H&P Rolls Out Avatar Predictive Modelling Platform

Brand and comms research specialist Hall & Partners has partnered with tech firm Simudyne to launch a new predictive modelling and simulation tool called Avatar, through which businesses can forecast the areas that will impact most on their brands' futures.

The new Avatar platform is driven by extensive data combined with Simudyne's simulation science's platform, which delivers forecasting solutions based on algorithms that reflect reality. Through the solution, Hall & Partners creates a population of virtual people, and uses data and insights drawn from the real world, to govern their behaviour.

The firm then connects these Avatars with brands, media, and with each other, and subjects them to a range of influences such as media spend, price changes, and promotional activity. By watching the behaviour of each Avatar in the virtual world and then comparing these observations with past experience from the real world, the firm can calibrate until it recreates what happened in the past.

Experiments are run in 'virtual markets' that allow clients to repeatedly make scenario adjustments to determine the most effective ways to influence behaviour, drive sales, and increase profitability. Vanella Jackson, Global CEO at Hall & Partners comments: 'With Avatar, we are able to combine data together and create synthetic representations of the people brands are actually marketing to, and predict how marketing strategies will play out in the future.'

Web sites: www.hallandpartners.com and www.simudyne.com .