Hakuhodo DY Group Launches New 'Market Effect Prediction' Feature on its 'Seikatsusha Insight Platform'

Hakuhodo DY Holdings Inc. (Minato-ku, Tokyo; Representative Director & President: Yasuo Nishiyama; hereinafter 'Hakuhodo DY Holdings') and Hakuhodo Technologies Inc. (Minato-ku, Tokyo; Representative Director & COO: Yuzo Tanaka) have launched the 'Market Effect Prediction' feature. This new addition to the 'Seikatsusha Insight Platform'—an idea support foundation that aids business expansion through AI and 'Seikatsusha' (living person) insight—allows for the advance judgment and simulation of the marketability of potential targets. This feature links with various products of the integrated marketing platform 'CREATIVITY ENGINE BLOOM' (hereinafter 'BLOOM'). By improving planning accuracy, it promotes the advancement and efficiency of marketing and communication operations for client companies. ◆ Background of Development In today's market environment, characterized by diversifying consumer values and rapid changes, the uncertainty of marketing investments is increasing, demanding decision-making based on more solid evidence. Among these, judging the validity of strategic targets is a crucial element of decision-making in marketing strategy. While generative AI has made detailed persona generation possible, there is a growing need to objectively evaluate, based on data, how much potential the target image drawn by AI actually has in the real market. The Hakuhodo DY Group advocates 'Human-Centered AI', aiming to utilize AI in a human-centric manner and expand human creativity through AI. The group is developing the 'Seikatsusha Insight Platform', an idea support foundation designed to deepen the 'Seikatsusha insight'—the core of the group's employees—using AI. This platform approaches from four areas: 'Seikatsusha', 'Market', 'Media/Seikatsusha Interface', and 'Effect Prediction', serving as a crucial core foundation for making new discoveries and creating value alongside AI. As part of the feature suite constituting this platform, the group has previously implemented the 'Evidence-Based Virtual Seikatsusha'*1 for unearthing deep insights and 'Seikatsusha MediA Insight'*2 to support communication design ideation. Now, the group has developed the 'Market Effect Prediction' feature, which simulates whether target groups analyzed based on Hakuhodo DY Group's proprietary data can become potential targets in the actual market, verifying their validity. ◆ Overview of 'Market Effect Prediction' This feature is a solution that links with various BLOOM products, including STRATEGY BLOOM PLANNING*3, to verify the marketability of targets formulated through cross-tabulation and cluster analysis. Through simulations using an agent-based model*4, it instantly calculates critical factors related to strategy formulation, such as whether the target can be acquired as new or potential customers, or whether they possess sufficient potential to achieve the set KGI. - Decision Support through Simulation in Virtual Industry Markets It reproduces the market volume and behavioral changes of assumed targets and ideal personas in a virtual market. This makes it possible to determine in advance whether the subject can become a strategic target and to what extent they can contribute to achieving KGI, supporting decision-making in target definition and measure design. - Effect Prediction Dashboard Tailored to Client Needs The group will begin offering an 'Effect Prediction Dashboard' customized individually to meet client company needs. By inputting persona information obtained through target analysis into the dashboard, it becomes possible to agilely conduct preliminary evaluations and improvements of marketing concepts, message directions, and advertising creatives for 'Virtual Seikatsusha' whose marketability has been confirmed, aiding in highly effective strategic judgments. - Supported by Large-Scale Survey Panel Data of 200,000 People and Industry-Specific Survey Data The Hakuhodo DY Group possesses vast amounts of data regarding consciousness and behavioral realities—such as hobbies, preferences, media behavior, and web access trends—beyond attributes like gender and age, through the large-scale 'Querida Panel'*5 survey of 200,000 people. Furthermore, by utilizing industry-specific surveys covering 11 industries and approximately 40 subcategories, it grasps actual product purchase conditions, service usage/contract status, various usage/purchase intentions, and brand indicators for each industry. By combining the diverse target analysis and persona generation features equipped in BLOOM, it realizes the basis for effect prediction and decision-making. ◆ Future Outlook The 'Market Effect Prediction' feature of the Seikatsusha Insight Platform will continue to deepen its integration with various BLOOM products, contributing to the realization of more advanced planning than ever before. Additionally, as part of the activities of HCAI Professionals, the Hakuhodo DY Group's cross-sectional AI expert group, professionals in various AI-related fields will participate in development, expanding the marketing foundation into a creativity platform that moves the hearts of Seikatsusha alongside AI, further supporting people's lives and corporate businesses through technology. *1 'Evidence-Based' 'Virtual Seikatsusha': A product that allows anyone to easily generate an N=1 persona without specialized prompts. It has a feature that supports planning ideation by selecting and displaying multiple personas on a single UI and obtaining answers tailored to the persona's characteristics, such as product acceptability and pre/post-evaluation of creatives, through chat-style dialogue with the planner. It also incorporates the Hakuhodo DY Group's proprietary 'Seikatsusha Insight Method' for unearthing consumer insights. *2 Seikatsusha MediA Insight: (URL omitted) *3 STRATEGY BLOOM PLANNING: A product based on the Hakuhodo DY Group's Seikatsusha DATA PLATFORM, implementing the group's strength in planning know-how as an analysis menu available to all employees. It enables end-to-end operations from grasping market structure to target definition and value definition. *4 Agent-Based Model: A simulation method that reproduces numerous individuals (agents) acting according to autonomous rules on a computer, analyzing and predicting complex macro phenomena (emergence) such as society and economy from their interactions. *5 Querida Panel: Data based on a large-scale survey conducted annually by Hakuhodo targeting 200,000 IDs. In addition to demographic information, it sets questions related to daily life, media contact, and product purchases. It can also be linked with behavioral data on the internet, allowing for the understanding of interests and concerns from browsing behavior. ◆ Reference) What is CREATIVITY ENGINE BLOOM On June 4, 2024, Hakuhodo DY Holdings announced the development of the integrated marketing platform 'CREATIVITY ENGINE BLOOM'. It is an integrated marketing platform that can centrally integrate and manage not only marketing areas such as media business and digital marketing but also commerce and distribution areas such as creative production, sales promotion, and CRM. By utilizing AI technology based on the Seikatsusha DATA PLATFORM held by the Hakuhodo DY Group, it expands users' creativity and supports the creation of new communication services and businesses. Initially, it will be used by group employees, contributing to the improvement of the OM rate of the marketing business and the growth of gross profit by speedily realizing the efficiency and advancement of sophisticated integrated marketing services. 'CREATIVITY ENGINE BLOOM' consists of the following five main modules and the 'Seikatsusha Insight Platform' and 'Seikatsusha DATA PLATFORM' that support them. STRATEGY BLOOM: A module that supports the formulation of marketing strategies, integrating consumer data and client company data, and using AI technology to visualize market structures, set targets, and streamline KPI formulation tasks. MEDIA BLOOM: A module that links with AaaS to maximize media effects for achieving KPIs. It efficiently formulates media optimization and allocation combining TV and digital. CREATIVE BLOOM: A module that supports creative production, utilizing AI to evaluate and automatically generate creatives, realizing operational efficiency and advancement. COMMERCE BLOOM: Links with purchasing data and EC platforms to support the formulation of marketing strategies integrating real and EC. ENGAGEMENT BLOOM: A module for building high-quality relationships with customers, linking major SFA and MA tools with the Seikatsusha DATA PLATFORM to provide customer LTV improvement and One-to-One marketing services. 'Seikatsusha Insight Platform': A new idea support foundation that aids business expansion through AI x Seikatsusha insight, conducting deep understanding of consumers and markets, and new discoveries and value creation alongside AI. 'Seikatsusha DATA PLATFORM': Centrally manages the Hakuhodo DY Group's proprietary data and external data, preparing it as a foundation usable by each BLOOM product. Integration and De Facto Standardization of Marketing Operations Improves labor productivity by centrally managing STRATEGY, MEDIA, and CREATIVE operations and integrating and standardizing business processes. Efficiency and Advancement of Operations using Generative AI Features Installs marketing operation know-how cultivated through Seikatsusha insight into generative AI, supporting deeper consumer insights. It provides services where generative AI and humans collaborate in creative work tasks such as target profiles, concepts, and creative ideas, enhancing employee creativity. Visualization of Integrated Marketing Effects Utilizes Seikatsusha DATA PLATFORM data and provides proprietary indicators capable of measuring integrated marketing effects using statistical and AI technologies. It also provides marketing intelligence features that support strategy formulation and measure development to improve indicators, contributing to the business growth of clients. [Reference] Seikatsusha Insight Platform The core of this is the 'Seikatsusha Insight Platform', which conducts deep understanding of consumers and markets, and new discoveries and value creation alongside AI, supporting business expansion through AI x Seikatsusha insight. By making AI, an entity different from oneself, an ally, it becomes a foundation for new ideas that generate ideas that move consumers' hearts and lead to the expansion of creativity. The Seikatsusha Insight Platform has the following four main features: - Seikatsusha: A foundation packed with dialogue with 'Virtual Seikatsusha' and Seikatsusha insight methods. - Market: A foundation for grasping market trends and ideating the future of the industry. - Media/Seikatsusha Interface: A foundation for ideating communication design with consumers. - Effect Prediction: Reproduces virtual industry markets. Predicts marketing effects and pre-evaluates and improves advertising creatives. The Seikatsusha insights born from the Seikatsusha Insight Platform will be executed with high precision through various marketing AI solutions, including each product of CREATIVITY ENGINE BLOOM, supporting corporate marketing in the AI era.