NEW YORK, NY – Digital Media Review (DMR), the organization dedicated to finding the innovation that helps advertisers win at market, is pleased to announce the beta launch of its Industry Index. Built with marketers in mind, DMR’s Industry Index is a searchable database and ratings platform solely focused on measuring innovation that pertains to marketing communications. Digital marketers can rely on the Industry Index to quickly and easily see who stands out across the advertising technology landscape based on relevance to their need and peer, research based numerical ratings.
The Industry Index allows marketers to quickly, easily and reliable find the best-of-breed technology solutions they need, profiled by the products they serve. Marketers are tasked with selecting and implementing the most efficient, effective, revenue-driving technologies to stay ahead of competition. But with digital innovation moving so quickly, this is never an easy job. The Industry Index combines expert curation (against marketer pain points, not ad tech sales) with objective ratings to provide an industry-wide perspective on truly meaningful innovation, so that marketers can focus on moving business forward, rather than just keeping pace with technology. Uninformed choices may lead to hours of wasted time and resources.
“The LUMAscape reflects a highly fragmented industry where vendor differentiation is difficult to discern. DMR’s Industry Index is a useful tool for sorting through the confusion,” said Terence Kawaja, Founder and CEO, LUMA Partners.
The digital industry has led the way in the “consumer world” to create ratings and/or review platforms that make the decision making process easier, like Yelp or TripAdvisor, but had yet to do so for its own industry, until this launch. However, while “stars” and “comments” have been the fuel for the consumer world, DMR realized that marketers would require something a bit more sophisticated. Each company rating on the Industry Index is matched against criteria that has been validated and deemed most valuable when evaluating digital marketing technologies. Every company receives a numerical score, rather than “stars” or just comments, derived from a 3rd party research firm that leverages quantitative surveys.
The Industry Index classifies digital media technologies across 8 distinct media channels: Commerce, Display, Emerging Media, Gaming, Mobile, Social, Search, and Video. Technologies that cross multiple channels are indexed in each channel and/or category their product(s) currently falls within. Across the 8 media channels there are currently 130 categories.
“DMR’s Industry Index will provide an objective view into the advertising technologies who actually deliver value to the advertising community. By securing customer ratings on technologies, it will give everyone clear insight into who delivers and who doesn’t,” said Founder and CEO of Tappad Are Traasdahl.
“As a brand, we have a passion for incubating emerging start-ups, and keeping current on buzz with established partners. I am a big fan of the Industry Index concept,” said Tricia Nichols, Global Lead of Consumer Engagement, Media Innovation & Partnerships for Gap Brand at Gap Inc.
A Tool for Technology Vendors
While the challenge for digital is staying ahead of the breakneck pace of digital innovation, for digital sellers, the challenge lies in finding qualified, in-market buyers. While providing the information marketers need to make purchase decisions, Industry Index also serves as a tool for vendors to identify marketers who are actively searching for solutions.
“Digital sellers are overwhelmed. How do you determine who is in-market for your solutions and how do you eliminate time waste associated with attempting to cull through the clutter?” said Gayle Meyers, co-Founder and Managing Partner of DMR. “Without industry standards in place, smoke and mirrors often won out over ‘substance.’ With the absence of a central knowledge repository and objective reviews for advertising technologies the problem would continue to exacerbate.”
“Buyers are equally frustrated trying to navigate the ever changing agency and brand landscape,” said Jessica Joines, co-Founder and Managing Partner of DMR. “We wanted to create solutions that would streamline this process through creating innovation review standards for marketers. Buyers are constantly challenged to stay at pace with the ever evolving technology landscape, including the hundreds of startups that emerge every year. The Industry Index solves these challenges for both parties.”
Since 2011, DMR (previously DMR Partners) has been dedicated to finding the innovation that helps advertisers win at market, with three key services: Roundtables, Consulting and now, Industry Index. DMR’s Roundtables are an invitation-only thought leadership consortium that consists of digital media leaders who come together once a month to review and vote on the quality of startups that DMR has carefully vetted and curated based on the needs of our members.
For more information, please visit: www.industryindex.com
About DMR
Digital Media Review (DMR) is dedicated to finding the innovation that helps advertisers win at market, period. We help marketers stay ahead of the ever-evolving digital landscape with easy access to qualitative and quantitative insights derived from our three core offerings: Monthly Roundtable, a private, invite only source for industry leaders to gain exposure to early stage innovation; Industry Index, the only searchable database and ratings platform for digital marketers focused on measuring innovation; and Consulting Services, developing custom programs for businesses to help shape their own innovation roadmap and enhance their current offerings
Founded in 2011 by industry veterans Gayle Meyers and Jessica Joines, DMR is headquartered in New York City’s Silicon Alley.
