I have the pleasure of announcing the creation at Repères of an Industry and Services quantitative department, headed by Christophe Ralle who recently joined us and will provide Repères clients with the benefit of his experience in these areas.
Christophe’s team will work in perfect synergy with the other departments at Repères: qualitative studies, observation studies, community management, data mining and modelling.
The creation of this new department is consistent with our intention to develop innovative research in all sectors of activity.

. We have published the results of a new Repères Second Life study: “Purchase Habits”, to know everything there is to know about the shopping habits of SL residents, ranging from the frequency with which they visit shops to the psychological price of clothing for avatars. You can read a complete report on the study here.

. Marie Juan Lallier has published a note in her blog "Pourquoi Second Life n’est pas une déviance ? "(Why Second Life isn’t a deviance?)

. The apéros du jeudi organised on Thursday 22 February, by Jeremy Dumont from the agency pourquoitucours gave me the opportunity to share a few thoughts about Second Life (the summaries of all the talks are available on the blog levidepoche) and especially to explain what, according to us, constitutes the three main areas of opportunity for brands in Second Life:
• communication: Second Life can enable brands to offer an experience of immersion in the values of the brand via a site presenting the brand’s platform in an interactive and fun manner,
• e-commerce: Second Life, often considered as the future of the Web, is characteristic of what could be the future of e-commerce, more human and more experience oriented,
• lastly, an area which especially interests us at Repères Second Life, this platform gives us an opportunity of offering brands protocols for the co-creation of products and services: this is a typical example of participative marketing, with creative residents who wish to express themselves and to act and whom the brands will be able to call on in order to develop their offers.

The Emotional Monitoring® tool was developed by Repères in order to measure the emotional bond between consumers and a brand. What we analyse with this technique is not what the brand seeks to convey from a concrete point of view but rather the real emotions it arouses in the mind of the consumer. These emotions concern the imaginary as well as affective dimensions and condition the possibility of identification. They are more often unconscious, but they truly establish the bond with the brand.
We thought that the mechanism operating between a brand and its consumers could also operate between electors and a candidate, and we sought to test this tool on two political figures: Ségolène Royale and Nicolas Sarkozy (selected because of their strong media presence at the end of 2006, however, we would be glad to pursue our investigations on the other candidates…).
With our partner in the field TOLUNA, we therefore asked the electors to imagine society governed by one of the other of the two candidates.
The analysis allowed us to identify which values, which dynamics and which level of credibility the electors attributed to each of the candidates, and what type of emotional bond was established (experience, trust, adhesion).
In addition, the global and comparative analysis shed light on the French people themselves and on what motivates them today: what they consider indispensable for them, what they are prepared to accept and their conception of life and society.
You will find attached in PDF format a summary of the results of this study: "What kind of society do you imagine when you think of: Ségolène Royal / Nicolas Sarkozy?”

In preparation for the workshop organised on 23 January by Adetem, François Laurent had sent this autumn to fifteen research institutes a letter accompanied by a document drafted by François Attali evoking the recent contributions made by cognitive sciences to the subject of memory, namely the distinction between the different types of memory: implicit and explicit, the latter splitting up into semantic memory – concepts – and episodic memory – events.
In substance this letter from Adetem proposed to the research institutes to come and present at the special workshop in what ways their advertising pre-test methods currently included, or did not include, new findings in cognitive sciences.
Repères as the French representative of the international Add+Impact method, was naturally among the recipients of this call for contributions.
Finally, there were few of us who responded and seized this opportunity to talk in front of a substantial number of clients. Was this due to the traditionally busy schedule at the end of the year? Or was it because cognitive sciences call into question in an overly radical manner current advertising pre-test practises?
Whatever the case, the three presentations selected, by Benoit Tranzer for Ipsos ASI, Philippe Jourdan for Panel on the web and myself for Repères Add+Impact, presented three very different methodologies.
As far as Repères is concerned, this presentation offered an opportunity to stress the assets of Add+Impact, a method which, from its inception by Spike Craphorn in 1991, integrated the findings of Antonio Damasio on the part played by emotions.
The aim for us was also to insist on three major implications of findings in cognitive sciences on methodological choices in pre-tests:
. models based on the hierarchy of effects (think => Feel => Do, AIDA…), long considered as the best modelling of the impact of advertising are invalidated, or their relevance is limited to exceptional cases; thus the memorisation of the advertising should not be considered as a key indicator in pre-tests, these should focus more on the effect of the advertisement on the bond with the brand,
. at the same time questions concerning appreciation of the advertisement in itself, for a long time ignored in pre-tests, must not be neglected since they are good predictors of the future Attention that the consumer will pay to this advertisement,
. lastly the insertion of the advertisement to be tested within a reconstructed advertising slot, is to be avoided: memorisation scores after such reconstructed slots not being indicative of memorisation in real situations (to generate the Attention, the objective is not to emerge from among an ambient noise but to be capable of entering into emotional connection with the target). In addition in terms of content and activated associations, the other advertisements on the screen will interfere and render the diagnosis more difficult.
It should be noted that many pre-test tools still used today are in total contradiction with these findings, namely via the use of advertising screens and the focus on memorisation.
For more details, please consult the document of our presentation.

To find out more about advertising research and cognitive sciences, I recommend the excellent book written by Erik Du Plessis, The advertised Mind (Cf advance sheets attached) .

The interest previously shown by brands and the media in Second Life has been confirmed. On Christmas day, we had the pleasure of discovering the television report by Soir 3 on Second Life, which included sequences shot at Repères and a short excerpt of the interview I had given on this occasion. This report can be seen on YouTube.

At the beginning of the New Year, François Laurent also interviewed me on his Blog marketingisdead.