MediaLab is overseen by Richard Jacobs, group head of commercial strategy at GMG Radio, and is led by group research manager Jez Simms, who recruited two analysts to work in the division at the end of 2010.
Paul Barnes, a recent MA Economics graduate, joined GMG Radio as market analyst, with a brief to extend the quantitative marketplace understanding in each piece of research MediaLab produces.
Consumer analyst Rebecca Cadorette will use her client-side experience at supermarket Iceland to look at how consumers interact with brands, media formats and social networks, and what affects their behaviour, attitudes and purchasing.
Cadorette and Barnes will work with Simms on a range of lifestyle and purchasing-habit research projects, some of which, such as "Money Sex Love Travel", started at the end of last year.
Jacobs said: "We talk to consumers every hour of the day and they talk back to us in text, email and on sites like Twitter. We are incredibly lucky because we have brands that consumers actively want to talk to, and this can provide an incredibly rich data set.
"MediaLab has a clear remit to provide usable information for our own radio and digital sales teams, but the ultimate aim is to provide an insight resource that takes a balanced look at the media marketplace and could provide a revenue-generating resource for agencies, clients or, indeed, other media owners.
As part of its ongoing research of Smooth listeners, "Money Sex Love Travel – how an older, more affluent audience can impact on a client’s bottom line", MediaLab has insight into the personal image, purchasing habits and spending patterns of people over 40.
For example, 'Money Sex Love Travel' found that 25% of over-forties are now single, compared with 1.5% of over-forties in the 1970s.
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