MEC launches new predictive modelling technique

GroupM’s media agency MEC has launched MEC Velocity, a new predictive modelling technique that it claims is borrowed from epidemiology to create purchase journey simulations.MEC Velocity has the ability to predict consumer behaviour and interactions with brands. With MEC Velocity, the agency is able to build simulations that run into the future, predicting consumer behaviour and interactions with brands and services, and the impact on sales and market share in a category.  The agency can then simulate experiments, by changing key metrics or campaign engagement, to see how fast and by how much they will affect consumer behaviour and then sales.MEC Velocity builds on MEC Momentum, the agency’s proprietary approach to understanding and quantifying how consumers make purchase decisions, launched in two years ago. MEC Momentum is one of the largest global studies undertaken into the shopper journey and the psychology of choice, examining the purchase decisions of over 200,000 consumers to date.The scale of data from MEC Momentum has enabled the media agency to introduce advanced Agent Based Modelling techniques into its strategic planning. Unlike traditional marketing models, Agent Based Modelling uses a bottom up approach where every consumer has different rules, intentions and beliefs and where they are able to interact and influence each other, an element completely absent in predictive models up until now.James Northway, head of MEC Analytics and Insight EMEA, said: “With MEC Velocity we’ve taken the leap into predictive marketing and given our clients access to a new way of thinking and planning that will have an enormous impact on their advertising, brand and business growth. The beauty of MEC Velocity is that as we, thanks to the increasing number of MEC Momentum studies, add more rich data sets to our model, we become more and more accurate in our predictions.”MEC Momentum and MEC Velocity is continually updated with the latest insight and can be deployed for bespoke projects delving into specific industry sectors and territories.