Former Kantar and Nielsen leader joins MarketCast to lead the company’s advertising research and measurement portfolio

Los Angeles, Calif. – December 13, 2022 – MarketCast today announced Amy Fenton is joining its leadership team as its new Head of Ad Solutions. In this role, Fenton will head all MarketCast’s advertising research, which today spans the entire advertising lifecycle, from early creative concepts and copy testing to in-market advertising and campaign measurement, including full-blown advertising attribution.

Fenton brings more than two decades of advertising and consumer research experience to MarketCast. Prior to joining the company, Fenton was the Chief Client Officer for Kantar North America, where she led the client service teams responsible for managing the company’s top brand and advertiser relationships. Before Kantar, Fenton served in research, client service, and marketing leadership roles at Ipsos, and before that, spent more than two decades at Nielsen on the “Buy” side of its business (now NielsenIQ). A strong supporter of women leaders in research, Fenton began her career at Procter and Gamble.

“Amy is one of the best and brightest leaders in advertising research today, having spent decades working on all sides of the business,” said John Batter, CEO of MarketCast. “Her experience guiding large research and client-focused teams in service of the biggest brands on the planet will be invaluable to MarketCast as we continue to aggressively innovate and grow our Ad Solutions portfolio and challenge the industry incumbents.”

Fenton will take charge of MarketCast’s Ad Solutions organization, which includes more than 200 advertising researchers and a portfolio of world-class ad research products, including those from MarketCast’s recent acquisitions of Phoenix Marketing International, Communicus, and Invoke. Fenton will also partner with MarketCast’s product, technology, and data science teams to further evolve its advertising solutions, helping to fuse traditional quantitative and qualitative research methods with big behavioral data to deliver transparency across the entire marketing funnel.

“I was drawn to MarketCast’s vision for next-generation ad research and their passion for pairing great tech platforms and data science with the expertise of real advertising researchers,” said Fenton. “What MarketCast is creating has the power to transform how ad research is done, delivering to CMOs what they crave most, lightening quick data with thoughtful insights, to help them pivot or double down on their ad strategies.”

MarketCast’s Ad Solutions support the entire advertising lifecycle and include MarketCast Ad Effect for pre-market ad testing and research, and MarketCast Brand Effect (formerly Nielsen TV Brand Effect), which is considered the standard for measuring ad recall and resonance for ads on linear and CTV. Combined with its other advertising research products, MarketCast now tests and measures more than 40,000 ads annually for top brands, sports leagues, movie studios, and streamers, gathering critical audience feedback about advertising storylines, creative elements, and messaging.

MarketCast accelerates its advertising effectiveness research, testing, and measurement with the addition of Phoenix’s people and platforms

Los Angeles, Calif. – March 24, 2022 – MarketCast today announced the acquisition of Phoenix Marketing International, a leading research and analytics provider that specializes in advertising measurement. With Phoenix, MarketCast is accelerating its advertising effectiveness expertise, and gaining a powerful portfolio of research products that span the entire advertising lifecycle, from identifying what consumers think about pre-released ads to measuring how ads influence consumer beliefs and behaviors.

As media consumption shifts, advertisers are challenged to deliver the right marketing messages and creative to engage and convert audiences. Phoenix is known for its lightning-quick ad testing and measurement insights. The company’s Phoenix Brand Effect platform (formerly Nielsen TV Brand Effect) is considered the standard for measuring ad performance, including the influence of ads on consumer affinity and consideration, and purchase intent and lift. Today, the company tests and measures thousands of ads annually, gathering critical feedback about advertising storylines, creative elements, and messaging from core audience segments.

“The acquisition of Phoenix supports MarketCast’s vision of creating the most tech and data-forward research business on the planet, where primary research is combined with big data to determine what fans watch, buy, and listen to most, and why they choose to watch, buy, and listen” said John Batter, CEO of MarketCast. “We see tremendous opportunity to bring these two businesses together, combining our unique media research and big data expertise to innovate new ad effectiveness solutions.”

Combined, MarketCast now boasts more than 100 technologists and data scientists and 400 quantitative and qualitative researchers skilled in media and brand advertising research and analytics. Phoenix will benefit from MarketCast’s big data expertise, including its Smart TV and ad attribution measurement capabilities, to deliver even more value to advertising clients. Together, MarketCast will help advertisers and media companies uncover deeper audience insights, with more granularity, to better understand and predict advertising performance.

“We are very excited to join MarketCast, a team that shares our common values, passion, and vision for the future of advertising research and technology,” said Al DeCotiis, Founder and CEO of Phoenix. “With a powerful portfolio of media and advertising research and a record of working with the biggest names in entertainment, sports, and technology, MarketCast is the ideal home for Phoenix’s people, platforms and clients, and we look forward to beginning this new chapter of growth and innovation together.”

MarketCast is building upon an already solid foundation in advertising effectiveness in media, entertainment, and sports, which today includes more than 3,000 TV and digital ads tested annually with millions of fans. The addition of Phoenix helps MarketCast expand its measurement beyond media and entertainment to support large brand advertisers, including leading telecommunications companies, automakers, financial services, and CPG brands. It also introduces Phoenix’s clients to MarketCast’s quantitative and qualitative research, which is trusted by top media and technology companies.

The Phoenix team, which includes researchers, data analysts, product leaders, and engineers, will join a growing MarketCast organization, which features leaders from Nielsen, Gracenote, Omnicom, Comscore, Material+, Kantar, Netflix, and Dreamworks. Earlier this year, MarketCast acquired real-time entertainment research platform, Invoke, and, in late 2020, acquired and integrated data science leader, Deductive.

MarketCast’s Zoë Friend takes on new role to expand MarketCast’s Content Insights practice as Hall and Partners leader, Jenna Lauer, joins MarketCast to lead Research and Insights

Los Angeles, Calif. – February 16, 2022 – MarketCast today announced Jenna Lauer is joining its leadership team as its new Head of Brand and Custom Research, while current MarketCast research leader, Zoë Friend, will head up a newly formed MarketCast Content Insights practice.

Jenna joins MarketCast from Hall & Partners, an Omnicom research business, where she served as Managing Partner for nearly a decade. While there, she led Hall and Partners’ West Coast (U.S) teams, which counted top consumer brands, video games publishers, and automakers as research clients. With a career spanning qualitative, quantitative, social, and mobile research, as well as agency advertising, Jenna has deep experience managing large research programs and teams. In her new role, Jenna will be responsible for growing MarketCast’s research practice, innovating its methodologies, and expanding its team of world-class researchers.

“Jenna is a research powerhouse, having led research and insights for some of the world’s biggest consumer brands,” said John Batter, CEO of MarketCast. “Jenna’s addition to our team will help MarketCast continue to innovate its research and insights practice, bringing proven consumer research methodologies together with advanced data science and analytics to help our clients better understand who their fans are and how they engage with their products, brands, and content.”

MarketCast’s recent acquisition of real-time research platform, Invoke, expands the company’s content research and testing capabilities into longer-form media, including pre-released streaming and TV series (pilots and episodes), movies, and podcasts. MarketCast’s Zoë Friend has decades of experience in entertainment research, which includes leading research for groundbreaking original series and movies for Netflix and Paramount, making her the ideal person to lead this new MarketCast team.

“Having spent years on the studio side of content creation, I can think of no better person to partner with on media testing and research than Zoë Friend,” said Batter. “Zoë understands the pressure facing today’s content creators and programmers, and can deliver them smarter, more strategic audience insights to guide their biggest content development and distribution decisions.”

The addition of Invoke’s real-time online research platform enables MarketCast to grow its entertainment research and content testing for streaming and broadcast series

Los Angeles, Calif. – January 26, 2022 – MarketCast today announced the acquisition of Invoke, a research and content testing platform that serves many of the world’s top video streaming services and broadcasters. The addition of Invoke’s real-time audience research platform lets MarketCast expand its industry-leading media and entertainment research into audience testing for pre-release streaming and broadcast content, including series concepts and episodes.

The rise of streaming services has changed every aspect of entertainment, yet many areas of entertainment research have been slow to innovate. With competition growing for content and fans, it’s critical that researchers, creators, and marketers gather data and insights both faster and with more granularity across wider audience demographics. Invoke’s content testing transforms how streaming and TV content is screened with fans prior to release. It leverages the speed and scale of cloud computing to recruit diverse audiences from broader demographics, geographies, and fandom cohorts, and automates the process of analyzing their input and feedback.

“The acquisition of Invoke is transformative for MarketCast and the media and entertainment research segments we serve, helping the industry move fandom research for streaming and TV series completely online where speed and scale wins,” said John Batter, CEO of MarketCast. “With Invoke, we continue to invest in research innovation to provide our clients the very best platforms and tools to conduct research and advanced analytics smarter, faster and with more depth to meet the needs of a dynamically changing entertainment business.”

Invoke moves entertainment content research beyond physical screenings, allowing hundreds of audience members to participate in concept and episodic online screenings together in real-time. The platform includes chat and discussion features supported by advanced Ai to interpret and analyze fan feedback and commentary. Combined, Invoke provides studio leadership and creative talent near-instantaneous feedback about how their content is performing and resonating with fans, allowing them to make more informed greenlighting, storyline, character, and marketing decisions with speed.

“MarketCast’s focus on fandom research and entertainment and advertising content testing makes it a natural home for the Invoke team and platform,” said Gigi Wang, CEO of Invoke. “We are confident MarketCast can innovate and drive growth for Invoke’s people, products and platform, and will continue to realize our vision of leveraging technology to transform streaming and broadcast research.”

Today, MarketCast screens and tests more than 3,000 movie, streaming series, and TV ads annually with millions of fans around the globe. The company’s research methodologies, technology, and database of historic benchmarks are trusted by every major studio and streaming service. In addition, MarketCast’s quantitative and qualitative research helps shape the future of the most beloved movie and TV franchises, characters, and storylines on the big screen and beyond. The addition of Invoke lets MarketCast grow its online qualitative research capabilities for longer form content, from early creative concepts through series distribution.

Invoke’s product, technology, and research teams will join a growing MarketCast organization, which includes former leaders from Netflix, Nielsen, Gracenote, NRG, LRW, Dreamworks and Comscore. Last year, MarketCast integrated its acquisitions of data science leader, Deductive, social digital opinion measurement firm, Fizziology, custom research and insights leader, Insight Strategy Group, and Turnkey Sports Intelligence under the MarketCast brand and leadership team. Combined, the new MarketCast organization provides the scale to support the largest media brands and sports leagues on the planet with the speed and agility to focus on solving unique client business challenges.

Palmer to lead all product management and development as MarketCast’s first Chief Product Officer

Los Angeles, Calif. – December 1, 2021 – MarketCast today announced the appointment of Carmen Palmer to its senior leadership team as its first Chief Product Officer. In this new role for MarketCast, Palmer will be responsible for building upon MarketCast’s world-class research, insights, and data science foundation to deliver a powerful portfolio of new data-driven, scalable products and services to serve the world’s top media companies, sports leagues, and brands.

“We believe the future of research and analytics will be powered by fusing primary research methodologies with big data sources and technology, and Carmen’s addition to our leadership team fast tracks our efforts and vision,” said John Batter, CEO of MarketCast. “Carmen’s experience managing large product teams inside big media businesses, and working against tough deadlines with multiple data partners, makes her the perfect fit for our growing team and roadmap.”

Palmer joins MarketCast from NBCUniversal, where she spent the last several years on NBC’s Content Distribution Digital Products team developing and launching content initiatives and data and analytics tools on the broadcast and streaming sides of the business. Most recently, she oversaw the development and launch of NBC’s platform for distributing 2020 Tokyo Olympics content to millions of cable TV viewers. Before NBCU, Palmer was at Yahoo! for nearly a decade where she managed product teams responsible for creating new products and services to optimize and measure online advertising campaigns.

“MarketCast is known for helping some of the biggest media businesses and brands on the planet understand what inspires and drives fandom,” said Palmer. “The company’s unique combination of world-class consumer research and insights, and deep social analytics and data science is becoming essential for every business trying to understand how their audiences’ habits and behaviors are evolving. I’m looking forward to driving MarketCast’s product vision forward, using big data and technology to build new, innovative solutions that shape our clients’ strategies, inform their decisions, and bring them closer to their fans.”

Palmer comes to a growing MarketCast organization, which includes former leaders from Netflix, Nielsen, LRW, IPSOS, Inscape, NBCU, DreamWorks and Comscore. In 2020, MarketCast acquired data science services leader, Deductive, and integrated its previous acquisitions of social digital opinion measurement firm, Fizziology, custom research and insights leader, Insight Strategy Group, and Turnkey Sports Intelligence. Combined, the new MarketCast organization provides the scale to support the largest media brands and sports leagues on the planet with the speed and agility to focus on solving unique client business challenges.

About MarketCast
MarketCast research, analytics and data science fuels fandom for leading studios, entertainment platforms, sports, and lifestyle brands. Our unique mix of research analytics is combined with big data science to provide clients powerful insights to inform their biggest business decisions. Today, MarketCast counts some of the biggest names in entertainment as clients, including leading Hollywood studios, streaming services, video games publishers, lifestyle brands and sports leagues and teams.

MarketCast Launches Sponsor Analytics to Pinpoint the Impact of Sports Sponsorships on a Brand’s Bottom Line

Innovative measurement solution uses advanced data science to quantify the true business impact of sports sponsorship investments for sponsors and leagues

Los Angeles, Calif. – Sept. 29, 2021 – MarketCast is changing the sports sponsorship game forever with the introduction of a new measurement solution to quantify the business impact of sports sponsorships for the first time. Through a unique mix of big data analytics and primary research, MarketCast Sponsor Analytics captures key metrics that sports sponsors need most, including how sponsorships directly lead to an increase in sponsor sales and revenue, as well as effect brand affinity, awareness, and consideration.

Sports sponsorship spending in North America is estimated to reach nearly $21B annually by 2023, according to a recent PwC study. Brands sponsoring top professional sports leagues in the U.S. include the world’s leading consumer packaged goods manufacturers, mobile phone providers, financial services, automakers and more. Unfortunately, for these mega-brands, most methods of measuring the effectiveness of their sponsorship investments do little, if anything, to identify the impact on a sponsor’s bottom line.

MarketCast Sponsor Analytics analyzes data from millions of Smart TVs and connected devices, Web sites, social media platforms, and retail and online sales sources to identify fan actions and behaviors, looking at their exposure to sports sponsorships and subsequent purchases. This is fused with MarketCast’s world-class primary research that delves into the heads of sports fans to understand what motivates them to support a sponsor’s brand and products, and how sponsorships impact their beliefs. Combined, MarketCast provides brands and rights holders a clear picture of how effective sponsorships are at reaching consumers and influencing them to take action.

Upon launching this week, two leading North American professional sports leagues and a major consumer packaged goods brand have already embraced MarketCast Sponsor Analytics to measure their sponsorships for the 2021-22 sports seasons, with more on-boarding soon.

“As brand marketers face increasing pressure to implement strategies that have a direct impact on revenue, sports sponsorship measurement must evolve,” said Lyndon Campbell, Corp. SVP and General Manager of Sports and Brands, MarketCast. “MarketCast Sponsor Analytics delivers a true holistic view of sponsorship performance for the first time, helping sponsors pinpoint how their investments with sports leagues and teams are actually driving incremental sales and other business outcomes, while also influencing love for their brands.”

For sponsors, MarketCast Sponsor Analytics delivers a single, all-powerful analytics solution that uncovers how sports sponsorships impact brand awareness, affinity, and consideration, as well as drive key business outcomes, including sales lift and subscription growth. By contrast, for sports leagues and rights holders, MarketCast helps them understand the power and value of their assets by identifying how on-field signage, jersey logos, official partnerships, and rights holder intellectual property directly impact sales and brand metrics for their sponsor clients.

To learn more about MarketCast Sponsor Analytics, click here.

About MarketCast
MarketCast research, analytics and data science fuels fandom for leading studios, entertainment platforms, sports, and lifestyle brands. Our unique mix of primary research is combined with advanced data science to provide clients powerful insights to inform their biggest business decisions. Today, MarketCast counts some of the most prominent names in entertainment as clients, including leading Hollywood studios, streaming services, video games publishers, brands and sports leagues and teams.