The Engagement Index is said to to provide clients with an “insider” perspective on current industry topics by profiling consumers in a number of engagement categories.

During each research wave, the firm says it will target timely industry topics. Questions are organised into nine components measuring consumer knowledge, attitudes and behaviour in the various engagement categories. Each survey respondent is given a score for each of the nine Index components based on their responses to composite survey measures. The component scores are then rescaled from 0 to 100. A weighted sum of the nine component scores is calculated, with double weighting applied for each of the behaviour scores.

MSI says: “We view behavioural change as the key goal of any engagement effort, and, as a result, give more weight to behaviour in computing the Index than knowledge or attitudes. An overall Engagement Index for each respondent is computed, based on the weighted sum of the nine component scores, rescaled on a 0-100 basis.

“Given the proliferation of new, ‘smart’ technologies, we expect engagement levels to increase over time, but it will be interesting to measure how quickly consumers move up this engagement continuum.”