Hofmeyr Refines TNS ConversionModel

A year after returning to TNS Jan Hofmeyr has refined his ConversionModel, to help clients identify how people feel about their brand and determine how external barriers like price and availability affect consumer spending.

The ConversionModel was developed while Hofmeyr (pictured) was working at Customer Equity Company (acquired by TNS in 2000), as a way of rationalising the inconsistency between customers' expressed satisfaction levels and actual repeat purchase behaviour. He returned to TNS from Synovate last autumn with a remit to build the firm's approach to behaviour change and develop the ideas contained in the Model.

TNS says the updated version identifies the barriers which may prevent people from buying the brands they want and assesses people's emotional connection with brands, in order to predict the reasons preventing them from spending more on them. The company then uses these insights to place a monetary value on how much a brand stands to gain by overcoming these barriers.

Hofmeyr comments: 'With the ConversionModel, we can combine our insight into sliding customer spending within a category and the market factors that result in that slide, to enable our clients to fine tune their marketing strategies. There are brands that stand to gain millions of dollars by really understanding the barriers that they need to overcome.'

According to the results of TNS' recent Commitment Economy study of 39,000 consumers, the ConversionModel shows that on 42% of occasions, people buy a brand that is not their first choice because of factors such as affordability, availability, and the influence of others in the household.

Web site: www.tnsglobal.com .