News notes
New York-based Jupitermedia Corporation has sold its JupiterResearch division for $10.1 million in cash and the assumption of certain liabilities by the purchaser, subject to certain post-closing adjustments. The purchaser is JupiterResearch LLC, a subsidiary of JupiterKagan, Inc., which is a portfolio company of MCG Capital Corporation.
The work of ethnographers Hy Mariampolski and Sharon Wolf, managing directors of QualiData Research Inc., Brooklyn, N.Y., is featured in the book Odder Jobs: More Portraits of Unusual Occupations by photo essayist Nancy Rica Schiff.
The United States Patent and Trademark Office has awarded Waltham, Mass.-based research firm Affinnova Inc. U.S. Patent No. 7,016,882 entitled, “Method and Apparatus for Evolutionary Design.” The patent involves an algorithmic approach for presenting and generating product ideas to consumers, typically in an electronic format.
Resolution Research & Marketing Inc., Denver, announced two successful settlements of trademark actions taken against competitors whose names were confusingly similar to Resolution Research. “We took legal action because we, like many companies, place great importance and value in our name. In both cases, the infringing name and logotype were so similar that Resolution Research actually received calls and correspondence, demonstrating public confusion between the two entities,” said Nina Nichols, president and CEO of Resolution Research in a press release. Both competitors have changed their names. The name Resolution Research is a federally registered trademark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Association/organization news
The Council for Marketing and Opinion Research, Bethesda, Md., has named Christopher S. Lee as its new director of government affairs and counsel.
The Advertising Research Foundation has moved to new offices at 432 Park Avenue South (at 29th Street), 6th Floor, New York, N.Y., 10016. Phone 212-751-5656. Fax 212-319-5265.
The Boardroom Project, a body of marketers in advertising, media, academic, measurement and modeling with a mission to “establish marketing measurement standards for continuous improvement in business performance,” has defined a marketing measurement audit protocol (MMAP) connecting all marketing activities to the financial performance of a firm. “MMAP will become to the marketing profession what GAAP and IFRS are to accounting and ISO is to operations. It is no longer acceptable for marketing to be viewed as a cost that lacks standard metrics and processes to drive continual improvement,” said Dwight Riskey, senior vice president of PepsiCo, in a press release. “The body has proposed that cash flow both short-term and over time is the ultimate metric to which every marketing activity should be causally linked through the validation of intermediate marketing metrics.”
“The process of validating all intermediate marketing outcome metrics against short-term and/or long-term cash flow drivers is the only way to facilitate forecasting and improvement,” said Margaret (Meg) Henderson Blair, president of ARS/rsc and a founding member of the Boardroom Project.
“We are now inviting broader involvement in three areas. One, review the standards. Two, start incorporating them into current business practices. And three, address measurement in specific marketing activities where standards are lacking,” said Kate Sirkin, executive vice president of Starcom MediaVest. For information contact David W. Stewart, professor of marketing, Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California, at david.stewart@marshall.usc.edu.
The new 2006-07 president of Canada’s Marketing Research and Intelligence Association, Nik Nanos, president of Toronto-based SES Research, and the 2006-07 board of directors took office on March 30 in conjunction with the association’s first annual general meeting.
Awards/rankings
Seena Sharp, founder and principal of Sharp Market Intelligence, Los Angeles, Calif., is one of three recipients of the 2006 Fellow Award from the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP). The award annually recognizes up to three SCIP members who have made outstanding contributions to the competitive intelligence profession. The candidates must have completed five years of valued and recognized service to SCIP and they may come from any field, such as government, business or academia.
The 2006 Grand Ogilvy Award was accepted by Postal Service representatives for the organization’s “Access” campaign, which increased awareness of USPS package shipping products and services. “We knew our small-business customers would take advantage of the convenience of our services through usps.com, but the challenge was building awareness,” said Chief Marketing Officer Anita Bizzotto in a press statement. “We successfully did that.”
The Advertising Research Foundation Ogilvy Awards are named after advertising executive David Ogilvy, who believed that behind every great advertising campaign is great research.
The Postal Service included television, print, radio and Web advertising, as well as employee awareness efforts. The research, developed in cooperation with the Postal Service’s advertising agency Campbell-Ewald and other partners, was the driving force behind the creative work.
Waltham, Mass., research firm Invoke Solutions was included in the list of “Cool Vendors” in the Cool Vendors in CRM Marketing and Analytics Report, 2006, published in March by Stamford, Conn., technology research firm Gartner Inc. The companies represented in Gartner’s report have developed new delivery models and new ways for their clients to use customer insight and relationships to build better and more profitable businesses.
New accounts/projects
San Francisco research firm Zoomerang has announced four new clients using Zoomerang for their business operations: Hairpin Turns, San Francisco; the Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association, McLean, Va.; the NonProfit Times, Morris Plains, N.J.; and WorldWIT, Boulder, Colo.
Zimmerman Advertising, part of the Omnicom Group, has signed a contract for the use of Portable People Meter-based radio audience estimates from New York-based Arbitron.
New companies/new divisions/relocations/expansions
Research firm Millward Brown has expanded in mainland Europe, opening a new office in Geneva, Switzerland. The firm tapped Sana Carlton to head the new office.
U.K.-based Research Now has opened an office in Paris, installing Client Development Director Jean-Luc Daurelle and Client Service Manager Emmanuel Probst in it. The new office will be overseen by Andrew Cooper, managing director of Research Now.
Survey Sampling International (SSI), Fairfield, Conn., has opened an office in Beijing and named Juai Kong (JK) Leong president, SSI Asia, and Bill Zuo director, SSI Asia.
Separately, SSI-Bloomerce Access Panels has adopted the name of its parent company, Survey Sampling International, as the corporate name for all its European branches. In addition, SSI-Bloomerce expanded its London and Rotterdam offices and added offices in Madrid, Paris and Frankfurt.
Company earnings reports
For the quarter ended March 31, 2006, Arbitron Inc., New York, reported revenue of $85.1 million, an increase of 7.4 percent over revenue of $79.2 million during the first quarter of 2005. Planned spending on the Portable People Meter and Project Apollo initiatives and the required expensing of share-based compensation, effective January 1, 2006, increased costs and expenses for the first quarter by 20.9 percent, from $44.4 million in 2005 to $53.7 million in 2006. Earnings before interest and income tax expense (EBIT) for the quarter were $29 million, a decrease of 11.2 percent over EBIT of $32.7 million during the comparable period last year. Net income for the quarter was $18.2 million, a decrease of 8.3 percent from $19.8 million for the first quarter of 2005. Net income per share for the first quarter of 2006 was $0.58 (diluted), compared with $0.63 (diluted) for the comparable period last year, a decrease of 7.9 percent.
IMS Health, Fairfield, Conn., reported first-quarter 2006 revenue of $446.2 million, up 9 percent (13 percent constant dollar), compared with revenue of $411 million for the first quarter of 2005. First-quarter 2006 diluted earnings per share on an SEC-reported basis were $0.56, compared with $0.13 in the prior year. Excluding the expensing of stock options, on an adjusted basis, earnings per share were $0.34, a 17 percent increase, compared with $0.29 per share in the same period last year. Including the expensing of stock options, adjusted earnings per share for the first quarter were $0.31, up 7 percent. Net income on an SEC-reported basis was $118.1 million, compared with $30.3 million in the year-earlier quarter. On an adjusted basis, excluding the expensing of stock options, first-quarter net income rose 6 percent to $72.1 million for the 2006 first quarter, compared with net income of $68.1 million in the prior year. Including the expensing of stock options, adjusted net income for the first quarter of 2006 was $65.3 million, down 4 percent.
Operating income in the first quarter of 2006 was $96.7 million on both an SEC-reported basis and adjusted basis (including the expensing of stock options), compared with $96.9 million in the year-earlier period. Excluding the expensing of stock options, adjusted operating income in the 2006 first quarter was $106.4 million, up 10 percent (13 percent constant dollar) over the prior year.
Adjusted results for the 2006 first quarter exclude a net $29.5 million U.S. tax benefit resulting from a favorable audit settlement with the IRS on a legacy tax matter, as well as certain net tax benefits of approximately $21.8 million. First-quarter 2005 results on an adjusted basis exclude a one-time tax charge of $67.1 million related to repatriating $647 million of previously undistributed foreign earnings under the American Jobs Creation Act.
Mountain View, Calif., research firm CustomerSat Inc. announced strong revenue growth in its 2006 fiscal year ending March 31, 2006. Revenue in the quarter ending March 31 was up 62 percent over the same quarter in 2005. For the entire fiscal year, revenues were up 35 percent. As of FY2006, CustomerSat extended its consistent profitability to four consecutive years.