Summary
Attention is rapidly becoming the scarcest commodity in media, but remains the most strategically vital. The advent of digital media has resulted in an 'information overload', and an almost endless source of information sources for internet users. It has also eroded many of the tools traditionally used by marketers to get their messages across. They key is to reach users when, where and how they want to be reached, in a way that enhances their user experience. A case in point in how to achieve this was the launch of the film 'The Dark Knight', part of Warner Bros' Batman franchise. Rather than a traditional launch strategy, an interactive campaign aimed to engage web users, based on combining a real and fictional story which participants could become actively involved in. The resulting 'alternate reality game' included the production of a string of websites featuring characters from the film, as well as social media tools allowing fans to create their own 'Batman universe'. As a result, the film enjoyed a record-breaking opening weekend in cinemas, and received huge levels of coverage online, both via traditional content sources and on blogs and social networking portals.

Summary
This article describes and discusses the benefits of mystery shopping. These include improvement in customer service, greater staff engagement and, therefore, retention. Ideally, it should inspire staff to be positive towards customers. A staff programme including mystery shopping should involve: communication (making sure staff understand what is expected of them); education (so that staff do not see the programme as a stick to beat them with, but as positive training and encouragement); defined and measurable goals for employees; and a reward system for recognising good service.

Summary
This paper highlights the specific benefits and insights gained from the research efforts between Burke, Inc. and Olympus America. Covering a handful of different projects and countless business objectives, the paper provides an analysis of the key success factors, experiences, and innovations that were instrumental in successfully executing a productive and collaborative research program.

Summary
This paper looks at London Underground's use of mystery shopping as an input to investment decisions relating to the improvement of the travel environment. The paper starts by briefly reviewing the literature on mystery shopping, it then considers London Underground and the procedures involved in its mystery shopping activity. The paper discusses the role of mystery shopping scores in London Underground's Value of Improvements Model. This Model helps to determine priorities for the many improvements that can be made to the travel environment. Finally the paper looks at the applicability of London Underground's approach to other service organisations.

Summary
Mystery shopping has been around for over a decade, but has only recently risen to real prominence. This paper examines the reasons for the growth of mystery shopping in the United Kingdom. It describes what it is, why it is used, how it works, where it is used, who uses it and the typical results that it provides. Most critically, this paper illustrates why mystery shopping has become such an invaluable part of the retailer's assessment of performance. We hope to give a real insight into a technique which, until now, has been - ironically - something of a 'mystery' itself.

Summary
Mystery customer research is a technique of quality assessment in the retail sector (where it is called mystery shopping) and also in the service sector. It is growing rapidly in popularity, but research in cognitive psychology suggests a number of potential threats to the reliability and validity of data collected through its use. In particular, various factors associated with the encoding, storage and retrieval of information by mystery customer assessors are likely to influence the accuracy of the results and individual differences between assessors should also be taken into account in designing mystery customer surveys. A number of specific recommendations designed to minimise errors arising from memory failures and distortions are outlined and discussed.

Summary
The study presented here examines the views of the client perspectives on competitor mystery shopping in the light of the increased use of this technique in the research industry. Acceptable levels (length and frequency of assessments) are explored by industry sector, as are the implications these findings may have for The Market Research Society Code of Conduct. The influence of industry sector is examined. It is shown that this factor seems to determine the degree of acceptability of competitor mystery shopping. We would recommend that the Professional Standards Committee adopt the levels outlined in this discussion in order to set practical standards which can be added to the current MRS Code of Conduct or incorporated into MRS Code of Conduct guidelines.

Summary
Once a poor relation of 'real' research, the mystery shopper is now a professional assessor, and a key element in important new research techniques for identifying the realities of customer service, even at retail branch level, by independent investigation. Major retailers widely employ such independent assessment to monitor customer service in their own outlets, and even as the basis for staff bonuses. For the marketers of brands, they reveal the truth (sometimes horrific) of how their own and competing products are actually presented in store. Acceptable because they come from a dispassionate third party, the data can then be the basis for realistic new supplier-retailer trading relationships. Illustrative case history from a survey among travel agents.

Summary
A case history read at the AMSO Annual Conference, 1993. It describes how the Royal Bank of Scotland, following a radical change in objectives and strategy, set up and benefited from a more subtle research programme to monitor customer satisfaction, including mystery shopping.