Pop's top scorers set to make a mark.

Entertainment Media Research's new PopScores study offers brands and companies an in-depth insight into consumers' awareness of - and emotional conection with - top artists

PopScores is a major new intelligence service for the music industry. It measures and tracks consumers' awareness and popularity of 200 artists across all popular genres by reflecting the opinions of 4,500 music consumers in the UK aged 13 to 59.

PopScores, which has been created by respected research company Entertainment Media Research, is a valuable new addition to the world of music industry research with an important twist.

Entertainment Media Research founder Peter Ruppert says the concept of PopScores came from the company's work testing thousands of songs for record labels and radio stations. "We discovered that `connection' to a song is pivotal for radio airplay and singles sales, but doesn't necessarily generate album sales," he says. "We conducted extensive scientific research to understand the other factors that drive album sales and have incorporated them in PopScores to fill a critical information gap for the music industry."

"We found that awareness of the artist, familiarity, connection and popularity - ie, emotional connection - are critically important factors. They are the basis upon which executives in the music industry can understand how their marketing strategies are performing and anticipate album sales."

Entertainment Media Research's initiative challenges the long-held industry belief that the formula for a successful act, namely big airplay plus big single equals successful album. Many albums fail to deliver on the potential highlighted by a successful single - Gnarls Barkley may be this year's biggest example - perhaps because of one crucial omission from that formula. That omission is "the big X", suggests Ruppert with "X" being the consumer's emotional connection with an artist. PopScores shows where that emotional connection is strongest and where it is lacking.

"Record sales are the ultimate determinant of success, but they provide little or no diagnostic information as to how to boost sales," he says. "PopScores provides multiple diagnostic measures that will help record labels sell more records: artist popularity, name awareness, artist familiarity plus a breakdown as to how positive or negative an artist is perceived."