Is It The Sizzle Or The Steak

By Rob Wright, Chief Editor, Life Science Leader
Follow Me On Twitter @RfwrightLSL

By  Rob Wright

Having somewhat of a marketing background, I tend to be a little on the skeptical side when I see marketing and promotional announcements. We are frequently asked to review books, articles, and so on here at Life Science Leader. So, when I first saw the press release announcing Nice Insights, I called Victor Coker, director of business intelligence, and Nigel Walker, managing director for That’s Nice. I wanted to find out if they were selling the “sizzle” or the “steak.”

After our conversation, I still wanted to see it for myself, so Coker and Walker offered a personal demonstration of the $2.5 million dollar Nice Insights platform. In a nutshell, it is a newly created marketing intelligence platform that provides information for contract research and manufacturing organizations (CRAMs) on how they are perceived by their customers.

When I flew to New York City, I expected to spend about 2 hours checking out the new platform, and then I planned on shooting over to the DCAT show. But, when you get a chance to drive a Ferrari, which is what this solution felt like, you don’t want to give up the keys right away. So instead, I spent over 8 hours playing with this tool and watching various CRAM executives “take it for a test drive.” When Coker and Walker weren’t around, I asked executives from companies such as Boehringer Ingelheim, Rohner Chem, Albemarle, DSM, and Piramal what they really thought. The consensus, “This is one powerful tool.”

“In the past, if you wanted this type of information, you hired a third-party agency to survey your customers,” said Paul Sidhu, VP of marketing and strategy for DSM. “This was a double-edged sword. Not only did you pay a third party to collect the data, but you wondered how good was it really? Even though you hired an outside company, customers filling out the survey still knew who was sponsoring the research.” There are many other benefits between self solicitations for feedback, versus a company that takes it upon itself to get unbiased information. For example, Nice Insights shows where you stand with all of your competitors — even those competitors you may not have known you had.

Using features such as ‘Marcom Tracker’ and ‘Brand Index,’ Nice Insight allows companies to establish tangible baselines to better understand the impact their marketing activities have on customer awareness and perception — now. This is because the data was collected in February of this year, loaded into the platform, and was live by mid-March. In addition, it will have quarterly updates throughout the year. The tool also allows you to forecast, monitor competitors, conduct a SWOT analysis, and see trends and business opportunities.

I believe Nice Insights is both the sizzle and the steak. After the demonstration, I realized there was, and is, a lot of valuable information our readers would find of interest. That is why we have decided to launch a new, exclusive, monthly feature highlighting some of Nice Insight’s findings, what they mean, and of course, the actionable information you have come to expect. Stay tuned.