Ori Gold. Credit: Bench Media
Bench Media has launched Bench Lens, a research and audience intelligence offering designed to help marketers turn customer, category and market data into media and strategic decisions.
The offering combines custom consumer panels with syndicated audience data, search and market-demand intelligence, competitive advertising analysis and cross-channel analytics.
Research can cover consumer profiling, competitor analysis, concept and creative testing, brand awareness and perception, and pre- and post-campaign measurement.
Bench Media co-founder and CEO Ori Gold said marketers faced a growing volume of data without necessarily gaining greater clarity.
“Marketers have access to an extraordinary amount of data, but more data doesn’t automatically mean better decisions,” Gold said.
“In many cases, the challenge has shifted from finding information to working out which information matters.
“There are more platforms, dashboards, audience signals and measurement tools competing for attention, while marketers are under increasing pressure to demonstrate that their investment is driving growth.
“We want to help marketers understand what the evidence is telling us and, importantly, what they should do differently as a result. Bench Lens is designed to do just that.”
Bench Lens can operate as a standalone research engagement or feed into Bench Media’s strategy, planning and measurement work.
For suitable projects, results can begin populating a live dashboard within 48 hours of responses starting.
Strategy lead Andrea Samuel will oversee the offering across Bench’s planning, media and technology teams.
“Research is only valuable if it changes what you do next,” Samuel said.
“We’ve built Bench Lens to go beyond presenting findings. We interpret what the research means for the brand, the audience and the media strategy, giving marketing teams a practical path forward.”
The launch follows a refreshed Bench Media brand as the agency expands beyond its programmatic and digital origins into strategy, research, integrated planning and buying, measurement and technology.
The agency's new positioning, “Turning possibility into breakthrough”, reflects its broader remit, Bench said.
Gold said the previous brand no longer reflected the business.
“Bench has changed considerably over the past few years. Our brand was still telling the story of where we came from rather than where the business is today,” he said.
“This is much more than putting a new identity around the same agency.
“We’ve been deliberately building deeper strategic, research and measurement capability because the problems clients are asking us to solve are becoming more complex.”
The changes follow client wins including Hisense, Prospa and Bikes Online, and the appointments of Jess Torstensson as Client Growth Director and Samuel as Strategy Lead.
Bench Lens will sit alongside Bench Connect, the agency’s analytics platform, linking research and audience intelligence with media strategy, execution and measurement.
Gold said the developments marked the next phase of Bench Media’s growth.
“The opportunity for independent agencies isn’t to replicate the holding company model on a smaller scale. It’s to be more agile about bringing together the right expertise, technology and intelligence around the problems clients need solved,” he said.
“That is the direction we’re taking Bench,” he concluded.
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