News
We want to keep you in the loop on our latest and greatest,
whether it's conferences where you'll find us, new additions to our
research team, introductions to new research offerings, or just
things we think you'd like to know. Find out what we're up to
below.
MRSI Welcomes Lauren Wagner as Senior Account
Executive
Wagner has extensive experience in consumer packaged goods as
well as research among Hispanics. Her specialties include concept
and product testing, packaging and advertising evaluation,
awareness and usage studies, and attitudinal
segmentation.
She brings a wealth of client-side experience to MRSI, with
classical training from General Foods and The Clorox
Company, followed by marketing research leadership positions
at Armor All Products and Jack in the Box Restaurants. Wagner also
directed regional research for Coca-Cola among teens and Hispanics
and strategic research at Con Agra.
MRSI's EVP group client services and marketing, David Murray
states, "It's exciting to see a long-time client and research
consultant cross over to the supplier side where she can provide
valuable insight and guidance to our clients. We are thrilled that
Lauren chose to join our team and know she'll be a tremendous asset
to MRSI and our clients."
At MRSI, Wagner will guide her clients through all phases of the
research process by effectively translating business issues into
research design and providing impactful consumer insights that
drive strategy and decision-making.
Wagner earned her Master of Marketing Research degree at The
University of Georgia and an undergraduate degree in Business from
Cal Poly.
She will be based out of the company's client services office in
Irvine, CA.
MRSI Introduces New Hispanic Acculturation Model
MRSI's new Hispanic acculturation model helps marketers and
advertisers more effectively segment the Hispanic market. This
model goes beyond standard acculturation models that rely primarily
on language preference and demographics, incorporating key
attitudinal and behavioral dimensions. By incorporating these
dimensions, the model can provide better insights on the Hispanic
consumer, their perceptions, and their shopping behavior.
Acculturation is the process where cultural traits are adopted,
lost, combined, and created. In turn, these traits have an impact
on ideas, values, conventions, and behaviors.
The impact of acculturation can be far reaching. By
understanding where a marketer's Hispanic audience fits in MRSI's
acculturation model, he or she will have a more accurate assessment
of the message nuances, brand imagery and media mix that's most
effective in reaching this audience and impacting purchase
decisions.
MRSI's vice president of Hispanic services, Miguel Martinez-Baco
states, "Marketers and advertisers understand the tremendous buying
power of the Hispanic market. So, the question is no longer "if"
they should target Hispanics, but "how" to reach this audience
effectively. When you look at what works and what doesn't, you'll
most often find that successful Hispanic marketing campaigns are
those that are culturally relevant to their intended audience."
Martinez-Baco goes on to say, "Given this, we felt acculturation
could be an extremely useful tool in identifying cultural nuances
that could truly make the difference in the relevance and ultimate
success of a campaign. Many models however, rely primarily on
demographics which don't paint the full picture of acculturation
and specifically how this process impacts how a person behaves and
interacts with the marketplace. So, we made it our quest at MRSI to
develop a model that incorporates attitudinal and behavioral
dimensions to give marketers greater insight into this group of
consumers and at the end of the day help them segment and market to
this group more effectively."
Learn more about Hispanic acculturation from MRSI!
Or, you can listen to our recent AMA podcast:
Effectively Engaging Hispanics and the Role of
Acculturation.
MRSI Introduces SocialViewSM Social Media Research
Solution
SocialViewSM is a marketing research tool that
synthesizes category or brand comments from social media, blogs and
more into rich insights on the pulse of a brand.
SocialView helps marketers in industries including consumer
goods, financial services, healthcare, and retail measure brand
buzz and sentiment, factors influencing brand image and how this
compares to competitors to uncover what's most important to their
customers.
MRSI's president, Todd Earhart states, "The explosion of social
media is truly a hot button issue for our clients. They know it's
critical to have a fresh assessment of their brand's image. But,
with millions of Internet users reviewing and recommending products
and services each day, it's an increasing struggle to connect all
those pieces to paint a comprehensive picture of what's being said
about their brand. MRSI created SocialView to not only put those
pieces together, but also shape that information into rich insights
that help them to take action on potential issues
opportunities."
SocialView fits into the research process at different stages.
It can be used as a stand-alone project to gauge brand image and
perceptions, as a listening instrument to identify opportunities
for line extensions, for exploratory purposes prior to quantitative
research, or in conjunction with brand image or customer
satisfaction initiatives.
SocialView is part of MRSI's consumer insights solutions which
also include ethnography, brand image and equity, segmentation,
message testing, and customer satisfaction research.
Learn more
about SocialView social media research from MRSI!
MRSI to Sponsor PMRG's Annual Member Survey
MRSI has been selected to sponsor the PMRG (Pharmaceutical
Marketing Research Group) 2011 Annual Member Survey. PMRG is
celebrating its 50th anniversary this year and we look forward to
working with this esteemed organization.
Learn more about PMRG!
MRSI Promotes Three Employees
Laura Kleckner has been promoted to vice president, client
services. Kleckner has over 15 years of marketing research
experience with expertise in pharmaceutical and healthcare research
across numerous disease states. She is currently responsible for
account strategy, including designing actionable research
initiatives to address business questions both at the corporate
level and for brand specific initiatives. Kleckner's natural
curiosity about human behavior, brands and trends results in an
ability to provide unique, creative research solutions. Areas of
specialty include concept/message development, advertising
assessment, tracking, and longitudinal health research.
Ben Shooner has been promoted to account manager. Shooner has
over 10 years of marketing research experience and most recently
held the position of project director. Prior to that, he was a team
leader at MRSI's national telephone interviewing center. In his new
role, Shooner will oversee ongoing quantitative studies in addition
to providing client service and analytic support.
Kelli Barger has been promoted to tab programmer. Barger joined
MRSI in 2006 as an interviewer in MRSI's national telephone
interviewing center and since then has held the positions of senior
team leader and assistant manager at the telephone center. Barger
is now at the company's corporate headquarters and her
responsibilities include running data transformations and
tabulations using SPSS Dimensions and outputting tables to HTML,
Excel and PowerPoint.
MRSI Promotes Brett Simpson to Methodologist
Simpson joined MRSI in 2004 as an analyst where he utilized his
statistical expertise to analyze data and interpret results into
actionable solutions for our clients. Most recently, Simpson held
the position of marketing sciences consultant where he provided
support on research design and complex statistical analysis for
MRSI's sales team and research clients.
Simpson's primary responsibilities in the methodologist role
include reviewing sampling designs for custom research projects,
designing/executing internal research on research efforts and
presenting research on research findings at industry conferences,
in addition to client consulting and assisting with new product
development initiatives.
Prior to MRSI, Simpson was a marketing research analyst at
Catalina Marketing Research Solutions. Simpson has a master's of
applied statistics from The Ohio State University, along with a
bachelor's in mathematics and a bachelor's in engineering
technology from Shawnee State University.
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