I began working on the brand monitoring Wave in May and wrapped up the research with publication of the documents today. More on the process and a pretty picture of the results on the Forrester Marketing blog. More on the personal side of the process here.
The Wave is a quite intensive piece of research. It's very process-driven which is good in some ways, bad in others. The process makes for a very rigorous analysis. It also means that there's very little time for other activities when you've got one in progress. I ran in-person "lab" evaluations with each of the seven vendors. I made 17 client reference calls with existing and former accounts. I also developed the 56 evaluation criteria (with vendor input) and scales, scoring each vendor and backing it up with written analysis. These scorecards turned into longer written documents in addition to the "long doc" that describes the brand monitoring market and process. Moreover, there was discussion at each step of the way with vendors regarding their scores and my analysis, whether fact- or opinion-based. It adds up pretty quickly.
As a result, I'm looking forward to taking a real vacation! Haven't had a full week off yet this year...
Hey, nice job on the brand monitoring tool evaluation. I have a question, however, regarding the report's distribution. I was told that the report is available for free over at Nielsen BuzzMetrics, which would seem like a major problem for current Forrester clients that pay for the report at the thousand bucks.
How exactly does that work? Is Forrester just trying to get their name out there and ease their restrictions for those mentioned in the survey (at the risk of alienating their own customers), or does Forrester intend on making the report free. Then again, I suppose if Forrester never charges for the report, they look good by appearing to charge a cool grand for it and noone is the wiser.
Either way, great job. this is a hot space and it is nice to see such a thorough job. The cost of these services makes such an evaluation crucial. I look forward to hearing more from you and Forrester on this and will be monitoring your blog from Google reader.
Posted by: Derek Tutschulte | 17 October 2006 at 07:18 PM
Hi Derek,
Fair questions.
The brand monitoring wave consists of eight parts - one main overview
document which contains the market overview and side-by-side comparison tool. Then there is a detailed scorecard for each vendor that describes particular strengths and weaknesses of their solution.
Vendors often purchase reprint rights for a period of time, six months I
think. My guess is that they would typically purchase the rights to
their own scorecard and possibly the overview. However, they can't
redistribute the comparison tool, which is important so clients can
customize the criteria based on their own needs. This is a critical
element of the Wave, which allows a client-side marketer to essentially
shortcut an evaluation process dramatically, because we've done all the
heavy research and analysis already that an RFP typically involves.
BTW Cymfony has also made reprints available through their site. I've
seen the links there and from Nielsen Buzzmetrics, but not sure exactly
what's on offer.
So hopefully that clears things up - there is no "pay to play" for
participating in a wave, nor any compensation provided to vendors for
being included. You'll never see a Wave distributed for free directly
from Forrester.
Now I have seen examples where a vendor offers reprints/excerpts on their site without purchasing the rights, which is
another matter...
Posted by: Peter Kim | 17 October 2006 at 08:28 PM