News notes
In February, Reuters reported that Chicago-based Kraft Foods Inc. had filed a lawsuit in federal court in Chicago against frozen pizza rival Schwan’s Sales Enterprises Inc. and one of its employees, trying to stop the maker of Red Baron and other pizzas from using its trade secrets. Kraft, which makes DiGioruo, Jack’s and Tombstone pizzas, said that Timothy Cauley, head of Schwan’s retail grocery pizza business, obtained information regarding new product strategies, financial details and other areas white working on a Kraft project for market research firm ACNielsen.
Cauley left Nielsen in December for the job at Minnesota-based Schwan’s, but prior to that had emailed to his home documents containing Kraft-related data, the lawsuit alleged.
Cauley did not return any documents to Kraft or ACNielsen when he resigned, the lawsuit said, alleging that Cauley violated a confidentiality agreement he signed with ACNielsen. The suit seeks an injunction to stop Cauley from working in any job related to Schwan’s pizza business for at least one year, the immediate return of any confidential documents, and unspecified damages.
Earlier this year, Research International USA, Inc., Chicago,conducted a Super Group idea generation session with high school sophomores from the Chicago High School for Agriculture Sciences. The students are part of a school-based program called Food from the ’Hood Chicago, which delivers natural food products to stores, helps community shelters, and provides college scholarships to participating students. The Chicago organization was patterned after the South Central Los Angeles Food from the ’Hood program, which was born out of that city’s 1992 riots. The session was conducted to help the students generate ideas for new products made from the organic produce they grow, narrow their ideas, and come to an agreement on which one they will manufacture. A percentage of proceeds from the sales of products is donated to community organizations.
Wilton, Conn., research firm Greenfield Online has announced a reorganization aimed at opening new markets for its Internet marketing research and business information services. To facilitate the new strategy, the firm reports that investors have committed an additional $12 million.
ACNielsen Corporation has completed its merger with VNU N.V., creating a new marketing and media information firm. The $2.3 billion merger became effective on February 16, following a successful cash tender offer by a wholly-owned subsidiary of VNU, and regulatory approvals from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the European Commission. Under the terms of the tender offer, shareholders received $36.75 in cash for each of their ACNielsen shares. Trading in the common stock of ACNielsen ceased at the close of trading on February 16. VNU shares continue to be traded on the Amsterdam, Brussels and Luxembourg exchanges, and, in the U.S., American Depository Receipts (ADRs) are traded on the NASD Over the Counter Bulletin Board.
Acquisitions
Harris Interactive, a Rochester, N.Y., research firm, has acquired the custom research division of Yankelovieh Partners, Norwalk, Conn. Harris Interactive acquired only the custom research division of Yankelovich. The custom research division, which currently, conducts the majority of its research using the telephone, is expected to generate approximately $15 million in revenue during the remainder of calendar year 2001. Also as part of the agreement, Harris Interactive hired approximately 65 Yankelovich employees, mostly project personnel, research analysts, data collection management, and data processing employees. Harris Interactive acquired no real estate in the transaction.
Alliances/strategic partnerships
Step 9 Software Corporation, Fall-fax, Va., and SPSS Inc., Chicago, have announced a strategic partnership to integrate SPSS analytic technologies into Step 9’s iCustomer, an order entry/order management application. The joint solution will give service provider executives the ability to measure performance in areas such as service provisioning, product profitability, and overall customer churn, and generate business intelligence.
San Diego-based Claritas Inc. and San Francisco-based Cogit Corp. have announced an agreement to incorporate Claritas’ proprietary consumer segmentation systems PRIZM and MicroVision into Cogit’s visitor relationship management services, enabling Web marketers to increase response from anonymous Web visitors by optimizing content for each visitor.
Under terms of the agreement, Claritas, a marketing information firm, will market private label versions of Cogit’s visitor relationship management services to be known as eMAGE Profile and eMAGE Target. Cogit is a provider of such services within the Internet industry. Tokyo-based research firm Marketing Intelligence Corp. (MiC) and New York’s Jupiter Media Metrix have formed a joint venture, Jupiter Media Metrix K.K. (JMMJ), which brings together Jupiter Media Metrix, a media measurement firm, and MiC, the 17th largest marketing research firm in the world.
The Interactive Marketing Research Organization (IMRO), a non-profit organization dedicated to the creation of ethical and best practices for research conducted on the Internet, and the Institute for International Research (IIR), a New York business conference organization, have announced a new administrative alliance. IMRO has contracted HR to manage the administrative functions for the organization, liP, will provide support and manage such activities for IMRO as the membership program, public relations and Web site management, sponsorships, distribution of the periodic newsletter and the speaker bureau. The administrative agreement is designed to provide IMRO members with efficient service and easy access to HR events. IIR will benefit from the discussion forums regarding ethical approaches to interactive and online research.
New York-based WebSurveyReseareh and Princeton, N.J.-based Total Research have announced that they will work together to deliver online surveys to assess marketing research information from physicians and other health care professionals. Under the terms of the letter of intent, Total Research will have immediate access to WebSurveyResearch’s physician panel for performing marketing research. Total Research will perform questionnaire design and analysis of data.
Awards
Research Data Design, a Portland, Ore., research firm, has been named to Inc. magazine’s list of the fastest-growing privately held U.S. companies for the second year in a row.
New accounts/projects
Econometrics, Inc., a Chicago database marketing and advertising firm, has entered into a marketing agreement with Porsche Cars North America and its advertising agency, Carmichael Lynch, to conduct consumer market research in preparation for the launch of Porsche’s new offroad sport utility vehicle, the Cayenne. Porsche Cars North America, based in Atlanta, announced the introduction of the Cayenne vehicle on June 9, 2000. The Cayenne will be produced in a new factory in Leipzig, Germany, and will be available sometime in 2002. Annual sales are expected to exceed 25,000 units worldwide. Econometrics has provided predictive modeling and marketing data to Porsche during the past two years in connection with the Porsche Boxster and 911 projects.
Opinion Research Corporation, Princeton, N.J., has been chosen by Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the European Communities, to conduct a series of social research projects in Europe.
Information Resources, Inc. (IRI), Chicago, has extended its partnership with News America Marketing, a subsidiary of News Corporation Ltd., to provide scannerbased tracking data and analysis delivered via the Internet. Under the three-year agreement, IRI will provide News America Marketing with tracking data regarding its in-store and newspaper insert programs.
The Ministry of Science and Technology in Croatia recently purchased licenses for Tulsa, Okla.-based StatSoft’s Statistica and Statistica Neural Networks to be used by more than 100,000 students at all four universities. The purchase makes Statistica the standard statistical software used throughout the university community in Croatia.
In conjunction with the formation of a consumer advisory council, online travel site Expedia, Inc., has partnered with MarketTools, a Sausalito, Calif., research firm, to develop and maintain consumer relationships and activity as well as gather and analyze feedback. The community of several thousand travelers will provide ongoing feedback in areas ranging from overall industry topics to specific features and services - helping improve the Expedia.com Web site. Council members will be invited from the general online travel community as well as Expedia’s customer base.
Fidelis Care New York, a Catholic-sponsored health care plan, has retained New York ad agency Erie Mower and Associates (EMA) as a partner for its multimillion-dollar marketing campai~ma. EMA’s Albany, N.Y., office will handle all of Fidelis Care’s integrated marketing communications including advertising, marketing research, public relations, sales promotion and direct marketing services.
New companies/new locations
Research & Marketing Services, the Gallup International institute in West Africa, has opened RMS Cameroon. The firm, with offices in Douala, also coordinates and supervises projects in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo Brazzaville, Gabon and Chad.
Market Voice Consulting, LLC, an Indianapolis-based market research, planning and business analysis firm, has moved to a new location at 445 N. Pennsylvania St., Suite 900, Indianapolis, Ind., 46204.
Scott Kincer, Joey Harmon and others have purchased the former Polk Call Center in Riverside, Calif., and reopened the 160-CATI-station facility as Datascension, Inc.
MarketVision Research, Cincinnati, has opened a new 56-station call center in West Chester, Ohio, north of Cincinnati.
German ag research firm Kleffmann and Scottish ag research firm Phillips McDougall have established a new joint venture company, amis global Ltd. While Kleffmann and Phillips McDougall will continue to operate independently, the new company will develop global databases and provide consulting services. The firms began cooperating in 1999 to release amis global, a computer-based product that links market research information on the crop protection, seed and biotech industries with global sector analysis. The new company will initially be based in England.
Research Data Design, a Portland, Ore., research firm, has opened a new call center, its fourth, in Las Cruces, N.M.
Company earnings reports
National Research Corporation, a Lincoln, Neb., health care performance measurement firm, announced results for the fourth quarter and year ended December 31, 2000. Revenues for the fourth quarter ended December 31, 2000, were $4.2 million compared with revenues of $4.6 million for the fourth quarter of 1999. Net income for the fourth quarter was $742,000, or $0.11 per basic and diluted share, compared with net income, including nonrecurring charges related to the closing of duplicate facilities, of $625,000, or $0.09 per basic and diluted share, in the prior-year period.
Revenues for the year ended December 31, 2000, were $18.3 million compared with revenues of $18.2 million for the year-ago period. Net income for the year ended December 31, 2000, was $2.7 million, or $0.39 per basic and diluted share, compared with net income, including the nonrecurring charges in the fourth quarter of 1999, of $1.5 million, or $0.21 per basic and diluted share, in the prior-year period.
Opinion Research Corporation, Princeton, N.J., reported record results for the fourth quarter and the year ended December 31, 2000. For the year, revenues were a record $161 million, an increase of 36 percent compared to 1999 revenues of $119 million. Organic revenue growth was 11 percent for the year. Operating income for 2000 totaled $11.7 million, an increase of 38 percent from $8.5 million in 1999. Organic operating income growth was 16 percent for the year. Net income for the year was $3.3 million, an increase of 31 percent from net income of $2.5 million in 1999.
Princeton, N.J.-based Total Research Corporation announced second-quarter and six-month results for the periods ended December 31, 2000. For its second fiscal quarter, the firm reported record revenues of $13,081,463, compared with $12,112,292 for the same quarter of fiscal 2000, an 8 percent increase. Net income for the second fiscal quarter was $616,582, or diluted earnings per share of $0.05, compared with $646,379, or diluted earnings per share of $0.05, for the same quarter of fiscal 2000.
For the six-month period ended December 31, 2000, the company reported record revenues of $27,111,237 compared with $25,903,242 for the same six-month period of fiscal 2000, a 5 percent increase. Net income for the sixmonth period was $1,120,770, or diluted earnings per share of $0.08, compared with $1,271,017, or diluted earnings per share of $0.10, for the same six-month period of fiscal 2000.
Westport, Conn., health care information firm IMS Health announced full-year 2000 diluted earnings per share of $0.85, a 23 percent increase over 1999 results. Net income grew 15 percent year-over-year, to $253.6 million, while constant-dollar revenue rose. 16 percent and reported revenue increased 13 percent to $1,254.0 million. For the fourth quarter, net income grew 11 percent, to $78.0 million, and diluted earnings per share were $0.26, an 18 percent increase over 1999 fourth-quarter results. Fourth-quarter revenue rose 17 percent constant dollar, or 11 percent, to $346.4 million on a reported basis, compared with the year-earlier period.
Separately, the firm’s board of directors declared a regular first-quarter dividend of $0.02 per share, payable on March 9 to shareholders of record at the close of business on March 2.