Forrester Turning its Attention to CGM Research
Suresh Vittal has joined Forrester, from SPSS it seems, and wades right into the deep-end, asking the critical questions about the measurement of consumer-generated media:
Will CGM increase in relevance as a customer insight forum?
Who, within the organization, will own the process and tools of analyzing CGM?
How will the learnings be integrated into the current enterprise analytic platforms?
How does this change the roles of creative, analytics and brand marketing?
An interesting aspect of his post, is the companies that he points to as potential measurers, companies like his previous gig, SPSS. These are pretty serious analytic tools, capable of diving not only structure, but also trends. I haven't heard these vendors brought up before in the CGM/WOM space before, but it introduces some interesting ideas. Of course, I don't know if these vendors have the spidering ability of companies like BuzzMetrics or Cymfony. That is, getting the data into the system may be difficult.
A conversation is forming, down in the comments section.
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I think hiring someone from SPSS for CGM research is a very positive move for Forrester...SPSS software is the gold standard for statistical data analysis.
Hi - just to be clear - Forrester will continue to analyse issues in CGM and measurement, adding Suresh to the team to deliver deeper research insights.
The title on this post could be interpreted to mean we intend to launch a business that's competitive to Nielsen BuzzMetrics or Cymfony. That's not the case. The research we're doing now is intended to help our clients learn more about the space, not to build an internal business. For example, our current brand monitoring wave will help marketers evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of vendors in the space. It may also be used by vendors to help improve their competitive offerings. It won't be used to gain NDA information that gets digested corporately by Forrester to build a new business.
If that were the case, we'd be destroying the foundation of trust that allows us to advise hundreds of clients every day on critical business issues. Not worth it.
Anything is possible - e.g. Nokia started off in forestry and moved on to mobile handsets. But not everything is likely.
Sorry about any confusion. Gary, I'm pretty sure you didn't mean to go in this direction, but perhaps a clarifying post would help.