Market Research Council Announces 2022 Hall of Fame Inductees
Steve Coffey, Prof. Stephen Greyser, to be honored at 45th annual ceremony that recognizes outstanding active and retired marketing research professionals; Rex Briggs Wins Change Maker Award
New York, NY (June 28, 2022) – The Market Research Council (MRC), the nation’s leading organization devoted to promoting the field of marketing research, today announced the inductees for its 2022 Market Research Council Hall of Fame Awards and for its Change Maker Award.
This year’s Hall of Fame Inductees include Steve Coffey, Executive Director, The NPD Group, in the Active Practitioner category, and Stephen A. Greyser, Richard P. Chapman Professor (Marketing/Communications) Emeritus, of the Harvard Business School, in the Retired Practitioner category. Both are being recognized for their outstanding contributions to market research.
The Council’s Change Maker Award will be given to Consultant and Author, Rex Briggs. While not an induction into the Hall of Fame, the Change Maker Award recognizes an individual who has exhibited exceptional vision and passion in advancing Market Research as a profession during the past year.
The 2022 recipients will be celebrated virtually at the MRC’s 45th annual Hall of Fame ceremony, sponsored by NPD, on June 28th, from 5:30pm EST to 6:45 PM EST.
Steve Coffey is an industry veteran of 40 years, having worked at The Pillsbury Company, Nielsen Marketing Research, Nielsen Media Research, and Media Metrix, but mostly at The NPD Group. The hallmark of Steve’s career has been the launch of major, bespoke, panel businesses. As NPD’s serial “intrapreneur,” he built Nielsen and IRI’s National Consumer Panel (better known as HomeScan), still utilized today 35 years since its launch at NPD. He was also responsible for the development of Media Metrix while at NPD and most recently the 2015 ReceiptPal receipt panel of 150,000 active participants measuring all-category omnichannel purchasing fueling NPD’s consumer business..
Prof. Stephen Greyser, MBA and DBA, HBS, specializes in corporate brand management, corporate communications, the business of sports and nonprofit management at the Harvard Business School. A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Business School, he has been active in research and teaching at HBS since 1958. He was also an editor at the Harvard Business Review and later its Editorial Board Secretary and Board Chairman.
He is responsible for 16 books, numerous journal articles, several special editions of journals, and more than 300 published HBS case studies. He wrote the award-winning “Corporate Brand Reputation and Brand Crisis Management” and co-edited “Corporate Marketing and Identity,” a special 2009 issue of Management Decision. His 2019 co-authored HBR article probed corporate brand identity, including that of the Nobel Prize.
At HBS, he developed the Corporate Communications elective, creating more than 40 cases and articles on issues management, corporate sponsorship, relations among business, media and the public.
This year’s Change Maker is consultant, author and speaker, Rex Briggs, who is being recognized for his work in helping to advance vaccination rates. Briggs use of AI, first for Immunize Nevada, and later with the Ad Council’s “It Up To You” Vaccination Information campaign, helped increased vaccination rates by more than 20% compared to conventional campaign tactics.
According to an analysis by Brown University School of Public Health, Rex Briggs’ work applying AI Personalization kept more than 1,000 people out of the hospital and saved approximately 188 lives. The economic impact, based on US Government’s Statistical Value of A Life and average hospitalization costs was more than half a billion dollars.
Rex Briggs has been a change agent in marketing since the start of his career at Yankelovich Partners nearly 30 years ago. Rex is best known for his work in digital marketing. His 1995 forecast for how big the Internet would become by 2000 was more accurate than any of the other five-year forecasts. In 1997 Rex Briggs and Nigel Hollis founded MB Interactive, where they created Brand Lift Studies as a staple of digital advertising effectiveness. Today, that business continues as Kantar Digital.
In 2000, Rex founded Marketing Evolution which was the home to many firsts in advertising attribution, including connecting online advertising to offline sales and quantifying the impact of social media. Rex sold his interest in the business in 2019, which allowed Rex to volunteer his time to Ad Council and fighting the pandemic. Rex developed one of the most accurate 30- and 90-day forecasts for COVID-19 and published monthly updates in ESOMAR’s Research World and The ARF’s COVID Corner. Briggs supported the Ad Council’s efforts as their research consultant.
“The strength of the Market Research industry has always been its constant innovation to meet the needs of industry and the public,” said Kym Frank, President, MRC and Global Chief Experience Officer, Intermx, “and that spirit is evident in our honorees today. Steve has been a pioneer in advancing development and application of panels, and Professor Greyser created much of the understanding of brand reputation and identity that we have today and inspired generations of leaders in our field. Rex is already legendary in Market Research, but the life-saving work he conducted during the pandemic truly shows how our industry is vital to understanding and improving the human condition. We are delighted to honor these practitioners for their contributions and for helping to make the Market Research industry a vital force.”
Founded in 1927, the Market Research Council is one of the oldest and most prestigious market research organizations in the world. Its mission is to advance the science and application of market research and to encourage study of the profession in colleges and universities.
Now in its 42nd year, the MRC’s Hall of Fame counts among its inductees legends of the market research world, including George Gallup, Daniel Yankelovich, David Ogilvy and many others.
To join the virtual Hall of Fame awards ceremony, visit:
https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_L49zoiG6R_m10wtDmttcOQ.
About The Market Research Council
The Market Research Council is an invitation-only club of marketing research and insights professionals, founded in 1927 by the leading lights of market research industry to provide an ‘off-the-record’ confidential forum for the exchange of ideas and issues. For more information, visit www.mrcouncil.org.
