How Razorfish’s New R-Index Will Help Marketers Navigate ‘Moments That Matter’
Razorfish, a Publicis Groupe agency, today at Cannes Lions announced the launch of R-Index, a proprietary data solution. Created in collaboration with Google Cloud, Razorfish says R-Index is built for the future of measurement and on the foundation of adaptable, predictive algorithms, helping to score both brand performance and consumer sentiment across the comprehensive customer journey.
The tool has been created to help marketers overcome the increased fragmentation, accelerating data privacy regulations, and the rising need for simplified and streamlined data and measurement solutions. R-Index is designed to help marketers overcome these challenges and understand the "moments that matter" with consumers and how to measure business impact.
“A ‘moment that matters’ is a specific engagement that a consumer has with any of our experience touchpoints, whether that’s marketing, going to a website, etc.,” says Sisi Zhang, chief data and analytics officer at Razorfish. “These are the moments where we see more engagement based on our observations. They can be different across consumers and segments. As we analyse what the consumer is doing across the full journey, we’re identifying touchpoints that are resonating more and helping brands refine and optimise those experiences. This could be increasing the frequency, delivering a more personalised message, or focusing on a specific touchpoint. But with R-Index, we’re capitalising on this behavioural data and using it to serve consumers better.
“ Consumers are moving across an accelerated number of touchpoints, and amid the evolving impact of signal deprecation, they have a more sophisticated understanding of how their data is being shared,” adds Sisi Zhang. “What sets R-Index apart is its unique ability to measure brand sentiment and equity among consumers, closing the gap between complexity and clarity for brands and driving more relevance for consumers based on actual needs. Now, as brands can more accurately analyse their target audiences’ needs and motivations, they can leverage marketing to help drive performance outcomes in response to evolving consumer preferences.”
R-Index is a custom algorithm developed by Razorfish, leveraging Google Cloud BigQuery, Looker Studio, Sensitive Data Protection, and its suite of AI and machine learning capabilities, including Vertex AI, to provide a more dynamic and nuanced view into a brand's overall marketing investment performance.
Sisi says that typical measurement across advertising has been very siloed across different channels or looks at experiences at a very high level. R-Index, explainsSisi, goes to a deeper level of granularity and depth.The amount of data being collected may be accelerating, but there are more challenges in how that data is being used and more privacy considerations. “If we can incorporate feedback from consumers and gain a better understanding of how they are interacting with experiences throughout the customer journey, it’ll help to distinguish what’s truly a signal versus something not as applicable.”
R-Index is still in its alpha stage in terms of the product launch, but throughout the rest of the year, Razorfish is focusing on specific media channels, sentiment, and macroeconomic data it can capture and measure. Its earliest use cases will be understanding how brand perception and marketing performance can be impacted by overall marketing investment and experience design, then optimising those based on that feedback, says Sisi. This can be done through either increases in media investment or changes in media mix, which it can continue to analyse in terms of how they impact overall brand performance. Other use cases will be around the holistic experience, not only individual touchpoints but also aggregate. As additional media channels are incorporated into R-Index later this year such as paid and owned channels, we’ll be closely monitoring how they work together to give brands in-depth views of what’s resonating for specific consumers and audience segments.
Razorfish has already begun piloting the R-Index solution with several clients, including New York Life, America's largest mutual life insurer. In its work with Razorfish over the past four years, the company has significantly scaled its consumer leads programme, with a nearly 50% increase in lead volume while driving costs down by as much as 39%. The strategic partnership continues to grow with advancements in measurement now enabled through R-Index.
“As we explore opportunities to exceed our customers’ expectations, we’re leveraging data, tech, and AI to deliver exceptional experiences for clients and agents, along with efficiencies across the enterprise,” saysAmy Hu, Chief Marketing Officer at New York Life. “Our partnership with Razorfish, and the addition of R-Index, is enhancing our measurement capabilities – enabling us to better understand what best resonates with our key client segments.”
“The practical outputs [of R-Index] are around the optimisation of experiences for different consumer segments,” adds Sisi. “The consumer journey is no longer linear like it might have been 10-15 years ago – it’s very fragmented and looks different for different people. So, the idea is to get better insights, and be more thoughtful in how to design experiences for specific consumer segments. It could mean testing in areas brands might not have thought were more resonant with consumers, but the data has revealed that they are. For Razorfish, it’s about helping brands understand and leverage the data in a way that they can see those insights at scale to develop better customer experiences.”
