AOL’s Consumer Analytics & Research Group Partners with Dapresy to Create AOL Insights Center Da
Dapresy, a global provider of data visualization and data integration software, today announced that the AOL Consumer Analytics & Research Group (CA&R) has used its VBI dashboard tool to create the AOL Insights Center dashboard tool. Dapresy transforms data into market and customer intelligence so that organizations can quickly take action. It was able to offer an easy-to-use, visual and engaging business intelligence system for use with all data – minimizing learning curves and the training burden. In addition, it proved easy to use for non-analysts.
The Challenge
AOL, like many companies today, is facing a number of research and consumer insights challenges. It operates in a rapidly changing industry in which research teams must operate under faster cycle times. They must incorporate big data, manage channel fragmentation and incorporate always-on solutions, all with fewer people and shrinking budgets.
In addition to industry changes, AOL’s CA&R is also working in a complex company. They are a centralized group, serving as a center of excellence for the entire company. CA&R services seven core consumer-facing brands, such as The Huffington Post, Engadget and TechCrunch, operates in nine global markets, and includes a mix of legacy and growing brands at different points in their life cycles. In addition, AOL has a separate B2B business with its own set of products such as “One by AOL,” which is a full programmatic ad stack.
As a result, the small CA&R group needs to cover a wide range of consumer audiences, marketer client partners, agency partners, etc., across different geographies. There are also many different internal teams it supports, including advertising tech product developers, ad format innovation teams, consumer brand managers, publisher teams, B2B marketing, consumer marketing, etc.
According to Vicki Draper, director of AOL’s CA&R, “Our dashboard tool needed to be intuitive and visual, so anybody could use it with minimal to no training. This is difficult since most BI tools are built for technical analysts to configure primary research data. These BI tools are challenging to learn and difficult to use, especially if you don’t have statistics knowledge, and they also do not work well with survey data. Dapresy provided an easy-to-use, visually engaging way to deliver both survey and non-survey data to our internal stakeholders.”
Once implemented, CA&R found the new Dapresy-powered tool to be scalable to all the relevant teams. And it could be configured to be useful for a variety of use cases. The VBI tool was able to meet different objectives for different stakeholders, including tactical and inspirational needs. For example, it could meet tactical objectives for stakeholders like center and account managers who needed data points for highly transactional functions, such as answering RFPs. Meanwhile, it could also meet inspirational objectives for stakeholders such as “Partner Studio by AOL,” which needs inspiration for designing content marketing programs that are backed by defendable insights.
“We are excited to work with CA&R to enable AOL to fully embrace modern reporting,” said Rudy Nadilo, president, North America, Dapresy. “By deploying dashboards across their enterprise, they have transformed marketing research and democratized their data. Internal users now have full access to explore the information, and CA&R has become a consultant on what users are finding. This has eliminated bottlenecks to data access and provided better insights to their organization.”
Outcomes Achieved With Dapresy
Extended critical research access to non-analysts.
Put actionable data directly into the hands of decision makers.
Removed bottlenecks, decreasing research cycle times.
Shifted the organization to configurable insights.
Unlocked latent value of research -- a force multiplier.
Allowed the research team to focus on what it does best vs. endlessly cutting data in analyst tools.
About Dapresy
Dapresy is a global provider of data visualization and reporting software. Unlike traditional visual business intelligence tools that focus on deep-dive analysis for a limited audience, Dapresy visualizes and distributes data into existing company processes for all designated people. It enables clients to deploy dynamic KPI-driven marketing dashboards to clearly communicate complex data from markets, users and customers. The company’s unique dynamic dashboards are individually tailored, deploying the right data to the right people at the right time. For marketers looking to move beyond PowerPoint and Excel, Dapresy is the faster and far more effective way to easily present marketing information from multiple sources in a manner that improves decision making.
Dapresy was founded in 1999 in Sweden, with North American headquarters in Portsmouth, NH, and other offices around the globe. Its clients include TNS, GfK, Cablevision, Kantar Media, Aimia, Ad Hoc Research, Blauw, AOL, Market Probe, Irwin Broh Research and many others.
