Data Gurus

On today’s episode, co-founder and CMO of Measure Protocol Paul Neto joins Sima Vasa. Together, they talk about the value blockchain plays in today’s market research landscape, and how Measure is promoting fair compensation and usage of consumer data. Paul Neto - Measure on Blockchain in MR There has been a lot of discussions about what blockchain means for the market research industry, and Paul and his team has seen its value. Measure is a blockchain-based protocol or platform that facilitates the marketplace that is full of so-called person-based data. In this marketplace, individuals have full control of their data that they can monetize. Contributions to this pool of data are made through various types of tasks such as participating in surveys and sharing of behavioral data. All these are done to benefit two core stakeholders. These are the correspondent or contributor, and the researcher and data buyer. “We specifically utilize blockchain and cryptography to build what we’d call protocols, and it’s real

Newly appointed President of EMI Research Solutions Adam Jolley joins Sima Vasa in this episode. He shares his future plans for the company, how the sample industry has changed, and how EMI is going to adapt to these key changes. Adam Jolley - Future of EMI Adam has been with EMI for more than a decade. His take over has been a long time coming, an itch of what’s next. He’s all in, and he wants more not only for his career but for the entire EMI. With this new chapter of his life comes a lot of planning. They are trying to diversify to be in line with the changes in the industry, like the new ways to go about finding samples, different types of plans and different applications. Research buyers have also changed, a general observation by people within the sample industry. “Maybe it's just the reallocation of the same money, but the buyers have changed so we need to adapt to that also.” - Adam Jolley Changing with the Industry The changing of traditional research buyers prompts a need to reinvent EMI’s messagi

On this episode, CEO and Founder of Kork Robert Wensley joins Sima Vasa. They talk about the company’s conception, its mission, and how Robert is changing the data brokerage landscape with his dedicated team. Robert Wensley - Kork’s Mission Kork is one of the world’s first consumer sourced data brokerage companies. Presently, data brokers are making about 200B in a year off of data. But here’s the catch: They do it without our consent. A lot of data brokers know more about us than our best friend or families. We also don’t have any control over the types of data that get shared. Kork has decided to sink their teeth into this challenge. “We’re trying to disrupt the traditional data brokers by creating a next-generation data brokerage platform where consumers themselves are in control over their data.” - Robert Wensley A Little History Robert studied in computer science, economics, and finance at Harvard. While he got lots of job offers for finance, he didn’t like it and went for real estate. After all, it see

For 2019’s first episode, Toni Clayton Hine, B2B marketer and former CMO of Xerox Corporation joins Sima Vasa. They discuss what it was like to market one of the most iconic brands in the world at a time when digital technologies were emerging and how data played a big role in defining their marketing agenda. Toni Clayton Hine - Xerox's Marketing Agenda Toni worked at Xerox for five years during a time when a lot of transformation was going on. The company was the prominent brand associated with print and copy, and Toni came into a division tasked to build out a new market. She became the CMO shortly after the company split in 2017. Toni says that even after the split, the agenda was the same for both sides, how do you take the best of the Xerox brand in the print element and show people how that is still relevant? “That means showcasing how we lived at the intersection of both physical and digital”. - Toni Clayton Hine Understanding Customer Perception In order to be relevant in a modern, digital way, Toni

On the sixth episode of this Attribution Acceleration round-up series, Lawrence Chan joins Sima Vasa. He talks about location intelligence and how persistent and accurate location data play important roles in market research and attribution. “When you have those types of signals basically dictating whether or not somebody went somewhere, without that persistent context of where someone came from or where they spent time, it becomes really, really good for folks to do meaningful attribution.” - Lawrence Chan Lawrence Chan - Cuebiq and Location Intelligence Lawrence Chan is the SVP of Innovation and Strategic Partnerships at Cuebiq. They are a location intelligence company focused on data quality and persistent location data. He has been part of the team since its inception. He now identifies innovative opportunities and strategic partnerships to drive the company’s expansion. They have found a way to scale the usage of persistent and accurate location data in a way that could be meaningful for many marketers

For the final episode of this Attribution Accelerator round-up series, Jane Clarke sits with Sima Vasa. They talk about the forum and the deeper focus on the topic of attribution. They also discuss the growth of granular measurement of data across media platforms. Jane Clarke - On CIMM and the Attribution Accelerator Jane is the CEO and Managing Director of the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM). She is responsible for developing CIMM’s strategy and vision and overseeing operations. She says that the Attribution Accelerator is one of the only places where people can get a deep-dive focus on the topic of attribution. This has become very important for all marketers and media companies trying to sell their advertising platforms. Improvements and Challenges There has been some improvement in the granulation of data in relation to television and other media platforms. While this is considered a way forward, there has also been some challenges especially with the more rigid privacy compliance polic

Jeff Greenfield sits with Sima Vasa today for the sixth installment of this Attribution Accelerator round-up series. He shares how marketing mix models differ from multi-touch attribution, as well as how the latter helps marketers play in the modern space. Jeff Greenfield - C3 Metrics and Attribution Jeff is the COO and Co-Founder of C3 metrics. He says that attribution in the way C3 plays it is a convergence of all things coming together. Prior to multi-touch attribution, marketers were stuck with broad, top-down marketing mix models. A progressive company gets a new model done every year and this model will dictate budget allocation. However, there are no clear-cut goals in terms of a feedback loop to direct marketing channels. Marketing Mix and Multi-touch Attribution While the next model will help in adjustments, there’s no real feedback to the actual ground people in terms of telling them what they have to do. “Multi-touch attribution tells you how to allocate it within that specific channel and cross-c

Christian Bartens of Equifax and Datalicious touches base with Sima Vasa for this fourth episode of the Attribution Accelerator 2018 series. He talks about what Equifax and Datalicious offer to their customers. Together with Sima, he also shares a little more about the topic he tackled for the forum. Christian Bartens - Data-Driven Marketing (DDM) Christian’s company, Datalicious, has been acquired by Equifax of which he is now the Marketing Measurement Leader. “Equifax has a lot of very interesting data assets that have been in the data game for a very long time.” - Christian Bartens They don’t have many people but they have their own dedicated marketing service that is called data-driven marketing or DDM. The people behind DDM break down into four capabilities, which they called link, reveal, engage and measure. Four Capabilities of DDM Link is all about linking data sets, getting rid of data silos and creating the mythical single customer view. The people who do this are an army of data analysts that help

For the third episode of the Attribution Accelerator 2018 round-up series, Maggie Merklin joins Sima Vasa. She shares a bit about her talk and her company’s key to great relationships with their clients. She also discusses how TV and digital platforms drive success. Maggie Merklin - Analytics Partners and Choice Hotels Maggie is the Executive Vice President at Analytic Partners. They have been working with Choice Hotels for over eight years now. Her talk revolves around how attribution is being adopted, particularly by this client. Over the years, they have seen significant increases in Choice Hotels’ return on investment. They collaborated with Choice and their media agency to develop a PSA test. These gave similar results that aligned with the advanced analytics that they have been providing Choice. “It’s a great example of collaboration across agencies, as well as transparency to the approach, and then validation to help drive that buy-in.” - Maggie Merklin Transparency for Success The key to success in t

Abha Dawesar, Marketing Strategy Director at HSBC joins Sima Vasa for this second episode of the Attribution Accelerator 2018 roundup series. She shares what she spoke about at the forum. She also talks about assigning business growth to marketing investment. “A lot of the consumer behaviors might be linked to the things that got them to the gate in the first place.” - Abha Dawesar Abha Dawesar - In-Depth Tracking of Insights Most of the industry ends up getting third-party analytics that often show highly-aggregated data. Abha gets involved in campaign designing and analytics at the beginning in order to come up with a set of data that they can track at a very granular level. For instance, they not only look at the offer, segment and geography, but also go into the details of a campaign. They inspect a test all the way down and then build the customer journey after they became customers. This takes away the limit of seeing only what offer is converting or how conversion and acquisition happened. “We were ab

For the first episode of Attribution Accelerator 2018 series, Thomas Bauer, Partner at McKinsey & Company joins Sima Vasa. He rounds up some of his realizations from the forum and how marketing has become a true pillar of growth for the industry. “It's never really the analytics that do the job but without the analytics, it's a tough business for a senior marketing executive.” - Thomas Bauer Thomas Bauer - On Attribution Accelerator 2018 Thomas has always seen the Attribution Accelerator as extremely engaging. He likes to see the community coming together and talking about attribution. There has been a lot of movement recently and the scene is constantly evolving. For this particular year, Thomas moderated a session on brand attribution when last year there was none. He is very happy that things are progressing. “The way that attribution is looked at is becoming even more comprehensive.” - Thomas Bauer Economic Value of Marketing This progress is apparent when people look at the entire economic value created

Karyn Schoenbart, CEO of NPD Group, joins Sima Vasa today. They talk about the data, insights, leadership and how each of these are shaping up in the near future of NPD and the market research industry. “The best results in the future aren't going to be from consumer surveys or POS retail scanners or receipts. It will be a combination of all of those.” - Karyn Schoenbart Karyn Schoenbart - NPD’s Readiness to Face Changes The NPD Group is one of the top 10 market research companies in the world. With the fast-changing industry, Karyn worries about the company’s relevance like any other CEO. The good news is that NPD is well-poised to address the changes. “I have to make sure that our folks don't become complacent and that there is this sense of urgency throughout the company.” - Karyn Schoenbart Long-Term over Short-Term Results There’s a ceaseless struggle with the balance of hitting short-term goals and creating the sense of urgency for the future. But NPD’s strength lies in their history. Their track record

On today’s episode, Nik Samoylov, founder of Conjoint.ly joins Sima Vasa. Together they talk about how Nik fell into market research and how automation has affected the industry and its methods. “If anything, core research skills like drafting questionnaires will definitely stay in demand.” - Nik Samoylov Nik Samoylov - Choosing Market Research With the marketing and statistics courses he took in college, Nik wanted to pursue a career in market research. For three years after graduation, Nik was involved in consulting. When he decided to focus on market research, he didn’t go looking for a job. Instead, Nik started his own market research company, Conjoint.ly it's has been around for a little over two years and they launched their platform a year ago. Conjoint.ly Working with Companies Nik’s established company helps others with product pricing and research. They do this mainly through their platform, where clients can log in, put in their stimuli, and choose who they want to survey. Reports then follow, whi

Natasha Stevens is the Executive President of Strategy at GFK North America. On today’s episode, she sits with Sima Vasa to talk about how market research is blossoming as an industry. She also shares how client data drive innovation in present-day endeavors. “It's really striking a balance between staying very committed to what the overall mission is but also having that flexibility and to realize that you're going to have to make changes along the way based on what you're hearing in the market.” - Natasha Stevens Natasha Stevens - An Exciting Time for Marketing Research There's a lot of changes going on within market research and the same goes for GFK, which has undergone some exciting changes as an organization. GFK has transformed from being a broad-range market research company to a technology-enabled data and analytics intelligence firm. GFK, among other firms, is currently awash in data coming in across from all parts of the organization and even externally. But ultimately, how do they utilize all the

Barry Jennings handles the central market research team at Microsoft. On today’s episode, he speaks with Sima Vasa about how research is involved in and has evolved at his workplace. “Realistically, the job of delivering impactful insights, that part doesn't change. But we have significant challenges, like the speed of business...  data proliferation.” - Barry Jennings Barry Jennings - Market Research Director at Microsoft At Microsoft, Barry and his team focus on endeavors related to the cloud, servers, as well as technical audiences like IT pros, developers and data scientists. His work keeps him busy on the daily, but it’s the kind that doesn’t allow a single dull moment. In fact, his workday is highly variable. Barry’s fundamental job is to bring insights to the business. They take things to the next level and extend what research brings to the picture in terms of changing the minds of people in the organization, product development and even messaging. “We try to understand what questions the business is

On today’s episode, Patrick Comer joins Sima Vasa. Patrick is the Founder and CEO of Lucid, a software company focused on delivering human answers on a massive scale. Today he shares his thoughts on competition and purpose, and the importance of understanding perspective on data collection. Patrick Comer - The Competitive Landscape for Lucid Everybody always talks about the landscape offered by different companies, along with the competition. But Patrick has always maintained that it doesn’t matter who the competition is or who isn’t. In the end, every peer will compete against them or partner with them in some way. The reality of the situation is that all the other companies are also the clients. Regardless of the niche or category they occupy, they will still work with Lucid in one way or another. “In our world, it's neither one nor zero. It's always gray.” - Patrick Comer on competition Purpose Over Competition It is impossible to get away with pointing out peers and branding them as the enemy. What is mo

Ben Harden, partner and leader for Data and Analytics at CapTech Consulting sits with Sima Vasa today. They talk about the importance of data in bridging the gap between businesses and technology. They also discuss data governance and how agile frameworks are managed. Ben Harden - Full Service at CapTech CapTech Consulting is a national firm in the United States with nine offices across the country. In his area, Ben runs the data and analytics practice. Apart from this, the firm also offers their clients services on software engineering, management consulting for agile and object-oriented management, and customer experience. Essentially, CapTech is a full-service consulting firm. Their client projects often involve data engineers, architects and scientists, as well as persons of command and analysts. This is in response to the general shift in the market on the idea of customer experience and doing exciting designs from a digitization perspective. “A typical team is drawing from all of those different areas

On today’s episode, Betty Adamou sits with Sima Vasa to talk about games as tools for market research. She is the CEO and Founder of Research Through Gaming Ltd and the author of Games and Gamification in Market Research. Betty Adamou - Market Research and Video Games Betty’s passion for Research Through Gaming came about when she started working in the market research industry. She was taken aback by the disparity between the massiveness of the sphere and the poor quality of communication, that is, surveys. By day, she finds herself working in her market research job, looking after clients or helping design these surveys. But at night, she is glued to her video games. She began asking questions that eventually gave rise to her passion project, “There’s something there. Why am I glued to this screen but not to that screen?” - Betty Adamou, on market research and video games Birth of Research Through Gaming Betty conducted a conference talk on the future of research through gaming while she was still working

For today’s episode, Senior Business Consultant at Southwest Airlines Isaac Muñoz sits with Sima Vasa. They talk about marrying research and insights and why research is not just an optional element but should be deeply integrated into the marketing process. Isaac Muñoz - Insights at Southwest Airlines Isaac is part of the Customer Insights of the Marketing Team at Southwest Airlines. His job involves doing primary research and then coming back to the company as a consultant. He and his team have been in this role for ten years. This innovative move evolved their function from not just being research but being more consultative as well. It helped raise understanding business issues and linking research results to driving actionable decisions. “One of our missions is to make sure that everything we do is representative of the customer, everything that we do is received well by the customer.” - Isaac Muñoz Realizing a Mission In order to be able to achieve their goals, they have taken the approach of doing res

On today’s episode, Kris Hull and Chris Murphy of Kantar North America joins Sima Vasa. Together, they talk about marketing metric audit protocols, finding the balance between short-term and long-term tracking, and so much more. Kris Hull and Chris Murphy - MASB Accreditation In a recent press release, the market research agency announced its accreditation for the Marketing Accountability Standards Board (MASB). Chris Murphy, Chief Client Officer, says that they perform the marketing metric audit protocols for third party audits. This accreditation certifies the offers they provide their clients’ methodology as the right metric to look to financial performance. Chris underscores the importance of performing rigorous third party audit as part of their core equity assessment tool. “We struggle industrially to gain alignment just on the principles of brand growth and measurement.” - Chris Murphy Short-term and Long-term Tracking Kris Hull, Senior Vice President, shares one of the things they found out in going