GroupM Agencies Launch Integrated Tool

The various agencies within WPP's GroupM have combined to launch Connections, an exclusive consumer-led research and communications planning tool. Connections promises to help marketers and planners to analyze and evaluate the full range of media and communications options available to brands.

Connections is powered by Millward Brown's Demand and Activation approach and uses qual and quant research, with input from sister agencies Maxus, MediaCom, Mediaedge:cia and MindShare.

Individual Connections studies will be designed around a client's marketing and communications objectives, and will make use of proprietary channel planning software, thereby allowing easy access for communications planners.

Campaign effectiveness can be measured across 40 channels including above, below the line, in-store, sponsorship, digital and others. The tool will also suggest the best mix of 'connection points' for a brand and identify the optimal budget allocation across them, using simulation software; and will identify, define and measure consumer engagement within distinct brand categories across connection points.

Connections includes a measure of channel Engagement using the findings of a study involving London-based Sadek-Wynberg, which identified four major drivers of engagement: Noticeability - how likely consumers engage with a contact point; Affinity - How likeable and trusted the contact point is; Relevance - How interested they are in the contact point; and Involvement - How deep the contact goes, leading to the consumer's inclination to act.

Irwin Gotlieb, GroupM CEO, comments: 'In today's ever changing communications world, consumers can see and interact with brands in a huge variety of places. And there are more and more brands fighting for attention, which makes it increasingly difficult to connect with consumers. By using Connections, marketers are for the first time, able to measure and optimize consumer engagement across a multitude of distinct connection points, thereby developing more efficient and effective communications campaigns suited to this new era.'

Millward Brown is online at www.millwardbrown.com and GroupM at www.groupm.com .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.