MediaScience is the leading provider of lab-based media and advertising research, incorporating a range of neuro-measures including biometrics, facial expression analysis, eye tracking, EEG, and more. With state-of-the-art labs in New York, Chicago, and Austin, MediaScience is discovering actionable insights in advertising, technology, media, and consumer trends.

Dr. Duane Varan, the global authority of neuromarketing research, founded Audience Labs (formerly the Interactive Television Research Institute) during his tenure at Murdoch University in Perth, Australia, in 2001. In 2005, he launched the Beyond : 30 Project, a consortium exploring the changing media and advertising landscape, and in 2008, he was approached by Disney Media Networks to set up a dedicated custom research lab on a broader scale – and so MediaScience was born. Though he officially left Murdoch in 2015, he continues to maintain some research links with the University of South Australia and has been widely recognised for his innovative contributions to teaching and the neuromarketing industry as evidenced by a long list of awards and over 90 published academic papers in his field.

Below is an abstract from a paper that Dr. Varan oversaw about An Augmented Model of Customer Loyalty for Organizational Purchasing of Financial Services from the Journal of Business-to-Business Marketing.

Abstract

Purpose
To understand how the drivers of loyalty in business-to-business (B2B) markets for financial services might be moderated by short- versus long-term relational orientation to help companies in those markets optimize the allocation of their marketing resources.

Methodology/Approach
The basis of this study was the European Customer Satisfaction Index (ECSI) model of customer loyalty, which was relevant for this B2B market because the ratio of customers to suppliers was large and, therefore, similar to a business-to-consumer (B2C) market. Partial least squares (PLS) was used to estimate the ECSI model in two groups defined by a median split on Ganesan’s (1994) buyer’s relational orientation (BRO) scale.

Findings
Buyer’s relational orientation was a significant moderator of several relationships in the ECSI model. For buyers with a higher (long-term) BRO, loyalty was driven by satisfaction, corporate image, product quality, and service quality. For buyers with a lower (short-term) BRO, what little loyalty existed was driven by product quality alone, rather than service quality, image, or satisfaction.

Originality/Value/Contribution
This study demonstrates the usefulness of testing for differences in the drivers of loyalty for customers with short-versus long-term relational orientation. The management implications are the usefulness of adopting a portfolio approach to managing financial services customers by (1) segmenting customers into high and low BRO groups and (2) implementing different marketing approaches for these two segments.

Citation
Lee, Y. W. & Bellman, S. (2008).
An Augmented Model of Customer Loyalty for Organizational Purchasing of Financial Services.
Journal of Business to Business Marketing, 15 (3, November), 290-322.