| In
the innovative research section, the best paper award was won by a team from IMRB
International led by Puneet Avasthi, Vice President and by Sunder Muthuraman,
Meritus, a WPP company. They innovatively applied the "survival analysis
technique", used in the insurance industry, on to the household panel data
to enable marketers predict the effect of their promotion in shifting consumer
preference. This will enable FMCG marketers to develop scenarios on market share
gain/loss before the launch new promotional schemes across markets.
The
second prize was bagged by IMRB senior project director Diptya Mukherjee who presented
a simplified Simulated Test Marketing protocol that led to client success. The
third prize (a joint award) was shared by the IMRB team of Ashish Karnad and Bharat
Kapadia and Research International, another WPP company. Karnad
and Kapadia showed how large databases like Television Audience Rating and Target
Group Index could be combined, through a method called Data fusion, to enable
advertisers to optimize their media schedule even more sharply. The other paper
by S Jayalaskhmi and Rahul Rastogi at Research International focused on studying
in-shop customer behaviour to enable marketers fine-tune shelf space utilization
and manage their merchandise better. IMRB
International president Thomas Puliyel said, "This is a recognition by the
Industry that IMRB provides cutting-edge solutions to our clients." | 
