Y&R’s Bav Group Launches Bavsocial

Y&R’s BAV Group announced today the launch of BAVSocial, a proprietary model that measures the influence of social media on long-term brand performance in the marketplace. The new model brings together hundreds of social listening metrics and links them with the BrandAsset Valuator, a renowned brand model and expansive database of consumer brand perceptions.

Kyle Boots will lead the unit as Director of Social Analytics and Insights, reporting to BAV Group CEO, Michael Sussman, PhD. BAVSocial introduces four key social metrics that quantify a brand’s equity and influence in the social landscape. Just as BAV brand metrics are used to identify and manage brand challenges and opportunities, the BAVSocial model extends these insights to build social marketing strategies that lead to long-term brand health. “In a sprawling online world of content, most traditional social listening passively pipelines data and stops there. With BAV’s robust data and our unique analytic approach, BAVSocial melds the social dynamics taking place today with a deep understanding of what it takes to build brands. Together, we can capture the full cultural power of a brand,” said Sussman.

The model measures real-time conversation and engagement across social communities; blogs; news; forums; and search patterns. BAVSocial was developed in partnership with data leaders including IBM Watson, Pulsar, and Crimson Hexagon, and employs advanced IBM Watson machine-learning algorithms to reduce noise and improve conversation targeting. “BAVSocial takes everything we know about a brand’s equity and links it to what we know about a brand in the social universe. Aligning BAV’s 24 years of data against the real-time flow of social engagement metrics enables our clients to be smarter, more creative and effective in how they engage with customers,” said Boots.

The model will be rolled out globally as a strategic and creative tool for clients, launching first across North America and Europe.