System1 Share Discussion Threads

[crazycoops] 25/4/2017 18:05

Good interview with John Kearon on proactive Not sure of the wisdom behind predicting the French election publicly though!

[longshanks] 19/4/2017 08:21

Good top line results announced this morning with double-digit growth continuing.

Amazing that they paid out £2.4m in bonuses in the three months since 31st December whilst increasing cash balances by £0.5m over the same period.

Too early for any news on how well the rebrand is settling in but the company does appear to be firing on all cylinders.

The price is marching on and having taken good profits last year, I see no immediate reason to sell more when it could have legs to go somewhat higher.

The new UK General Election gives them an opportunity to refine their "political branding" theories and that will be of some interest but I see this as being a business that should focus on growing its US business.

[maurillac] 10/4/2017 11:18

yes cheers longshanks. very quiet here .. nice!
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[crazycoops] 03/4/2017 10:51

Goodbye BJU, hello SYS1 - thanks for setting up the new thread longshanks!

[longshanks] 31/3/2017 16:58

!


Last edited: 16 May 2017

On 1st April 2017, BrainJuicer changed its name to System 1 and its EPIC from BJU to SYS1.




We believe the market research industry will change more in the next 10 years than it has in the last 100 and BrainJuicer is extremely well positioned to benefit from a major system change. The growth of our core quantitative products gives us cause for continued optimism in the underlying momentum in the business and its long term upside potential.
John Kearon, Chief Juicer 21.03.2016


Welcome SYS1 watchers.

This is a bulletin board for discussion of the System 1 Group. A leading market research company pioneering a novel approach to both marketing, advertising and market research.

Previously called BrainJuicer and having successfully shaken up the market research space, the company decided on the 1st April 2017 to "grow up" and name itself by a nice, boring, moniker that board level management would happily spend money on.

The problem is that the rename of the business just hasn't worked out too well for them.

That said, whilst their largest customers have frozen or cut budgets and squeezed their ability to compete, the company has a plan and a very good leadership team.

The business when it works is highly cash generative and needs little capital investment. This means that they have been able to pay sizeable dividends in the past, and one hopes will start doing the same again in the near future.

Having sold out when it reached a peak, I have been building back a position.

Previous BJU comment










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At times it feels like I am the only person here. I first bought in to BJU in late 2009 when the company was just getting going. I sold out in 2014 when things were slowing down and started buying back in 2016 when it became interesting again.

If you become a shareholder and attend their AGM, there is a significant risk that you will get infected with over-enthusiasm. This company is seriously FUN - and yet is equally seriously focused on delivering shareholder value. A better mix could not be asked for.

The company throws off cash and returns it to shareholders in the form of special dividends and share buy-backs. That doesn't mean to say they aren't pursuing growth, they are - but they won't waste shareholder funds paying fancy prices for acquisitions.

BrainJuicer is essentially a market research company. Unlike most market research companies though they are dissatisfied with the inadequate quality of typical MR metrics and have strived to redefine the arena.

BrainJuicer has for many years copied and applied the inadequate tools used by other MR companies because that is what the market demanded. It always applied it's own gloss on these tools and called them "Twist" but was all the while focused on developing new "Juicy" tools that it felt were more appropriate.

In 2016, the company announced that it had pretty much completed this initial mission: almost all business is now "Juicy". They now want to capitalise on the distinctive flavour their brand of MR brings.

Their market research ethos is about evaluating, quantitatively, the emotional connection between consumers and products. They call this "System1" thinking.

Most market research supports advertising with "System2" thinking: let me show you the evidence that this product is best and you will then want to buy it.

System1 thinking says: you buy the product without actually understanding why - it just feels right. The company's slogan has become: "Feel more, buy more".

BrainJuicer's tools establish how well an advertising campaign will work. The best campaigns will have a 5-star rating but 4-star is good and 3 is adequate. If the campaign gets 2 or less then it really is a dud.

The ratings are established through measuring the 3 F's of Feeling, Fame and Fluency:

Feeling: how strongly people feel about your brand = future brand share.
Fame: how readily your brand comes to mind in the category = reflects current brand share.
Fluency: how easily people recognise your brand = your distinctive assets for building brand share.

So pleased are BrainJuicer with this concept and how well it works that they have gone one step further than most MR companies would ever want to take: they are prepared to offer guarantees on whether a campaign will be successful (or not).

In June 2016 they started a new venture called "The System1 Agency". Essentially a subsidiary of BrainJuicer, this is an advertising agency that gets freelance creatives to pitch for advertising work. The pitches are evaluated using BrainJuicers tools and the validated options presented to the customer.

The company operates globally. The US is its largest market (growth of 27% in 2016) with sizeable revenues generated in continental Europe. The UK is a more mature market and whilst the second largest in terms of revenues hasn't seen much growth in recent years. They operate in Asia and South America but these are still largely developing markets.

In the past, BrainJuicers work was typically done as a series of mini-projects - each costing the customer between £20-30k. This is still a working model but they have introduced "sticky" components that keep the customer tied in to using BrainJuicer and give greater continuity of client contact.

BrainJuicer has won the "most innovative agency" award in the peer-assessed GRIT report for each of the last five years. The awards only started in 2010 so to have won this award each year since 2011 is no mean achievement.




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