The most celebrated new species discovered in 2016 was the Sorting Hat Spider, which scientists came upon in a forest in India. They named it after a wizard’s hat in the “Harry Potter” saga, because the little arachnid’s conical torso uncannily resembles a wizard’s hat.

So what in the world does a newfound spider have to do with consumer insights? It wouldn’t have happened if these scientists hadn’t had the good sense to venture into the most promising habitat for making discoveries. And great research won’t happen if you don’t venture into the natural habitats where consumers naturally gather.

That’s the core idea behind an innovation called Emotional Brand Connections Social Media Ad Testing. Inject the ad you want to test into the natural habitat most-favored by today’s mobile consumers – their social news feeds. By ComScore’s estimate, 70% of social media use takes place via a mobile app. And only an in-app mobile research method such as EBC Social Media Ad Testing can let you access mobile panelists in the mobile environments they inhabit. Here’s how it works:

• Use panel demographics to identify a test audience of mobile consumers who are likely to be interested in the product you’re advertising.

• You’ll find your target sample fully represented among the 1,000,000 active users of Surveys On The Go® – the mobile research app that powers EBC Social Media Ad Testing.

• Inject your test ad into these targeted consumers’ social media news feeds. It’s just a test – but recipients won’t know that. Because it fits in naturally with all the other content in their news feeds, your target audience will assume your test is just one more ad like all the others they get.

• Now observe ad-recipients’ natural behavior by capturing passive data from their phones. You’ll track whether they’ve interacted with your test ad – and how. Did they click or enlarge the ad? Listen to its audio? Like or share it?

• Next, survey the same ad recipients, using advanced, in-app mobile research technology. Ask about whatever you need to know – including questions about brand and product recall and intent to purchase. Ask and receive consumers’ detailed evaluations of what works or doesn’t work about the ad’s concept and creative content.

By unobtrusively injecting your test ads into mobile consumers' natural social habitats, you’ll extract quality data and insights that will help you find your way through the forest of mobile social media advertising. EBC Brand Connections Social Ad Testing will help you gain confidence that your ad campaign will drive brand awareness, interest and intent to buy – or alert you that the ad isn't quite working and needs adjusting and further testing. This may sound like wizardry, but it’s really just a matter of sound research science, with innovative technology and methodology uniting to solve one of today's most pressing problems for brands and advertising professionals. To learn more, just contact us at sales@mfour.com.

(L-R) Julie Huang, Julian Ramirez, Ana Truong

MFour continues to expand its survey development and fielding capabilities with three new hires who’ll ensure successful projects for its fast-growing client roster.

On the development end, Julie Huang joins the Labs & Engineering team as a Tech Lead who’ll guide a team of engineers through fielding-related projects. She previously was a web developer for Fuhu, Inc.,  and was a project manager for development of an educational app for the nabi brand tablet for kids. Julie earned a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from the University of California, Irvine; in her spare time she’s avidly studying Japanese and Korean languages, continuing a passion that grew out of college courses. 

Ana Truong and Julian Ramirez are the newest additions to MFour’s Operations team. Ana is a Research Manager, working closely with clients and MFour teams to ensure project feasibility, appropriate sample specifications and effective survey design. She previously did entertainment-related research at MarketCast and Ipsos, where she worked on ad-testing, long-term tracking and concept studies for major clients. Ana holds a Bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Davis and a Master’s degree from California State University, Long Beach -- both in Psychology.

Julian comes to MFour as a Fielding Expert; previously he was a production manager for Scientific Telephone Samples. He’s an avid soccer player and has enough leftover energy to care for two puppies -- Leo the beagle and Penelope the English bulldog.

Welcome aboard, Julia, Ana and Julian!

MFour will be at the OmniShopper Conference in Minneapolis, June 20-22. Stop by our table and talk about your research needs with the industry's most experienced suppliers of advanced mobile survey technology and panel solutions. 

Look for us at the ARF Conference 2017, June 12-13 in Jersey City. Michael Smith, our Chief Product Officer & Director of Panel, will give a presentation Monday, June 12 on the hot topic of mobile advertising measurement.

Here's your Friday roundup of 3 items from the MFour blog to keep you up to speed on mobile.

How Mobile Ad Testing Immunizes Campaigns Against Failure

How To Make Brand Messaging Succeed on Social Media

Mobile GeoLocation Stands on the Shoulders of MR Giants

And here's a Friday tune to remind you it's June.

There’s nothing more urgent for insights professionals than finding ways to mine reliable data about consumer attitudes from the booming mobile social media landscape. Facebook alone generates more than $22 billion a year in mobile advertising revenue – just one sign of how crucial it is to meet consumers in the social space that occupies so much of their time and attention.

One newsworthy development is the establishment of a U.S. group called the Social Media Research Association, whose aims include helping to “connect…members with the latest tech platforms…[and] guidelines for best practices.”

Another is the debut of a new technique – reported on by Research Live and other industry publications – for testing social media advertising content before a campaign begins. Launched by MFour in partnership with Kantar Added Value, it’s called Emotional Brand Connections Social Media Ad Testing.

Brands and ad agencies can inject test ads into targeted mobile consumers’ actual news feeds to understand whether the concept and content drive awareness and favorable attitudes toward brand and product. Advertisers can then reliably fine-tune, then retest their social media campaigns to achieve maximum effectiveness. The difference-maker is having your test ads appear in consumers’ news feeds as natural content, indistinguishable from the regular ads they receive. Bias goes down, lifting your understanding of how ads really will fare in the mobile social media environment where your brand needs to thrive.

For the Research Live report, just click here. And to learn more, just contact us at sales@mfour.com.

The old saying that “a picture is worth a thousand words” sells pictures short. Today, pictures can connect in an instant with millions, if not billions of eyes, thanks to the smartphones that dominate how consumers access social media and streamed entertainment.

The question for brands and advertisers, then, is what kinds of pictures they need to paint with video ads, mobile banner ads, film trailers and other visual messaging. Clearly, just throwing videos and pictures into the maw of social media, smartphone apps and the mobile web is an awfully haphazard and unpromising way to approach an advertising campaign. 

But what if you could test those visuals in advance by injecting them into the very mobile environment in which they’ll either succeed or fail at driving sales? You’d know whether the pictures you’re painting with your ads are really telling your story to mobile consumers – or even being noticed by them. And if these test consumers tell you your planned campaign is falling short, that will give you a chance to revise and retest until they tell you you’ve gotten it right.

If this sounds good, then why not do it? The technology and representative panel needed to test any kind of visual content with mobile consumers are available right now. And  here’s how it works:

• On the technical side, smartphones’ powerful media capabilities allow you to test commercials, film trailers, and any other visual marketing content by injecting them directly into the phones of consumers you most want to reach.

• On the consumer panel side, you can reach more than one million active members who fully represent your target demographic and are eager to engage with surveys via a mobile research app.

• The app receives your test ad, the targeted panelists are notified, and you’ll soon be getting insights into how well the ad is performing with precisely those consumers you most need to reach.

In this era of proprietary content escaping and going viral prematurely, you need assurances that the ads you’re injecting into phones can’t be shared or transmitted. These safeguards are built into the process – recipients will enjoy seeing and commenting on your test content, but they can’t download, share, or take screenshots of them. Like an ephemeral private Snapchat or Instagram post, it’s seen by the eyes authorized to see it, then disappears.

The newest addition to visual-injection research is Emotional Brand Connections Social Media Mobile Ad Testing. Social media mobile advertising is crucial – for Facebook, it represents 85% of ad revenue – so it’s imperative that you get an advance read on how effective your planned campaigns on social media will fare.  With EBC Social Media Ad Testing you’ll get natural, unbiased advance data from the same environment in which the ad must live or die. Think of injected test ads as social media mobile advertising’s canaries in a coal mine. If they flourish with your targeted respondents, then your campaign’s ready to roll. If not, you’ve got a warning that will help you fix what’s wrong, test it again, and feel confident that you’ve come up with a mobile social ad that’s primed to succeed.  For more information about mobile content injection, just contact us at sales@mfour.com.

Everything old is new again, and that includes market research. The objective of understanding consumers’ motivations, feelings and behaviors hasn’t changed over the hundred years or so since systematic market research began. But technology changes constantly, giving researchers ever more powerful tools to harness.

Chris St. Hilaire, MFour’s co-founder and CEO, takes a look at how the past and present overlap in an essay that’s just been published on the GreenBook Blog. What did a dozen researchers who fanned out across a town in rural Kansas in 1920 with clipboards and pencils have in common with today’s most technologically savvy insights experts? To find out, just click here.

Here's your Friday roundup of 3 items from the MFour blog to keep you up to speed on mobile.

Mission Possible: Quality 20-Minute LOIs with In-App Mobile

Mission Impossible: Quality 5-Minute `Mobile Optimized' Surveys

Mobile Social Ad Testing Rides to Your Brand's Rescue

And here's an unhurried Friday tune to ease you into Memorial Day weekend.

Joseph Romano (L) and Jefren Inocando

MFour has added two new team members whose technical skills will help drive the company’s ongoing innovation of new, cutting-edge technology that advances the state of the art in mobile market research. Joseph Romano and Jefren Inocando continue a surge in hiring to meet the needs of a fast-growing client roster, as MFour seizes the opportunity for rapid growth without diminishing quality, consistency, and innovation.

Joseph joins as a Quality Assurance Engineer who will test and validate data to ensure successful research outcomes for MFour clients. He’ll also help create new automated testing features to enhance speed and efficiency. Joseph’s resume includes five years at Blizzard Entertainment, where he helped test features for multiple iterations of its World of Warcraft game. Before that he’d toured nationally and internationally as a professional World of Warcraft gamer. He holds an Associates Degree in Computer Networking Systems from ITT Technical Institute-Bensalem.

Jeffrey joins as a Software Engineer, focusing on software development. He’s a former freelance web developer and holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science from Mapua Institute of Technology.

Welcome aboard, Joseph and Jefren!