CivicScience Announces Groundbreaking Data Science Research on the Predictive Abilities of Consumers and Forecasting
Pittsburgh, PA (PRWEB) May 19, 2014 -- CivicScience, Inc., the provider of the intelligent polling and real-time consumer insights platform, the InsightStore™, today announced a consumer research methodology for improved forecasting and predictions in the field of consumer marketing and media consumption, which the company is calling Expectation Science.
Expectation Science merges large-scale data science and statistical modeling with innovative consumer survey techniques, to help marketing decision makers and researchers more accurately predict consumer demand, reaction, trends, events, and market outcomes. CivicScience’s solution leverages the company’s network of over 27 million poll respondents to find consumers with a proven aptitude for predicting events and trends across a multitude of subject areas. By profiling the best predictors in each area, the company builds intricate sampling models to improve forecasting accuracy over time.
“Techniques used to predict consumer behavior, such as looking at traditional audience ratings or historic point-of-sale data, have essentially remained unchanged for decades,” said CivicScience’s CEO and co-founder John Dick. “Rather than analyzing consumers’ past behavior, Expectation Science seeks to identify segments of consumers who will be the best predictors within a specific area, ask them predictive questions, and utilize data science to help forecast outcomes. We’re very excited to enter the next phase of working with commercial partners to apply this research towards practical business applications.”
CivicScience’s first phase of Expectation Science research was conducted over a two-year period in partnership with academic teams from Carnegie Mellon University, UCLA Anderson School of Management, Washington University of St. Louis, Microsoft Research, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, and several leading consumer brand clients. The research findings were presented at the Advertising Research Foundation’s recent annual Re:Think 2014 conference in New York City. The associated conference paper reveals how this new research technique made significant improvements over traditional methods in predicting television ratings, box office performance of movies, and consumer response to new product innovations. (The full paper can be downloaded from CivicScience’s site at: http://biz.civicscience.com/library/whitepapers/.)
“Working with CivicScience polling data, our faculty and student research project found that this new expectation-based method could dramatically improve on traditional techniques for predictive week-over-week changes in TV ratings,” said Dr. Jason Snyder, Professor of Strategy at the UCLA Anderson School of Management. “The potential of this methodology is very exciting.”
As CivicScience moves into the next phase of Expectation Science solution development, the company is seeking to partner with U.S.-based global consumer brands and media companies to further advance the practical applications of its predictive consumer research methodologies. Solution areas include forecasting of audiences and audience behavior, planning of product or service offerings, new product sales, and testing of marketing and advertising campaign concepts.
Consumer brand companies interested in working with CivicScience for Expectation Science research should visit: http://civicscience.com/whoweare/expectation-science-partner/.
About CivicScience
CivicScience, Inc. provides the leading intelligent polling and real-time insights platform, the InsightStore™. Its proprietary platform powers the world’s opinions and quickly gets that data to the decision makers who care. Every day, CivicScience polls ask millions of people questions related to thousands of topics, while its powerful data science and big data technology analyzes current consumer opinions, discovers trends as they start, and accurately predicts future behaviors and market outcomes. CivicScience polls run on hundreds of premier websites, in addition to its own public polling site at http://www.civicscience.com. CivicScience’s InsightStore™ is used by leading enterprises in marketing research, advertising, media, financial services, and political polling.
Jennifer Sikora, CivicScience, Inc., +1 (412) 260-0789, [email protected]
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