TNS Presenting New Influence-Based Consumer Tracking Model at ARF

NEW YORK, March 23 /PRNewswire/ -- TNS' Larry Friedman, Ph.D., chief research officer and Melinda Smith, Ph.D., North American Head of Branding & Communications, will be co-presenting "Welcome to the World of Influence 3.0™" at this year's ARF Conference in New York. Their presentation is focused on tracking research in the new age of influence, which addresses marketers need to adapt to a new paradigm of "influence" where communications with consumers is no longer one-way, but is now part of an ongoing two-way conversation. The cornerstone of their presentation is an examination of Tiger Woods as a brand, in light of recent negative press coverage. Friedman and Smith will present their findings on March 23 from 3:30 to 5:00 p.m. in the Wilder Room of the Marriott Marquis.

"The marketing landscape has fundamentally changed, which requires the paradigm for tracking research to change as well," said Friedman. "For more than a generation, the 'normal science' of the research community has used survey-based methods that attempt to gauge how consumers are reacting to marketing stimuli. As an industry, we need to come to grips with the rapidly-growing irrelevance of these models."

Historically, observational data has been used mainly for explanation and some evaluation. However, the accurate prediction of consumer behavior is the key area for development. To gauge the validity of this approach, TNS partnered with Emory University, an FMCG client, and sister-company Cymfony to demonstrate how including Social Media in a marketing mix model can improve the accuracy of the model to yield better results.

"For the most part, the response of the tracking world to this new environment has been more of the same with clients adding separate research studies around social media listening and website traffic counts," explained Smith. "We believe that it is time to make observation the central focus of tracking."

The new consumer tracking model proposed by TNS is based on three S's: See, Seek and Say. The See component is based on brand-generated media, while Seek is focused on the interactions between the brands and target audience. The Say component is the newest part of the marketing equation and has shifted power to buyers in the form of consumer-generated media (CGM). These can take the form of traditional word of mouth, blogs, Internet postings, etc. and allow buyers to share their unfiltered product experience in real time to influence a community of potential buyers in ways that were not available only a few years ago.

To see how the new influence tracking model worked in practice, Friedman and Smith developed a case study based on Tiger Woods, by taking a look at how his brand image has been impacted since his car accident on November 27. At that time, Woods earned over $100 million dollars as spokesperson for a variety of brands including Gatorade, EA Sports, Gillette, Accenture, Nike and others. On December 11, 2009, Woods announced that he was taking an indefinite leave from golf to address his personal issues. On February 18, 2010, he delivered his public apology which was covered extensively by the media.

For the period, January 2008 through December 2008, total Tiger Woods-related ad expenditures surpassed $131 million. For the period December 2009 through February 2010, ad expenditures had dropped significantly to a little more than $1 million with the bulk of this advertising being magazine advertising that was likely placed before his accident.

The research looked at the effectiveness of two Tiger Woods Gillette ads pre- and post-accident. The spot for Gillette Fusion with tennis star Roger Federer experienced a 37% decline in effectiveness while a commercial with baseball star Derek Jeter saw a 47% decline in effectiveness. This stage represents the "See" component of the Influence Tracking model. The "Seek" component covers the public's Internet Tiger Woods searches, which spiked shortly after his accident and significantly outnumbered those for any other athlete. At one point, Tiger Woods searches eclipsed 3 million on a weekly basis, whereas no other athlete surpassed more than half a million for all of 2009. Though not as high in number, the same search trends were seen on Tiger Woods-specific websites. The Say component of the Influence Tracking model was a flurry of activity as well as there were more than 24,000 mentions of Tiger on various social media sites for the period November 30 to December 29, 2009 with most of the talk being negative.

"The Tiger Woods scandal brought the Influence Tracking model to life in terms that people could relate to, given the extensive media coverage. Using traditional research methods, it would not have been able to gauge the impact of how consumers' perception of Tiger Woods had changed," said Friedman. "While not every brand will experience as sharp a decline, the influence of social media cannot be ignored by marketers.

"We also took a look at how Toyota is faring in light of its troubles and found that 50% of consumers have a less favorable opinion of the company than they did three months ago. Ninety percent of survey respondents said this was influenced by all the negative press the company has been receiving of late," said Smith.

On Tuesday, March 23, TNS will hold two sessions based on extensive global quantitative and global research that identifies various strategies for coping with the changing economy and how brands are responding to win consumer hearts and minds. These will be held in the Booth Room from 10:00 to 10: 45 a.m. as well as 2:00 to 2:45 p.m. Also on Tuesday from 10:45 to 11:30 a.m. and again at 2:45 to 3:30 p.m., TRU vice president/insights, Scott Hess will lead an engaging and interactive discussion of the latest attitudes, values, and behaviors of today's youth, culling data from the TRU Study as well as recent custom research.

About TNS

TNS, who recently merged with Research International, is the world's largest custom research agency delivering actionable insights and research-based business advice to its clients, so they can make more effective business decisions. TNS offers comprehensive industry knowledge within the Consumer, Technology, Finance, Automotive and Political & Social sectors, supported by a unique product offering that stretches across the entire range of marketing and business issues, specializing in product development & innovation, brand & communications, stakeholder management, retail & shopper, and qualitative research. Delivering best-in-class service across more than 75 countries, TNS is part of Kantar, the world's largest research, insight and consultancy network. Please visit www.tnsglobal.com for more information.

About the Kantar Group

The Kantar Group is one of the world's largest research, insight and consultancy networks. By uniting the diverse talents of more than 20 specialist companies, the group aims to become the pre-eminent provider of compelling and actionable insights for the global business community. Its 26,500 employees work across 80 countries and across the whole spectrum of research and consultancy disciplines, enabling the group to offer clients business insights at each and every point of the consumer cycle. The group's services are employed by over half of the Fortune Top 500 companies. The Kantar Group is a wholly owned subsidiary of WPP Group plc. For further information, please visit www.kantar.com.

SOURCE TNS