Press Release

Spaeth Inducted into Market Research Council Hall of Fame

By July 29, 2015 No Comments

RealityMine Chief Product Officer Recognized for Pioneering Contributions to Market Research Spanning Three Decades, Including Development of TouchPoints – Only Syndicated Study of Consumers’ Lives

Jim Spaeth, Chief Product Officer for RealityMine, has been inducted into the Market Research Council Hall of Fame. Spaeth was recognized for his contributions to the field of market research spanning three decades.

The announcement was made June 19th at a luncheon in New York honoring inductees. The Market Research Council’s annual Hall of Fame luncheon recognizes distinguished and outstanding accomplishments in the Market Research Industry.

Spaeth was one of the original founders of USA TouchPoints, the only syndicated study of consumers’ daily lives. TouchPoints addresses the growing challenges of understanding and acting upon the changing patterns of media use in the context of how people live their daily lives.  After successful pilot programs with CIMM (Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement) and ESPN, USA TouchPoints was launched in 2011.

RealityMine, which provides the data collection technology for the IPA’s TouchPoints program in Britain, acquired USA TouchPoints in 2013 and expanded their passive mobile measurement to the States. Spaeth serves as Chief Product Officer at RealityMine.

“Jim’s dedication and contributions to the field of market research have truly been unparalleled,” said Garry Partington, RealityMine CEO. “We are so pleased to have this honor bestowed upon our friend and colleague. There truly is no one in this industry who is more deserving of this recognition.”

Prior to joining RealityMine, Spaeth founded Sequent Partners in 2003. A highly specialized brand and media consultancy with expertise in media and cross-media applications, survey research methods, data analytic techniques and statistical models, Sequent Partners led a wide variety of high-profile industry projects including many designed to improve media inputs for marketing mix models.

Spaeth also served as President of The Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) for seven years. Under his leadership, ARF expanded its scope to incorporate all aspects of market research practice on a global basis.

At ARF, Spaeth helped spur development in media and advertising ROI, customer relationship marketing, brand valuation and digital marketing. He convened a review of the ARF model and re-structured the iconic framework for understanding how to make better media decisions in light of emerging media. He led the transformation of the market research function from a business-focused social science to a business discipline focused on value creation through social science. Spaeth and his team established ARF’s mission as “profitable business through effective research and insights.”

Before joining ARF, Spaeth spent more than a decade developing new research tools to improve clients’ business performance. He led the media research and planning function at General Foods, where he created their first marketing mix models and test marketing analyses, and worked at Young & Rubicam, where he led the development of spot buying allocation programs.

Spaeth is the co-author of Market Research Matters by Robert Duboff, as well as a frequent conference speaker and industry article contributor. He has served on the boards of a number of industry associations.

RealityMine uniquely combines proprietary passive mobile metering technology with active eDiary and other in-the-moment survey tools to quantify the context of consumers’ daily lives and their media consumption behaviors.

RealityMine’s TouchPoints syndicated research service is used by major media agencies and owners for granular day in the life insights, cross-media audience flows and to track the consumer journey along the path to purchase. The TouchPoints data is unique in its ability to identify the role moods and emotions play in ad receptivity and motivation to purchase.

By the end of 2015, RealityMine will be capturing data from more than 50,000 people representing more than 350,000 days of data and generating nearly 1,000,000,000 behavioral data points per year. This will provide marketers with one of the richest behavioral and contextual databases available. RealityMine will be expanding its passive mobile/behavioral data collection to 20 new markets worldwide this year.