Executive Summary (This is a document excerpt)

J.D. Power and Associates acquired brand monitoring firm Umbria, combining industry-focused consumer satisfaction and rankings with consumer-generated media (CGM) insights. The deal highlights the use of brand monitoring as a key input to formulating marketing, brand, and product strategy. Interactive marketers and social media strategists interested in using brand monitoring must choose a tool based on business objectives, recognizing that the market now addresses three distinct applications: 1) mining customer insight to formulate strategy; 2) quantifying social media to compare with other metrics; and 3) identifying influencers in order to participate in online conversations.