The Price Is Right

New York, NY -- Ipsos-Insight, the flagship marketing research division of Ipsos in the U.S., and Ipsos-Vantis, a leader in research-based marketing and product development consulting for the services and durable goods sectors, announced the launch of a new full-service pricing strategy suite called Price Evolution that addresses manufacturers' and marketers' pricing challenges at key stages in a product or service life cycle. "How much should I charge?" Price your offer too high, and miss opportunities for trial; price your offer too low, and miss opportunities for profits, or worse, devalue your offer in the minds of consumers. Without accurately gauging the market's value perception for a product or service to ensure it will earn the revenue or market share set forth in the business plan, any business's killer concept could be relegated to the failure graveyard, home to between 33 and 90 percent of all new product introductions. "The market is more competitive than ever; customers are increasingly price sensitive; and companies want to maximize ROI," said Tom Neri, President of the Services, Health, Technology & Communications division at Ipsos-Insight, a member of the Ipsos Group of global research companies, "Pricing is no longer subject to guess-work. Businesses need to build pricing strategies on accurate, reliable and real-world insights, from concept inception to full market launch." "Price Evolution is designed to provide actionable pricing answers throughout the product life cycle for new as well as existing products and services, determining whether a concept will command a price high enough to justified further R&D, assessing the value of a product or service features to determine the highest price, projecting market share and forecasting revenue, and providing the guidance to keep the product or service competitive." The Price Evolution frameworks consists of four stages of customized pricing solutions to meet a wide range of pricing challenges: Price Test, for early in the development process; Price Optimization, typically employed after a product or service has passed through the initial concept testing stage; Price Estimator, used pre-launch; and Market Simulator, for a mature product or service. The suite combines sophisticated market research capabilities with a validated forecasting model to adjust consumer stated survey data to reflect actual behaviour. Clients can test the impact of variable pricing and marketing strategies--such as different price and feature combinations, or lowering the price to meet price-aggressive channel requirements--on sales. "Price Evolution is the only comprehensive research solution for pricing challenges that ensures businesses are maximizing the potential of their product or service throughout the lifecycle," added Neri. For more information on Price Evolution, please visit: www.ipsos-insight.com/PE For more information on this release, please contact: Tom Neri President, Ipsos-Insight 212.265.3200 About Ipsos-Insight Ipsos-Insight, the flagship marketing research division of Ipsos in the U.S., has industry specialists serving companies in the following categories: consumer products; technology and communications; health and pharmaceutical; financial services; cable, media and entertainment; agrifood; energy and utilities; and lottery and gaming. Ipsos-Insight provides custom and tracking research services to domestic clients, as well as U.S.-based multinationals. It offers concept and product testing, package testing, attitude and usage studies, omnibuses, tracking systems, brand equity, price optimization and segmentation, marketing models, advanced analytics, and global research. Ipsos-Insight is an Ipsos company, a leading global survey-based market research group. To learn more, visit: www.ipsos-insight.com. About Ipsos-Vantis Ipsos-Vantis is a leader in research-based marketing and product development consulting for the services and durable goods sectors. The company specializes in forecasting sales for new and restaged initiatives, identifies key drivers of demand, and optimizes product offerings for profit-all prior to market entry. Ipsos-Vantis' expertise is unequalled in new-to-the-world technologies and in many product categories, including alcoholic beverages, consumer electronics, durables, entertainment, financial services, health and pharmaceuticals, insurance, retail, and technology and telecommunications. Ipsos-Vantis is an Ipsos company, a leading global survey-based market research group. To learn more, visit: www.ipsos-vantis.com. About Ipsos Ipsos is a leading global survey-based market research group, with revenues of $644 million in 2003. 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