CHICAGO and ORLANDO, Fla., March 4, 2008 – Information Resources, Inc. (IRI), the leading global provider of consumer, shopper, and market insights for consumer packaged goods (CPG), retail, and healthcare industries is integrating Umbria’s social media research capabilities into the IRI New Product Innovation and Launch Solutions suite of services.
With this integration, IRI customers can glean product and industry intelligence by ”listening” to unfiltered conversations taking place on social networking sites, blogs, chatrooms, message boards, and other consumer-generated media. Customers can then integrate this research data with other research to develop products more in tune with consumer interests, as well as launch and promote them more effectively.
Umbria’s patent-pending technology mines market insights from online conversations and helps companies understand who is talking by determining the gender and demographic age (Gen Y, Gen X, Boomer, etc.) of the speaker. Umbria can also distinguish positive or negative sentiment and track it over periods of time.
“Technology can leverage what we all intuitively know,” said Umbria Chief Executive Officer Janet Eden-Harris. “Men and women actually express themselves differently. For instance, I speak differently than my 20-year-old daughter. Algorithms can pick up the variations in text phrases to make very good predictions about the gender and generational age of a blogger. Armed with that knowledge, we can tell clients both what targeted people are saying and what issues matter most to each consumer segment.”
IRI’s New Product Innovation and Launch Solutions helps CPG and retail companies gain critical product insights, such as:
- What people are saying – unprompted – about a brand
- Market opportunities for new products
- New product ideas
- Key customer information to identify both existing and new market segments
IRI’s New Product Innovation and Launch Solutions suite includes established, industry-leading solutions, including IRI Behavior Scan®, IntroSource, AtittudeLink™, IntroCast™, Product Locator™ and New Product Profiler™. These products support each stage of the product development lifecycle, from product conceptualization through launch.
“People are increasingly using blogs, social networking sites, chatrooms, and other online locations to share likes, dislikes, observations, compliments, complaints, and other information about both new and existing products,” said IRI President of Business and Consumer Insights, Sunil (Sunny) Garga. “Integrating Umbria’s sophisticated information assets into our New Product Innovation and Launch Solutions gives IRI customers a distinct competitive advantage. No other offering available today combines the ability to both search and segment unstructured data, as well as identify age, gender, and other critical demographics about participants.”
About Umbria
Umbria is unique in its ability to assess both what is being said, and who is doing the speaking in the online world. Umbria’s patent-pending technology enables the company to classify posts and estimate gender and age of the speaker, as well as rapidly identify and eliminate bogus spam posts. Umbria analyzes voices of the online community by using proprietary Natural Language Processing and machine learning algorithms to dissect the who, what and why of online opinion, offering in-depth insights for some of the world’s leading brands. For more information on Umbria, please visit www.umbrialistens.com.
About Information Resources, Inc.
Information Resources, Inc. (IRI) is the world’s leading global provider of consumer, shopper, and retail market intelligence and insights, empowering consumer packaged goods (CPG), retail and healthcare companies to grow their business profitably in a complex marketplace. Driving breakthrough growth in the industries it serves, the company’s portfolio of services, solutions, and technology enable leading retailers and their suppliers around the globe to see what they are missing, act faster with greater confidence, and win at the shelf. Ninety-five percent of the FORTUNE Global 500 in CPG and retail leverage IRI to power their business. For more information, visit: http://www.infores.com.
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CONTACTS:
John McIndoe
E-mail: john.mcindoe@infores.com
Phone: (312) 474-3862
Fax: (312) 474-2512
Rebecca Scanlan
GroundFloor Media for Umbria
Phone: (303) 733-0328
rscanlan@groundfloormedia.com