. Partnering with insights & analytics, strategy and CX groups, Gongos serves as a translator to help crossfunctional teams gain and apply consumer wisdom, transform decisions into action, and navigate organizational change. Coalescing enterprise data with primary research and curating insights for multiple audiences ensures information is designed to influence actions and behaviors from executives to the frontline.

Gongos, Inc. www.Gongos.com New Headquarters: 150 W. Second St., Suite 300 Royal Oak, MI 48067

Founded in 1999, Ascribe helps the world’s largest market research firms, corporate researchers and customer experience professionals make confident decisions based on rich, real-time insights using a world-leading verbatim analytics platform. Ascribe’s comprehensive and flexible SaaS-based technologies enable accurate and fast analysis of verbatim comments regardless of channel or language.

Ascribe 1-877-241-9112 x55 www.GoAscribe.com

Hypothesis (www.hypothesisgroup. com) is an award-winning consumercentric, insights, design, and strategy group specializing in solutions that are foundational, holistic and forward looking. 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 style through beautiful reports, workshops, immersive installations and video. Founded in 2000 and headquartered in Downtown Los Angeles, with an office in Seattle, Hypothesis is proud to work with many of the most innovative, established, and distributive brands and agencies in the world. In 2017, in direct response to client needs, Hypothesis launched Momentum by Hypothesis – a team of marketing and brand specialists that helps clients with their “Now What?” This in-house group keeps the momentum going by translating consumer insights into new products, brand/creative strategy, and marketing campaigns. Hypothesis is proud to be one of the largest independently owned firms on the AMA 50, which helps us be nimble, maintain our culture of empowerment, and truly focus on our client-partner needs.

www.hypothesisgroup.com

CLC 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.

Customer Lifecycle, LLC Chicago, IL | Nationwide kaferenz@customerlifecycle.us www.customerlifecycle.us

Maru/Matchbox is a sectorfocused consumer intelligence firm focused entirely on better client outcomes. Our expert teams are deeply invested in key sectors of the economy, delivering insights and analysis backed by superior quality data. Sometimes data and market intelligence tell only part of the story. Our research and consulting teams draw on sector-specific expertise to deliver unparalleled insight to our clients. We deliver informed consumer data and insights that can be acted on quickly and with confidence. Offices: Toronto, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Vancouver, Chicago, Buenos Aires

Maru / Matchbox sales@marumatchbox.com www.marumatchbox.com JUNE / JULY 2018 | MARKETING NEWS

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Directory of Marketing Research Providers

The McMillion Companies provide 40 years of market research and data collection experience. Our online panel, Mindfield Online, uses the latest proprietary software integration for the best panel and programming integration experience available. This allows for a real-time countermeasure approach to data quality. Our web development team continually provides stunning data collection tools, now enhanced by FocusVision Beacon. Now, integrating with mobile and social media to give not only the respondent but your clientele the best online experience possible. The sky is truly the limit for your research projects when using Mindfield and The McMillion Companies. WEB: www.mindfieldtech.com EMAIL: jmace@mindfieldtech.com CONTACT: J ay Mace, Senior Vice President

Morpace Inc. is a top 50 global research and consulting firm that humanizes data to connect clients with their customers. We have been supporting our clients since 1975, and have offices in Detroit, Los Angeles, London, and Shanghai. To our clients, we are Truth Seekers — a designation that comes with the understanding that “data” is about much more than numbers… it’s about incorporating the human element that drives the numbers, which makes us valuable partners. Our band of truth seekers are experts in automotive, financial services, healthcare, and retail & consumer goods, helping clients make smarter decisions in three core research pillars: Brand & Communication, Customer Experience & Product Development. Contact us to help you identify the humanity in your data that only a real “Truth Seeker” can find.

Morpace Inc. information@morpace.com www.morpace.com

We are a market research firm with over 60 years’ experience, our services include both quantitative and qualitative methodologies. We specialize in customer experience measurement and improvement; ad concept testing; brand awareness and positioning studies.

The MSR Group Contact details:

info@themsrgroup.com 402.392.0755 www.themsrgroup.com

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Directory of Marketing Research Providers

Full-service b2c and b2b marketing research services for packaged goods, financial, healthcare/ pharmaceuticals, services, insurance, entertainment, and new technology industries. Service principles: high quality work, on-time delivery, creative study designs, strategic insights, competitive prices, exceeding expectations. Study types: concepts, segmentation, product use/sensory, names, packages, product design, advertising, customer satisfaction, awareness/ attitude/usage, tracking, pricing, problem detection, promotions, positionings, promises. Data collection techniques: Internet/ mobile, telephone, central-locations, mail, and in-person. Qualitative and quantitative methodologies. Domestic, international.

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.

Rabin Research Company

Radius Global Market Research

Chicago, IL USA melster@rabin-research.com

US Europe Asia MEA info@radius-global.com http://radius-global.com/

www.rabinresearch.com

The 2018 Directory of Marketing Services will appear in the September issue of Marketing News. Like those in this current directory, a typical listing contains the company logo, contact info as well as a description of your company's products and services with two categories in the index to the directory. More categories are available for a small additional charge. To discuss listing your company in this upcoming directory contact Catherine Eck at ceck@ama.org. The closing date for the Directory of Marketing Services is July 31st so call today!

We partner with leading global organizations to provide clear thinking on these 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. For more than 60 years, Radius has been delivering what growth-oriented organizations need most: Clear thinking for a complex world.

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 employee-owners in over 14 locations worldwide deliver high-quality, evidencebased results to support our clients’ goals.

Westat 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

SIS International Research is a leading global Market Research and Strategy Consulting firm. We provide insight, data, analysis, reports, and strategic intelligence. We provide Qualitative Research such as in-person Focus Groups, Video Ethnography, Digital Communities and Qualitative Respondent Recruitment. We provide Quantitative Research such as Mobile Surveys and Telephone Surveys. Our Strategy Research Group provides Competitive Analysis, Market Sizing & Opportunity research and Innovation consulting. We recently renovated our Manhattan NYC Focus Group facility.

SIS International Research research@sisinternational.com www.sisinternational.com

YouGov is an international data and analytics group that continuously collects opinions from across the world. Our offerings include our syndicated audience analysis and brand tracking tools, quick turnaround surveys, and a full range of custom research with analysis from industry experts. Whether it’s what people think about brands, politics, current affairs, or the things you talk about with your friends, we have data on it.

YouGov Location: Redwood city, CA | Global Email: info.us@yougov.com Website: today.yougov.com/find-solutions JUNE / JULY 2018 | MARKETING NEWS

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JOB HUNTING

6 Ways to Increase Your Chances of Getting a Job Interview Many job seekers spend a great deal of time preparing for a job interview, but the job application process begins long before you land that first meeting BY HOLLY SCHMITTLE

 hschmittle@planitagency.com

obvite found that the conversion rate from application to interview is less than 2% in data, tech, media, education and consumer internet companies—with e-commerce companies like Grubhub or Zappos considering a whopping 66 applicants per hire. The good news is, you can significantly improve your odds of getting an interview with some preparation and attention to what recruiters are looking for.

Apply Early By sheer math (think the number of applicants versus staff to review them), it can be nearly impossible to give every application the attention it deserves after the first seven days of receiving applications. The earlier you submit your application, the better your chances it will be reviewed properly. Leverage popular job boards, such as Indeed and LinkedIn, to set up job alerts using keywords that match what you’re looking for. Have your résumé and cover letter ready to go, then personalize it based on the job description and organization.

Don’t Let Rejection Discourage You

A small percentage of applicants score an interview, so don’t let rejection get you down. Many candidates feel frustrated about submitting their information and never hearing back. However, a strategic follow-up message sent to the hiring manager or HR contact can help demonstrate your value to the company and expedite a response. I recommend waiting three weeks and following up with a short and thoughtful message about how you can contribute to their team, especially if the job remains posted. Unfortunately, most applicant review processes are dependent upon multiple stakeholders whose schedules are often unpredictable. It’s like dating: You have to anticipate some rejection (and in some cases, ghosting).

Keep Your Social Profiles Updated Ensure all of your public social media profiles jibe and convey the same message about who you are and your work experience. This extends beyond LinkedIn—particularly if you will be working in a role with marketing and social media responsibilities. Even if unintended, omissions or discrepancies can betray a lack of

When an applicant includes an overly detailed biography with their job application, it suggests an inability to present concisely.

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attention to detail or suggest you’re hiding something.

Take a Stance It’s great to be open to different career paths, but employers typically have immediate, specific needs and want to hire people who have a clear goal of what they want to do. If you have dabbled in social media, branding and PR, and you’re applying for a social media role, make sure that expertise shines above your other skills. Review job postings in detail. Be concise at the top of your résumé, and in your LinkedIn profile, and tailor your qualifications to match key job competencies and responsibilities.

Save Something to Be Revealed in the Interview When I’m hiring, I want to see key responsibilities and top-level results in an application. Save the detailed situations, tasks and actions you took for the interview. Jotting these down separately usually makes for a nice basis for preparation that will answer almost any behavioral question that could come up in an interview. When an applicant includes an overly detailed biography with their job application, it suggests an inability to present concisely.

Leverage Connections You’re more likely to get an interview if someone refers you. Employee referrals are continuously rated as a top source of quality hires, and iCIMS Modern Job Seeker Report found that 77% of employees

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are currently working for a company that has a formal employee referral program. If you’re passionate about an organization or an opening, leveraging a connection you have on LinkedIn or someone you met at a marketing network meeting is fair game. Chat with your trusted business contacts and social media connections openly about companies

or jobs you are interested in. You never know who has a connection that you could use to bring your application to the top of the company’s inbox.

career advancement

Your application will shine through when the right opportunity arises. m HOLLY SCHMITTLE is the director of human resources at Planit, a Baltimorebased advertising agency. She has more

As you embark on new employment opportunities, remember these tips to help you navigate. Work your connections, start early and prepare.

than 15 years of experience in human resources across industries including marketing, engineering, accounting and medicine.

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AMA Recruitment Classified Advertising Need to hire qualified, skilled marketing professionals? Looking for qualified marketing or business professors for your University? AMA’s Recruitment Classified Ads are the most cost effective way to reach your target audience!

ADVERTISING RATES ■ Straight Classifieds: $165 for up to 50 words (minimum charge) $335 for 51-100 words $670 for 101-200 words $1,000 for 201-300 words $1,650 for 301-500 words.

■ Display Classifieds: $150 per column inch; minimum one inch. Column widths for display ads: 1 column = 1 1/2˝ 2 columns = 3 1/4˝ 3 columns = 5˝ ORDER INFORMATION To place a classified ad in Marketing News, please contact Joseph.Petit@communitybrands. com or call Joe at (727) 4976565 x3706. To post your job on AMA's online job board, go to http://jobs.ama.org.

POSITIONS OPEN ACADEMIC FACULTY MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY, Broad College of Business, Department of Marketing is seeking applications for two tenuresystem positions (open rank) with primary responsibilities in research, teaching, and engaging in service activities for the department. Our strong preference for both positions is for someone at the Advanced Assistant or Associate Professor rank, but we also will consider candidates at the Professor level or (with a strong publication record in premier journals) at the rookie level. Both positions will start in August, 2019 or sooner. Please see the online posting for details regarding the areas of expertise that we prefer. Michigan State University is an Equal Opportunity/ Affirmative Action Institution.

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Applications from women, veterans, individuals with disabilities and people from diverse racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds are encouraged. Persons with disabilities have the right to request and receive reasonable accommodation. To be considered for this position, please submit materials through the MSU Jobs website: http:// careers.msu.edu/cw/en-us/ listing/ and apply to Posting #502469. To be eligible for full consideration, all application materials should be received by July 1, 2018, but the position will remain open until filled. Contact Dr. Richard Spreng, Search Committee Chair, spreng@ msu.edu, for additional information. The Marketing Division of COLUMBIA BUSINESS SCHOOL is currently searching for qualified applicants for positions at the assistant, associate, or full professor ranks for a tenured or tenure-track position beginning July 1, 2019. Applicants should have a PhD degree from an accredited institution or expect to receive their degree within the year. All applicants must have a strong research background and the ability and desire to conduct high quality research. Associate and full professor applicants should have a proven track record of institution building and service in addition to exceptional scholarship in marketing. Columbia Business School is also seeking applicants for visiting positions. Applicants for such positions must have a PhD and a strong academic research record. Columbia Business School is seeking applicants who would promote the diversity mission of the University through their research, teaching, and/or service. Columbia University is an Equal Opportunity/

STANFORD UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

Faculty Positions in Marketing The Graduate School of Business at Stanford University invites applications for tenure-track faculty positions in marketing beginning September 1, 2019. All ranks and relevant disciplines will be considered. Candidates should have or expect to complete a PhD by September 1, 2019, 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 submit a CV, a job market paper and arrange for three letters of recommendation to be submitted by June 30, 2018. For questions regarding the application process, please send an email to faculty_recruiter@gsb.stanford.edu. Stanford is an equal employment opportunity and affirmative action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Stanford also welcomes applications from others who would bring additional dimensions to the University’s research, teaching and clinical missions.

Affirmative Action employer. Priority consideration will be given to applications received before July 1, 2018. Please visit our online application site: https://academicjobs. columbia.edu/applicant/ Central?quickFind=66225 for further information about this position and to submit your application. KELLOGG SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT, NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY HAS ONE OR MORE FULL-TIME TENURE TRACK POSITIONS OPEN in the Marketing Department at the rank of Assistant Professor or above for academic year 2019-2020. The position requires being responsible for conducting advanced research in chosen areas of expertise and interest; supervising doctoral candidates; teaching basic and advanced courses in marketing at the Master’s Degree level; contributing to the research and teaching of other faculty members. Candidates must have a Ph.D. or D.B.A. in marketing

or related fields (e.g., economics, management, psychology, sociology, statistics, cognitive sciences, etc.) in hand or expected by employment start date. Selection criteria include potential for (or record of) superior research, adaptability and creative interests in application to marketing problems, excellent teaching ability, and strong recommendations. Applications should include a complete curriculum vita, copies of research papers and three letters of recommendation. Applicants in the process of completing a doctoral degree should include an approved dissertation proposal or a research paper that represents progress in the dissertation. In order to ensure interview consideration at the Summer Marketing Educators’ Conference in Boston, MA, applications must be received by June 22, 2018. Please apply at http:// www.kellogg.northwestern. edu/marketing/recruit/index. htm, where all required and

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relevant materials can be uploaded. Please direct questions to the Recruitment Coordinator, at recruitmktg@kellogg.northwestern. edu. Northwestern University is an Equal Opportunity, Affirmative Action Employer of all protected classes, including veterans and individuals with disabilities. Women, racial and ethnic minorities, individuals with disabilities, and veterans are encouraged to apply. Hiring is contingent upon eligibility to work in the United States.

MARKETING RESEARCH BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER: To identify target clients, segmenting market as appropriate. Develop pursuit plans for each target, ensuring research results in intelligent contact w/ client prospects. Create & utilize methods & procedures for collecting marketing data to assist in devising marketing strategies. Develop new business acquisition plan, including specific campaigns

& local marketing efforts. 4 yrs. of exp in job required; or B.Sc. or equiv. in Marketing or Business Admin. + 2 yrs. exp. in job. Send resume: Abravani Immigration Services, Inc., 23 Corporate Plaza, #150, Newport Beach, CA 92660.

POSITIONS WANTED FREELANCERS AVAILABLE QUANTITATIVE & QUALITATIVE SERVICES: Combinations of

primary and secondary research and BI designed to deliver actionable results including strategic planning. Research methodology, survey and interview design, in-depth interviews, online surveys, hybrid methodologies, max diff, conjoint, and other multivariate techniques, data processing and data entry. Focus on pharmaceuticals (HCP, patients), medical device & large government contractors. Available for on-site consulting. Please call 770.614.6334.

ADVERTISERS’ INDEX Quick source for contacting the suppliers in the June / July 2018 issue of Marketing News. 2018 AMA Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education ....................... inside back cover URL: h ttp://ama.marketing/highered2018

Customer Lifecycle, LLC . ........................................ p. 5 Email: info@customerlifecycle.us URL: http://www.customerlifecycle.us

AMA Marketing Week ..................... inside front cover URL: h ttp://ama.marketing/mw2018

Gongos ..................................................................... p. 32 URL: http://www.gongos.com

2018 AMA Nonprofit Marketing Conference ....... p. 7 URL: h ttp://ama.marketing/nonprofit18

Hypothesis Group . ................................................. p. 65 URL: www.hypothesisgroup.com URL: http://www.momentumbyhypothesis.com

2018 AMA Summer Academic Conference . .............................................................. p. 15 URL: h ttp://ama.marketing/summer18 2018 AMA Training Series ..................................... p. 96 URL: h ttp://ama.marketing/ts Adapt Inc. . ............................................................... p. 47 Email: dkoch@adaptdata.com URL: h ttp://www.adaptdata.com Advanced School of Marketing Research .......... p. 67 URL: http://ama.marketing/ASMR18 AMA Professional Certified Marketer Content Marketing Program . ................................ p. 13 URL: h ttp://ama.marketing/PCM-CM ®

AMA White Papers .................................................. p. 51 Email: anelmes@ama.org URL: h ttp://www.ama.org/whitepaper AMA’s Marketing Resource Directory ................... p. 6 URL: h ttp://marketingresourcedirectory.ama.org Ascribe ............................................................ pp. 43, 45 Ph: 1-877-241-9112 x55 ttp://www.GoAscribe.com URL: h Collegis Education ...................................... back cover URL: h ttp://www.CollegisEducation.com

Marketing News .................................................... p. 100 Email: sales@ama.org URL: http://www.ama.org/mediakit Maru / Matchbox . .................................................... p. 61 URL: http://www.marumatchbox.com Mindfield ................................................................... p. 41 URL: http://www.MindfieldTech.com URL: http://www.McMillionResearch.com Radius Global Market Research ........................... p. 35 Email: clister@radius-global.com / jmyers@radius-global.com URL: h ttp://www. radius-global.com/experience Recollective ............................................................. p. 22 Ph: 1-888-932-2299 URL: http://www.Recollective.com SIS International ..................................................... p. 55 Email: research@sisinternational.com URL: h ttp://www. sisinternational.com Westat ...................................................................... p. 39 URL: http://www.westat.com YouGov ..................................................................... p. 49 Email: info.us@yougov.com URL: http://today.yougov.com/find-solutions JUNE / JULY 2018 | MARKETING NEWS

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ON THE RECORD

Why Building Up Your Organization, Not Your Personal Brand, Is a Better Strategy There’s a lot of talk about engineering your personal brand. But what if individual brand building was wasted energy? BY ZACH BROOKE | STAFF WRITER

 zbrooke@ama.org

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rian de Haaff, co-founder and CEO of product roadmap software Aha! and author of Lovability: How to Build a Business That People Love and Be Happy Doing It, asks the audacious question of whether having a personal brand is worth it. De Haaff spoke with Marketing News about his belief that personal brand building, especially at work, is counterproductive to goals of getting ahead.

Q A

Why are personal brands bad?

I don’t think personal brands are bad. It’s a question of focus. We would never say that a personal brand is something to be avoided. All

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great accomplishments are the result of teams, and you only have so many hours in a given day. The question is where do you want to put your focused energy? In an organization, putting the organization first is important most of the time.

Q A

How can you put an organization first?

You can improve how you communicate with the team. You can improve the dynamics with the team. The results of your team benefit you in the long run, so emphasizing effort in a team-based environment is superior to spending the same amount of time trying to bolster your own personal brand.

Q A

How do you define personal brands?

We all have a personal brand, right? Everything about us is a characteristic. To answer that question, we have to take a tougher look at what a brand is. A brand is a set of perceptions that anyone important to you has about you, and those perceptions are created through interactions over time. Brands under that definition can be an organization or a person. A personal brand is nothing more than the perceptions that people you care about have about you.

How do you highlight your contributions when you’re up for review?

At our best, all of us are operating in a transparent, supportive, goal-oriented way. Promotions are irregularly achieved

based on some short-term task or objective reached. We want to be doing our work in a proactive way that’s aligned with the goals of the organization such that people can understand that we are contributing to the team and the organization. If we do that, we tend to have support throughout the organization for taking on additional levels of responsibility. No matter where you are in that process, ensure that you can clearly communicate what the goals are, what the team has achieved and—without a lot of hype or hyperbole—what you did that contributed to the teams’ success.

Say there’s someone currently spending a lot of time cultivating their personal brand. What happens if they stop and use all that time to become a better team player?

career advancement

We want to be doing our work in a proactive way that’s aligned with the goals of the organization such that people can understand that we are contributing to the team and the organization.

The “you” actually can come out because very few of us are laden in that level of narcissism or self-focus. It gives us a chance to present a broader view of ourselves without the glossy finish that can sometimes be a distraction and keep people from actually getting to know who you are, what you’ve accomplished and your aspirations. The same can be said within an organization. Communicating clearly and transparently gives people a better understanding of who you are. It gives you more time to actually be a good teammate and to be an important contributor to the organization. If you give good people a framework for success, and you give them more time to be successful, most of the time they will achieve something meaningful. m

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#OfficeGoals A peek inside the marketers’ offices that make us drool

NIKE COMMUNICATIONS sought a redesigned space that reflects its lifestyle as a purveyor of luxury goods and refined tastes. Simultaneously, the 10,500 square-foot Manhattan office needed to inspire creativity and collaboration. Cork kitchen stools used in the agency’s new café are a clever nod to Nike Communication’s extensive roster of wine and spirits clients. The monochromatic palette leverages the office’s natural light. Bold black and white elements make the space feel crisp and clean. The agency’s collection of classic pieces are thoughtfully layered with contemporary designers, drawing inspiration from the Bauhaus. “If you know design, walking into the new office triggers a checklist of the greats: Le Corbusier, Mies van de Rohe, Prouve, Jacobsen, Saarinen, Wegner, Adnet and Eames,” says Justin Huxol, founder of HUXHUX Design. “The gang’s all here, but it’s executed in a way that feels at ease and extremely welcoming.” An open office layout, composed of communal workspaces, shared work stations, a variety of lounge areas, nooks and break-out rooms foster conversation and team-building. m Interiors by Justin Huxol of HUXHUX Design for Homepolish

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