Relative Insight helps brands break out

Relative Insight, a spin-out of Lancaster University, has re-launched as a service that lets brands and marketing agencies analyse language. The software was originally developed to identify and track paedophiles and terrorists, and marketed under the company’s previous name Relative.ai.

Relative Insight’s technology, which is based on a decade of research at the university, turns language into data which marketers can then use to determine how certain phrases and slogans resonate with key markets.

Relative’s clients currently include Microsoft, Havas and Ogilvy, which use the software to gain a better understanding of how effective its copy is. This includes advertising, social media engagement, website content and forums.

Relative’s software is only automated to a certain degree. The company manages the data for its clients and makes recommendations based on that data.

Ben Hookway, CEO of Relative Insight, said: “There are now so many channels via which a brand can talk about itself, and via which its consumers and users can respond. To truly understand what you are saying about yourself and what is being said about you, simple analysis of social media channels simply is not enough. For example, a word like break alone has 76 different meanings in English – sentiment analysis tools really struggle to know which meaning is intended. The launch of Relative Insight will enable organisations to have a level of insight into the language used by themselves, their customers and their competitors on a scale that has never been available before.”