Strategic insights firm Firefish and its quant consultancy the numbers lab have been awarded ISO27001:2013 certification for their Information Security Management System, covering their UK offices at Tower Bridge Road, London. The standard covers the management of risks to the security of information a business uses. Group CEO Jem Fawcus comments: 'Our ISMS was recommended for certification at first attempt and without discrepancies - testament to the great work that all the team at Firefish and the numbers lab do in ensuring that we protect not only our clients' data but that of the people who take part in research for us too'.

For more information contact the person who submitted this story martyn@firefish.ltd.uk

Nielsen has announced a multi-year deal with Entercom, one of the two largest radio broadcasters in the US, providing a comprehensive suite of measurement tools aimed at enhancing the broadcaster's data-driven capabilities for advertisers. Entercom will add new Nielsen products including Media Impact, RHIZA, Marketing Cloud and the Tally Engine API. Other products such as the Nielsen Radio Market Report, Tapscan, Arbitrends and Gracenote will also be used in select markets across the firm's 235 radio stations. Entercom COO Weezie Kramer says the agreement is 'part of our strategy to demonstrate the impact of including radio in an advertiser's media mix to deliver optimal campaign reach and frequency'. According to Brad Kelly, MD of Nielsen Audio, 'Despite the fragmentation that exists across the broader media ecosystem, radio remains remarkably resilient with American consumers. Effective measurement and documentation of this consumer dynamic is central to Nielsen's core mission'.

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Stockholm, Sweden-based customer experience and marketing optimization solutions firm Nepa has is to implement a CEM program for TV and radio network and streaming provider Nordic Entertainment Group (NENT), covering its Pay-TV subscription business in Sweden, Norway and Denmark. Nepa already provides NENT with strategic brand measurement and insights.

The new project will begin with a statistical analysis of the company's survey program to identify the service attributes driving Customer Experience, and continue with a tracking program that streamlines collection of customer feedback across target groups and life stages. Mahmoud Mustapha, VP Pay-TV Sweden at NENT Group comments: 'With Nepa's Customer Experience Measurement program we get the tools needed to further improve our customers' experience by converting data into actionable insights'.

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Private healthcare pioneer Bupa UK has appointed Kantar TNS to support development of its customer experience (CX) programme, via a four-year partnership worth £2.5 million. The agency will work across Bupa UK's insurance, health services (wellness centres, health clinics, Bupa Cromwell Hospital), care services (care homes and retirement villages) and dental care businesses to develop state-of-the-art customer feedback and engagement tools. Insights from this programme will be used to continuously review Bupa UK's offer and ensure it remains focused around customer needs, encouraging long-term loyalty and advocacy. Kantar TNS will use software from Medallia to combine survey responses with analysis of real-time data including sentiment analysis of customer responses.Sean Risebrow, Director of Customer Experience at Bupa UK, comments: 'Our vision is to be the world's most admired healthcare company, putting the customer at the heart of everything we do. Listening to customers, and then acting upon what they tell us, is the key to building exceptional customer experiences. Our partnership with Kantar TNS and Medallia gives us the CX expertise and advanced technological tools we need to ensure that we continue to respond to our customers' varied needs'.

More information from alevitin@camargue.uk.


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In the UK, the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) has chosen the Confirmit Horizons platform to support its new UK-wide Graduate Outcomes programme, an 'ambitious' scheme allowing higher education providers to understand how their graduates progress in their careers after graduation. The 'rich, robust and innovative data' will help to enhance courses but also reflect recent changes in the HE sector and graduate labour market.

More than 700,000 graduates will be surveyed annually for this, the UK's 'biggest annual social survey', with the first wave starting this month. All graduates who completed a course will be asked to take part in the survey 15 months after they finish their studies. The survey aims to help current and future students gain an insight into career destinations and development. HESA CEO Paul Clark his organisation needed a supplier who can 'support the delivery of the survey effectively, cost-efficiently and with expertise'; and can provide web surveys which function perfectly on mobile devices. Almost two thirds of graduates will complete the survey on a tablet or smartphone, Clark adds.

More information from mel@indigo-river.co.uk.


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Recently acquired UK-based agency B2B International won the Interviewer Excellence -Telephone and Best Interviewer Training and Development gongs at last month's IQCS Awards. The former 'celebrates individuals and teams who have demonstrated a commitment to consistently deliver interviewing excellence', and the latter those organisations 'leading in the provision of interviewer-centric training and development programmes'.

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In London, strategic communications consultancy Verbalisation has won a brief from Marlow Foods Ltd. to conduct in-depth research on its Quorn and Cauldron brands. The raised profile of veganism, flexitarianism and an increased focus on health and sustainability represents a huge opportunity for 'one of the most recognisable brands in the non-meat sector', the firm says. Verbalisation has been asked to identify the psychological drivers behind people's dietary decisions to predict which trends will have a long-term impact on mainstream consumer behaviour and which ones will only ever be transient social media conversations. The firm will use a proprietary language-based methodology which it says 'looks beyond people's reported opinions to find out what's really shaping their attitudes and behaviour, i.e. their underlying (unconscious) psychology'.Alex Glen, Marketing Director of Quorn Foods, said: 'We've been impressed with Verbalisation's scientific approach to consumer insight. By analysing the language of consumers, they can identify the motivations that sit behind their voiced opinions - in other words what really drives people's behaviour'. The firm also works with the FT, News UK, Thames Water, Samsung, Diageo and talkRADIO.

More information from alexf@thephagroup.com.


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Stockholm-based consumer science company Nepa will be tracking brand health for a new client, fitness centre operator SATS, which runs 220 locations across Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark. Marianne Orderud, the client firm's Nordic Head of Marketing, comments: 'Nepa's vast experience in brand tracking across the Nordic region made them the ideal solution for helping us establish a reliable and steady stream of consumer sentiment about SATS brands and our competitors'. Says Nepa CEO Fredrik Östgren: 'The continued growth in our brand tracking business indicates that companies recognize the importance of brand health to attract new customers in today's complex marketing landscape. We're excited SATS will use our proven approach and strong Norwegian team to brand tracking, and we look forward to a continued partnership'.

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Audience measurement authority / Joint Industry Company BARC India has been named as the country's Most Innovative medium-sized service provider, at the CII Industrial Innovations 2018 awards, as well as being overall one of the 'Top 25 Most Innovative Companies in India'.
The CII (Confederation of Indian Industry) decides the winners via a four-stage process spanning 8 months. Among the JIC's achievements, BARC India developed its BAR-O-Meter measurement devices 'at 1/6th of the cost of globally available meters'; its Panel Management System (PMS), which allows efficient operation of a field force which installs, manages and trains the panel homes; and the BIO suite of products, a visualization tool. Shashi Sinha, BARC India Technical Committee Chairman and CEO, IPG Mediabrands comments: 'BARC India was set up with the aim to give the industry a measurement system that it deserved, and this could not have happened without having a strong technology backbone'.

More information from seema.singh@barcindia.co.in.


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U.S. Chinese entertainment and news distributor Sky Link Media has selected Nielsen as its Local TV measurement provider, 'finally allowing us to have an Asian media marketplace with standard industry metrics' according to Sky Link's Director of Digital Media and Business Development Michael Moon. He adds: 'We want to provide ad agencies and media buyers the tools to justify increasing multicultural budgets... We hope that other Asian media will join Nielsen with us for an inclusive view of the Asian TV landscape. Sky Link chose to start measuring the San Francisco Chinese market due to the concentrated Asian population in the area'.
SkyLink focuses on TV, digital and content, with its TV available over the air (OTA) and via MVPD (Multichannel Video Program Distributor) in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and nationwide in the US. Sky Link Digital manages YouTube channel HunanTV with 2.7 million subscribers. Nielsen is currently enhancing the Local TV service to reflect clients' desire 'to pay for viewers who actually view their advertisers' ads, not for people who have a chance to view the ads'.

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MR industry blogs, events and directories provider GreenBook is moving its flagship event, IIeX North America, from Atlanta, Georgia to Austin, Texas next April. Executive Editor & Producer Lenny Murphy comments 'IIeX was built on the principles that it takes collaboration, innovation, and honest conversation to move our industry forward in the best way possible. After 5 years of hosting IIeX NA in my hometown, I'm confident that this move will allow for even more possibilities of bringing the best of innovation to the industry year after year'.

The IIeX series started in 2013 with an event in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and now hosts 9 events across the globe annually, with a total of 3,700+ attendees.

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Stockholm-based insights firm Nepa has been selected as the research partner of specialty plant retailer Plantagen, which will use its Consumer Science Platform to help the company understand CX at store-level and in aggregate to pinpoint areas for improvement in the Swedish market. The retailer's customer data is being integrated into a bespoke solution built by Nepa to continuously collect additional CX information, which will then be delivered via personalized dashboard to individual stores and the HQ. Financial data will be added shortly after, according to Nepa CX Product Owner Hanna Wallin. CEO Fredrik Östgren says such wins are 'evidence of a growing demand for next generation CX driven tools and consulting' in Europe and the US.

More information from p-o.westerlund@nepa.com.


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Data from the TouchPoints 2018 survey (UK) shows low and declining appreciation for targeted ads. Just 17% say they regularly click on ads to get more information (down from 28% 18 months ago); 62% are often put off clicking on ads for new brands because they think they will follow them around (up from 57%); 79% get annoyed by adverts that follow them around online (up from 64%); and 84% agree that if they see an ad too many times online then they end up blanking it out (up from 71%). Just three in 10 want to see an ad for something they have previously searched for online. Newsworks' Insight Director Denise Turner said at the survey's launch that 'Alarm bells should be ringing' for ad targeting.

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NZ-based analysis specialist Infotools has released a new case study with telecoms company Orange, looking at how the firm's MR team 're-invented the way they deliver consumer insights data to their business leaders'. According to Russell King, Orange's Director of Group Brand & Customer Experience Research, 'To start making headway toward our vision, our stakeholders needed to be up-to-date with what our customers are thinking and feeling. We needed to deliver insights in a way that would compel them to engage with and actively use insights data to drive strategy and deliver growth'. The study, 'The Color of Transformation', looks at the challenges of 'moving traditional research models to the digital age', including meeting increased demands for cost-effective access to better, deeper insights by the application of technology; delivering value-added insights while catering to varying levels of brand-maturity and differing approaches to market research across 30+ geographies; and creating a platform that would allow Orange to meet its goals for data analytics, access, reporting and automation'.

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UK advertising spend in Q1 2018 rose 5.9% year-on-year to reach £5.7bn - the 19th consecutive quarter of market growth, according to Advertising Association/WARC Expenditure Report data published this week. The figure is 1.3 percentage points (pp) ahead of forecast, and the full year 2018 forecast has been revised up to 4.8% growth.

Q1 2018 was the strongest first quarter in three years. Print display ad revenue for national newsbrands rose for the first time in seven years, while radio (+12.5%) recorded its strongest growth in four years, and Internet (+10.8%), out of home (+5.3%) and TV (+5.0%) also performed well. Display formats, which account for just under two-thirds of all adspend in the UK, recorded a rise in investment of 4.7% in the quarter - 6.0% if direct mail is excluded.

More information from amanda.benfell@warc.com.


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Toluna has launched a report on the 'State of Digital Disruption', studying web or app-based services which have transformed a traditional way of doing things. The firm used its TolunaInsights platform to survey 1,000 people over the age of eighteen across the US about their use of, opinions around and interest in digital disruptor companies and marketing. Consumers were asked to self-identify in terms of their adoption of new products and services, based on sociologist Everett Rogers' five consumer types: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority and laggards.

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