Introduction To Valient Solutions Market Research April 2011

Valient Solutions
Market Research Capabilities

Corporate Capabilities Presentation
April 2011

© 2011 VALIENT SOLUTIONS PAGE 1

Valient Solutions
Differentiated Thinking, Value Rediscovered

What’s in a name? – At the intersection of “value” and “salient research” is Valient Solutions.

How did Valient Solutions begin? – In 2007, Scott D. Upham founded Valient Solutions to offer
clients with a revolutionary kind of partner, a research agency that was grounded in the principles
of quality, deep analytical-based insights and proven value. After a twenty year career in marketing
and market research with large, multi-national research suppliers – J.D. Power and Associates and
Harris Interactive – as well as a decade on the client side, Scott took cues from his clients that
repeatedly said “Your company does a fantastic job but we need more value for our research
dollar.” With budget downsizing and increasing pressure from senior management to prove return-
on-investment, today’s clients are seeking research partners that can deliver greater value and
deeper insights at lower price points than large, big box research corporations.

A new kind of company is born – Valient Solutions – Based in Rochester, New York, Valient
Solutions is one of the fastest growing research companies in the market research industry. Its’
Valient Poll brings newsworthy consumer insights to hundreds of news & media publications
around the world each day and it’s 20,000,000 member Valient Global Online Panel Network
provides unparalleled consumer and business decision maker insights from over 100 countries
and 62 different languages worldwide.

Our key assets = Our people – Valient Solutions’ senior executives, research methodologists,
consultants and project managers are the soul of our company.


Corporate Overview

Valient Solutions Overview

 Founded in 2007 by Scott D. Upham
 Headquarters: Rochester, New York
 Full-service quantitative and qualitative global market research
services. Consumer & B2B sector research.

Key Account Contacts

 Scott D. Upham, President & CEO
 Patrick Leahy, Vice President, Client Services
 Paulette DiBoscio Project Manager
 Sarah Fister, Project Manager

Key Competitive Advantages

 Extensive market research industry experience
 Deeper insights based upon extensive domain expertise
 Cost-effective market research solutions
 Quality assurance processes, ISO 20252 certification
 Technical product research experience


Market Research Projects

Valient Solutions Market Research::
Providing value-priced and salient market research insights

Consumer & Business-to-Business Online Surveys
Product Usage, Attitude & Preferences
Product Concept Testing
Market Segmentation Studies
Advertising Effectiveness, Copy Testing & Tracking Studies
Brand Health, Equity Assessment & Tracking Studies
International Omnibus Services
Customer Satisfaction, Loyalty and Customer Value Analysis
Net Promoter Score Implementation & Analysis
Price Sensitivity, Elasticity, Testing & Tracking Studies
Product Design & Feature Content Research
Product & Concept Development Testing
Mystery Shopping & Competitive Intelligence
Investor Attitudes & Assessment
Face-to-Face, Online Focus Groups & Communities


Data Collection

Online Surveys & Polls

• Provides rapid data collection with a very high degree of accuracy in over 60 languages.
• Ability to access millions of consumer, business and key decision makers through Valient Solutions
Online Panel Network
• Customized survey design on HTML, ConfirmIt and Java platforms
• In-house online survey design, programming and hosting
• Kiosk-based online surveys
Mail Surveys

• Provides access to consumer, business and key decision maker respondents
• Geographic, NAICS/SIC Code, company type targeting available
• Optical character recognition (OCR) software provides accurate scanning of mail surveys
• In-house mail survey design and mail fulfillment via Valient Solution’s Pitney Bowes high speed
mailing system

Telephone Surveys & Polls

• Provides access to consumer, business and key decision maker respondents
• Geographic, random digit dial (RDD) and key decision maker targeting available
• In-depth interviewing available in over 60 languages
• Over 500 operators available in five call centers
• Interactive voice response (IVR) and cell phone based survey technology also available

Global Online Panel & Technology Partners

Global Online Panel & Survey Technology Partners


Global, Regional, National & Local Coverage

Valient Solutions ::
Over 20,000,000 Consumers and 3,000,000 Business Contacts Worldwide
 North America – Corporate HQ, Rochester, New York (NAFTA), USA – covers United States, Canada,
Mexico and Caribbean.
 South America – Buenos Aires, Argentina (Mercosur) –
covers Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Chile, Bolivia,
Paraguay, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, and
other Latin & Central America countries.
 Western Europe – Paris, France (EU) – coverage
includes France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, United Kingdom,
Ireland, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Denmark,
Switzerland, Austria, Sweden, Norway, Finland and
other Western European countries.
 Eastern Europe – Warsaw, Poland – coverage includes
Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovak Republic,
Russia, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus,
Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Greece, Croatia and
other Eastern European countries.
 Asia-Pacific – Bangalore, India – coverage includes India, Pakistan, Japan, Korea, China, Thailand,
Malaysia, Australia, Singapore, Taiwan, Philippines and other ASEAN countries.
 Middle East --Dubai, United Arab Emirates – coverage includes UAE, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan,
Israel, Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries.
 Africa – Johannesburg, South Africa – coverage includes South Africa, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Morocco and
other sub-Saharan African countries.


Valient Poll Omnibus Services

Valient Poll Omnibus Services

 U.S. Omnibus Service – Conducted twice per weekly with 1,000 U.S. general population
respondents. Limit of 3-10 questions per wave. Executive results summary & data file are
delivered within four (4) business days.

 Canadian Omnibus – Conducted weekly with 1,000 Canadian general population respondents.
Limit of 3-10 questions per week. Executive results summary & data file are delivered within
four (4) business days.

 European Omnibus – Conducted weekly in United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain,
Portugal, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Poland and Austria. Limit of 3-10
questions per week. Translation service available. Executive results summary & data file are
delivered within seven (7) business days.

 Asia-Pacific Omnibus – Conducted weekly in Japan, China, India and Australia. Limit of 3-10
questions per week. Translation service available. Executive results summary & data file are
delivered within seven (7) business days.

 Specialty Omnibus Services – Conducted weekly in the U.S. These include Primary Grocery
Shopper, High Income Individuals, Cell Phone Owner and One-Day Turnaround omnibus
services.


North American Focus Group Services

Valient Solutions Focus Group Network :: Over 40 U.S. & 10 Canadian Affiliated Focus Group
Locations


Focus Groups :: Rochester, New York

Valient Solutions :: Rochester, New York Focus Group Facility
Our Rochester, New York focus group facility offers consumer and business-to-business focus group hosting,
recruiting, moderation and digital video recording within an easily reached and handicap accessible location.

The focus group room accommodates eight to twelve (8-12) focus group participants. The room is equipped
with soundproofed walls that provide superior audio quality during observation and digitally DVD recording.
Display rails and tack boards allow you to easily display storyboards and other visual stimuli. A pull-down
display screen is available for projection of presentations or displays. Digital video recording with a stationary
camera is available for all focus group sessions. The focus group observation room comfortably seats up to
eight (8) viewers within a private and relaxing client lounge with a closed circuit video monitor.

Feature of the focus group and observations rooms:

 Seating for up to twelve (12) participants
 Space for up to eight (8) observers
 On-site host or hostess
 Full kitchen amenities
 Catering services available
 Easel, flip chart, paper & pens
 High speed internet (all rooms)
 Projector & screen
 Television, VCR, DVD player
 Audio and visual technical capabilities
 Soundproofed focus group room
 High speed wireless internet services
 Located fifteen (15) minutes away from the Rochester International airport

Focus Group Moderation: Valient Solutions has focus group moderating services available on an hourly
basis. In addition to our Rochester, New York facility, our moderators are available for multi-location and
national projects in the U.S. and Canada.

Focus Group Recruiting: The quality of the output from focus groups, triads, dyads or mini groups, depends
on having the right people in the room. Valient Solution’s team of recruiting professionals are trained to ensure
that all qualitative research and recruitment projects are completed on time, on budget and are of the highest
quality.


vAdInsights™ Advertisement Effectiveness Testing

Stage 1 Stage 2
Respondent Classification Advertisement Testing
Ad Copy
Testing

Psychological vAdInsights
Demographic Ad Imagery Total Ad Execution
Segment Ad Effectiveness
Screener Testing Testing
Screener Index Scores

 Copy
Ad Key Messages  Imagery
Testing  Messages
 Total Execution

vAdInsights Advertisement Testing – Valient Solutions vAdInsights advertisement testing methodology begins with two
screening sections to properly document all respondent demographics and psychological screening criteria. The second step
includes exposure to each element of the advertisement including copy, imagery and key messages. During this phase,
Valient utilizes several proprietary question batteries to uncover the effectiveness of advertisement’s power of persuasion,
estimated recall and key message delivery. The third and final step explores the impact of the proposed advertisement on
purchase consideration among brand users and non-users. It also measures its’ connectivity to the brand itself. Using all of
three steps, vAdInsights Ad Effectiveness Index Scores are created for comparing multiple ad executions against one
another.


vAdInsights™ Brand Tagline Testing

Stage 1 Stage 2
Brand Familiarity + Equity Brand Tagline Process
Brand Tagline
Appeal

Brand Familiarity Brand Tagline Brand Tagline
Opinion of Brand Tagline
All Major Brands Purchase Connectivity to
Client Brand Believability
in Segment Consideration Brand

Brand Tagline vAdInsights
Uniqueness Brand Tagline
Index Score

vAdInsights Brand Tagline Testing – Valient Solutions vAdInsights brand tagline testing methodology begins with a broad
assessment of each respondent’s familiarity of numerous brand names and/or taglines within a market segment. The second
step focuses on the respondent’s opinion of the client’s brand including overall opinion and brand equity. The third step
includes exposure to each brand tagline concept and a measurement of the tagline’s appeal, believability and uniqueness.
The fourth and final step explores the impact of the proposed tagline on purchase consideration and its’ connectivity to the
brand itself. Using all of four steps, a vAdInsights Brand Tagline Index Score is created for comparing multiple taglines
against one another.


vCustomerSATM Customer Satisfaction Research

vCustomerSATTM Customer Satisfaction Research

Customer Satisfaction Research – Valient Solutions’ proprietary customer satisfaction research
methodology involves measuring key customer satisfaction metrics. A 1,000-point Customer
Satisfaction Index (CSI) is constructed encompassing four equally weighted key areas of
satisfaction including:

 Sales & Service
 Product Satisfaction
 Corporate Reputation
 Willingness to Recommend

Sales & Service Product Corporate Willingness to
Satisfaction Satisfaction Reputation Recommend

0 500 1000
vCustomerSATTM Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI)


vCustomerSATM Customer Value Metrics

Customer Value Metrics Market Research – Valient Solutions provides in-depth customer value
metrics research to provide our clients with a deeper understanding of all value measurement
criterion including:

 Customer product/service usage and attitudes, emotional connectivity and brand perceptions.
 Past, present & future purchase behaviors including brand usage, loyalty, defection, winback,
competitive landscape assessment.
 Unmet customer needs—how they can be better served
 Service requirements – often including sales representative performance and channel
performance.
 Targeting information—demographics, business firmographics, channel, media usage, and
geo-targeting.

Comparisons are made once all data has been collected to understand how needs, attitudes, and
behaviors map to key value measures.

Comparisons on how needs, attitudes, and behaviors differ among the most and least valuable
customers. This includes data regarding customer types that are desirable for acquisition, or the
types of behavior to reward.

Correlation analysis using conducting multivariate segmentation can be useful to narrow down the
list of potential variables to drive the segmentation analysis.


Sponsorship & Promotions Effectiveness Research

Sponsorship & Promotions Effectiveness Research – Valient Solutions’ proprietary consumer and business-to-
business sponsorship and promotions measurement systems includes key performance indicators including:

 Unaided & aided brand awareness
 Brand consideration
 Brand preference
 Past product & service purchase behavior
 Current product & service purchase behavior
 Future product & service purchase intent
 Future purchase & usage intent
 Brand specific likelihood to recommend

This system is used by client organizations to
measure the sales impact and brand effects generated
by various sponsorship and promotional campaigns.

Simulators Provide Sales & Brand Impact Forecasts – For each engagement, a simulator is developed to
demonstrate the lift that can be expected in terms of direct consumer product sales and increases in corporate
brand awareness, consideration and purchase intent. This program is offered in over 100+ countries worldwide and
60+ different languages.


Qualitative Market Research

Valient Solutions :: COST FX Online Focus Groups

 Innovative concept testing tool that enlivens the respondent experience and provides rich
visual feedback for the research buyer.
 Allows respondents mark up ads, web pages, direct mail and packaging concepts and logos
with visual images and text.
 Provides clients creative, visual feedback from consumers while offering respondents a way
to co-create elements of their favorite brands.
 Allows both qualitative participants and survey respondents to mark up video, website,
images and text with emoticons, arrows, colors, and text boxes.

Communicate visually: visuals created by the respondent themselves.
Connect: insightful look at how consumers would recreate or influence their favorite
brands.

 Advantages:
3-4 times the amount of verbatim responses due to instant response method.
Less cost than face-to-face focus groups.
Respondents from across geographic regions.
Excellent for advertising testing, website navigation testing and free-form discussions.


© 2007 Valient Solutions Page
17

Traditional Focus Groups vs. Online Focus Groups

Focus Group Traditional Valient COST FXTM
Comparison Chart In-Person Online Focus Groups
Focus Groups

Overall Cost Higher than 40-50% lower
online focus groups than in-person focus groups

Setup & 3-4 weeks 2 weeks
execution timing

Recruiting cost $50-150 per person, 20% lower
Dependant on incidence rate

Moderator cost Same 20% lower

Participant Availability Within 30 mile radius of facility Virtual from any geographic area,
Ability to reach hard to recruit audiences

Participant Anonymity None All participants are anonymous, encourages open discussion.

Participant Interaction Loud respondents tend to dominate All respondents can respond simultaneously with equal
in-person focus groups emphasis & impact

Participant Incentives $75-150 each participant 20-30% lower

Stimuli Video, audio & concept boards Video, audio, concept boards, virtual whiteboards, websites &
multi-media

Observer Interaction Behind one-way mirror, notes send in to moderator, slow and High degree of interaction between observers and moderators,
non-efficient instant messaging on a real time basis

Observer 2 hours per session plus 1.5 to 2 hours from office or home office environment
Time Commitment travel time to facility

Facility Rental $200-$500 None

Food Service $100-$300 None

Travel Costs $500-$1,000 per person. None
For moderator & client observers

Transcription Costs $50-200 None

Transcription 1-2 business days Within 30 minutes after conclusion
Turnaround Time of the focus group


Website Experience Research & Analytics

Valient Solutions :: Website Experience Research & Analytics

 Innovative website experience tool that measures & analyzes the website visitors experience
and provides rich visual feedback for the research user.

 Customer Experience Dashboard Elements
Task success/failure/give-up rates are prominently displayed on the overview page
Advanced algorithms bundle hundreds of customer comments into key themes
Online aggregate benchmarks allow you to compare your performance with other
leading web sites
Time on task, page views, and panelist demographics are only one click away

 Advanced Reporting & Analytics
Forward ClickStreams show a page-by-page playback of each respondent’s experience
Visual ClickStreams map the aggregate paths traveled by respondents and can be
filtered by numerous criteria (e.g., view the paths of all visitors who failed the task)
Report filters display data through user-defined lenses
Segmentation provides side-by-side comparison of groups



Valient Solutions :: Website Experience Research & Analytics
 ClickStreams
Enables you to examine the steps that respondents make during the course of an evaluation.
Each page they visit, the time they stayed there, and what they clicked on are captured and
displayed.
Makes it possible to retrace the steps a respondent took during the completion of an objective.
For each section, you can follow the respondents as a whole, or individually as they navigate
the site and attempt to complete the tasks at hand.
Reveals user behavior by tracking the different paths respondents take. For example, you can
discover which paths are associated with high failure rates or which paths are heavily
trafficked.
All of the web pages that a respondent visits during an evaluation are captured by Connector,
even if the respondents opens up other browser windows. Path, Page and Clusters
Clickstreams show the data from all browser windows.

 Understanding Page Aggregation
In order to present clickstream data that shows how many respondents in an evaluation
accessed each page, we must first determine which URLs represent the same page.
WebEffective performs page aggregation on all evaluations. The resulting groups of pages are
called “clusters”. These clusters appear in the Path, Page Clusters sections of the
Clickstreams Component in the system.



CustomerScope Analysis Portal
Multiple tools for in-depth analysis of quantitative and qualitative
results, as well as correlations and clickstreams.

Participants are scored on
each task as success, Average browse time, number of
failure or give up. pages viewed and other metrics
by task.



Qualitative Results (Typical Comments)

Automatic
clustering of
comments by
theme.

Just click to see
detailed
comments



Visual Clickstream Analysis

Most common paths for completing tasks are
shown in different colors depending on success /
failure of give-ups.

The researcher can adjust
the thresholds for key
metrics to be shown in the
diagram.

Scorecards and a screenshot are
shown for each path



WebEffective automatically shows the
visual paths that people have taken for
eachtask.

Percentages show what %
of people took that path
with a screenshot of the
page.


Social Media Monitoring

Valient Social Media Monitoring Product – Provides leading edge datastreams and analysis of global attitudes,
opinions and consumer behaviors regarding your company’s brands, products, advertising, public perceptions and
overall corporate reputation. Some key advantages of the Valient SMM product include:

• Includes publicly available datastream feeds from leading social media websites including Twitter, Facebook,
YouTube, Google Buzz, blogs & blog comments, FriendFeed, Flickr and several other sources.

• Real time reports can be created to capture public sentiment on up to thirty (30) unique search phrases
including all verbatim comments from all social media datastreams.

• Allows for easy tracking of competitor product launches, public relations & advertising campaign launch
successes and failures, crisis communications containment campaigns and many other applications.

• Excellent tool for calculating Share of Voice reports against key competitors, tracking brand equity &
corporate reputation metrics, pre & post-advertising campaign buzz and for identifying troublespots for quick
crisis communications containment.

• Current client applications include product launch, rebranding, new advertising campaign monitoring and
daily/weekly public corporate reputation monitoring.

• Campaign setup takes less than one day, monitoring begins instantly.

• Campaign length can be as short as one month with an unlimited maximum length.



Valient Social Media Monitoring Product – Easy to read reports provide detailed daily and overall campaign
monitoring statistics.



Valient Social Media Monitoring Product – Easy to read reports provide detailed social media verbatim
comments from all social media datastream feeds.



Valient Social Media Monitoring Product – Sentiment report displays sources of positive and negative comments
by social media channel in a daily basis.



Valient Social Media Monitoring Product – Campaign dashboards provide all pertinent campaign results
including charts, graphs and key statistics.


What makes Valient Solutions unique?

Industry Renowned Market Research Experts – Valient Solutions’ team has several leading market research authorities available to
provide insightful analysis, interpretation of market trends, implementation of leading edge research methodologies and management
consulting.

Quality Assurance – Valient Solutions has instituted continuous quality improvement processes including the implementation of ISO
compliant quality certification and survey development, programming and data analysis using ConfirmIt, Microsoft HTML, Java Flash and
SPSS solutions. Less than 5% of all U.S. market research firms have achieved ISO certification according to ESOMAR. Using random
data generation techniques, all surveys are quality tested before deployment and all reports are triple checked for data accuracy before
final delivery to our clients. These quality assurance procedures insure the highest level of data integrity.

Cost-Effective Market Research Solutions – Compared to our Honomichl Top 50 market research competitors, Valient Solutions
delivers substantial cost savings on custom ad-hoc market research and longitudinal tracking studies to our clients. Due to our efficient
infrastructure and lean production system, Valient Solutions has achieved significant cost improvement levels that are delivering
incremental value and deep market intelligence-based insights to our clients.

Innovative Market Research Solutions – Understanding and interpreting the key drivers of consumer and business decision maker
behavior are at the core of our value proposition to our global clientele. Valient Solutions uses innovative advanced analytical tools and
differentiated thinking to uncover these consumer and business insights combined with our in-depth knowledgebase of customer
satisfaction and loyalty, brand equity measurement, tracking studies, advertising effectiveness, product usage and concept testing research
to deliver data-rich strategic market intelligence and strategic consultation. Our trademarked, proprietary research methodologies include
vBrandIQTM, vTrackIQTM, vCustomerSATTM, vAdInsightsTM and vConceptIQTM

Global Consumer & B2B Panel Network – Valient Solutions’ global consumer and B2B panel network that can access 20,000,000
consumers and 3,000,000 business decision makers in over 100 countries and 62 different languages via online surveys, telephone
interviewing or mail-based quantitative data collection methodologies. For qualitative research initiatives, we are able to conduct fieldwork
on six continents, one hundred countries and over one thousand cities for shopper intercepts, in-depth interviews, focus groups, product
clinics, home usage tests, ethnographic studies and online focus groups.


Executive Profile :: Scott D. Upham

Scott D. Upham is president & chief executive officer of Valient Solutions, a privately-held
market research firm with its corporate headquarters in Rochester, New York.

A widely respected corporate management consultant and global market research industry
authority for over twenty years, Upham is an oft-quoted source to major media outlets
including the Wall Street Journal, Handelsblatt, Investors Business Daily, Nikkei, Weekly
New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today and National Public Radio.

Upham is a recognized market research expert specializing in consumer & business-to-
business research, customer satisfaction, brand equity, advertising communications
effectiveness, new product development testing and corporate sales & marketing
strategies. He is a frequent conference speaker on customer satisfaction, competitive
intelligence and new market entry strategies.

Prior to founding Valient Solutions, Upham was senior vice president at Harris Interactive,
senior director at J.D. Power and Associates and president and chief executive officer of
Providata Inc. Upham began his twenty year career in purchasing at Ford Motor Company
and held senior marketing posts with automotive suppliers TRW, Kelsey-Hayes and Takata
Corporation.

Upham earned a Bachelor of Science degree in public relations from Eastern Michigan
University in Ypsilanti, Michigan and completed graduate studies from Pennsylvania State
University in State College, Pennsylvania.


Valient Solutions Market Research
Website: www.valientsolutions.com
Phone: 1.585.227.2600
Fax: 1.866.804.7364

Corporate Headquarters
470 Long Pond Road, Suite 270
Rochester, New York USA 14612

Scott D. Upham
President & Chief Executive Officer
E-Mail: scott.upham@valientsolutions.com
Phone: 1.585.227.2616


Introduction To Valient Solutions Market Research April 2011

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Introduction To Valient Solutions Market Research April 2011