UNICEF Leverages Critical Mention for Real-Time Campaign Monitoring
NEW YORK, NY, Jan 26, 2009 — Critical Media Inc., the leader in global broadcast intelligence solutions, today announced that the United States Fund for UNICEF is leveraging its Critical Mention Web-based television search and monitoring platform to track message penetration and brand perception across the broadcast landscape. With Critical Mention, UNICEF maintains keyword-searchable access to more than 15,000 hours of broadcast content per day to constantly monitor the effectiveness of its communications in broadcast markets across North America.
The state of the global economy has created mounting concerns for non-profit organizations that rely on the donations of individuals, non-governmental organizations, foundations and corporations to sustain growth and support their underlying philanthropic objectives. The ability to measure which campaigns and messages are the most effective in fundraising becomes even more critical as organizations fight for valuable airtime in a crowded media environment.
For this reason, the U.S. Fund for UNICEF leverages the Critical Mention platform for real-time monitoring of its message perception as content is broadcast in more than 600 channels of television and radio. Using the platform, UNICEF is able to measure the resonance of its messages and corporate communications initiatives within minutes of broadcast airtime, using this information to hone its campaigns to generate maximum awareness for children's needs and UNICEF's efforts around the globe.
"Like most non-profitUorganizations, we find ourselves deeply concerned with the current economic climate and its impact on charitable giving," said Richard Alleyne, public relations officer, U.S. Fund for UNICEF. "Critical Mention provides us with the tools necessary to effectively track and report which of our messages resonate within this already noisy and cluttered media environment. I'm not sure how we'd beUable to do our job without Critical Mention."
The Critical Mention broadcast capture network is the most comprehensive in the industry, digitizing the world's broadcast news and making it searchable in near real-time. The platform indexes more than 800 minutes of television every 60 seconds across four continents and makes all of this content searchable by every spoken word within moments of broadcast. Users can perform keyword searches and view the results either within the platform or via e-mail alerts. Clients can also choose to have real-time results of stored filters delivered via XML or RSS feed into other business intelligence platforms.
"The economic downturn has made it especially crucial for non-profit organizations to gauge the effectiveness of their communications and key in on which messages are resonating most with broadcast audiences," said Sean Morgan, CEO, Critical Media. "The services we provide through our Critical Mention platform enable the U.S. Fund for UNICEF to leverage the most comprehensive broadcast infrastructure in the world to measure awareness for each unique fundraising campaign. We look forward to contributing to its future endeavors and are committed to helping UNICEF and other non-profits achieve their philanthropic goals in any way we can."
About Critical Media
Critical Media Inc. is a company at the forefront of real-time broadcast media capture, search, syndication and information services. The company provides tools and services to content consumers, providers, distributors and advertisers, leveraging its real-time broadcast capture infrastructure. Every day, Critical Media digitizes and monetizes over 15,000 hours of keyword searchable broadcast content from four continents. The company is comprised of two divisions: the Information Services Group, which markets Critical Mention(TM), the company's dynamic real-time business intelligence platform, utilized by 25 percent of the Fortune 100; and the Broadcaster Services Group, focused on building the world's largest ad-supported repository of fully searchable, authoritative video news and information (ClipSyndicate), while providing broadcasters and content owners with risk-free, streamlined solutions such as its clip publishing platform (Syndicaster(TM)), and other solutions intended to take all complexity out of distributing and monetizing their video assets online. Critical Media was founded in 2002 under the name Critical Mention by Sean Morgan, one of the founders of Screaming Media — the largest text syndication company on the Internet now owned by Dow Jones, Inc., and is headquartered in New York City. For more information please visit www.critical-media.com.
About UNICEFI
For more than 60 years, UNICEF has been the world's leading international children's organization, working in over 150 countries to address the ongoing problems that contribute to child mortality. UNICEF provides lifesaving nutrition, clean water, education, protection and emergency response saving more young lives than any other humanitarian organization in the world. While millions of children die every year of preventable causes like dehydration, upper respiratory infections and measles, UNICEF, with the support of partnering organizations and donors alike, has the global experience, resources and reach to give children the best hope of survival. For more information about UNICEF, please visit www.unicefusa.org.
SOURCE: Critical Media
