News notes
The U.K. governmental Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has contracted with Cologne, Germany, consulting firm Detecon and Analysys Mason, a London telecommunications firm, to examine the commercial use of consumer data by auto insurance firms, retailers and game app providers. The study will include personal data and aggregated, anonymized metadata. “The researchers will examine available evidence and contact businesses operating in the sectors, as well as third parties, to understand how and why they are collecting and using consumers’ data,” the CMA said.
U.S. News & World Report, Washington, D.C., released its list of the best jobs of 2015, revealing “market research analyst” as the 14th best profession overall and the top profession in the business jobs category. Other categories included health care jobs, creative jobs and STEM jobs. The high rankings were due in part to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicting a 31.6 percent employment increase for market research analysts between 2012 and 2022.
TV network Nickelodeon has completed a research project to measure children’s real-time responses to advertising. Partnering with Momentum Research, Durham, N.C., Nickelodeon used facial coding to measure emotions and engagement following each advertisement. Alison York, Nickelodeon head of insight, described the usual in-home setting as having one large screen while multiple family members had handheld devices but said that current predictions of multi-screening did not hold with all the children. “It depends on the developmental stage as to whether they are capable of multi-screening,” she said, adding that only around age 10 do they begin to multi-screen. Earlier, they are either unable to do so or are really moving between the handheld device and the large TV. The Nickelodeon research found that in 50 percent of the time kids are watching TV, that is all they are doing.
Research for Good (RFG), Seattle, Wash., generated $122,748 in donations for the World Food Program and Action Against Hunger in 2014. RFG makes a donation for every survey completed by its participants.
Ford has opened its new Research and Innovation Center, located in the Silicon Valley and intended to be the largest automotive center in the area. The center will expand its current team of engineers to include 125 software, IT and user-experience specialists, along with business, development and marketing executives. The company plans to collaborate with outside engineers and to connect with local universities. Dragos Maciuca, a former Apple executive, will supervise the center.
A three-year investigation by the U.K. Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has led to Google’s agreement to update its U.K. privacy policy, ensuring that the policy and its account settings feature are easier to find and providing information on who can collect cookie-like identifiers and the reasons for their collection. Google has until June 30 to implement the changes.
Acquisitions/transactions
Denver analytics firm IHS has acquired Rushmore Reviews, Aberdeen, Scotland, which provides data for the oil and gas industry. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Portland, Ore., researcher Rentrak has sold its Pay Per Transaction (PPT) packaged media rental business to Vobile, a San Francisco technology firm, for a total price of $7 million, comprised of $1 million in cash, a $1 million note due in six months and Vobile preferred stock with a $5 million liquidation preference. Vobile plans to hire all Rentrak PPT employees to continue running the business and will rent space in Rentrak’s Portland office.
Wealth-X, a Singapore research firm, has acquired Ledbury Research. Ledbury will be re-branded with the Wealth-X name and will continue to operate from its current London offices.
Microsoft has acquired Revolution Analytics, a Mountain View, Calif., specialist in software and services for the R programming language for statistical computing and analytics. Financial terms were not revealed.
Symphony Technology Group, a private equity firm, is selling its mobile industry software and analytics services firm, Symphony Teleca, to Harman International Incorporated, an audio equipment manufacturer in Stamford, Conn., for an initial $780 million. Symphony Teleca CEO Sanjay Dhawan will join Harman and lead the new business division.
The Indian subsidiary of Asian Majestic Market Research Support Services has purchased a majority stake in EMTEE Research and Consultants, New Delhi.
In San Francisco, social network Pinterest has acquired Kosei, a Palo Alto, Calif., technology company. The Kosei platform analyzes customers’ browsing and purchasing history to predict future purchases. Co-founders Lance Reidel and Jure Leskovec and most of the Kosei team will join the Pinterest staff.
Apple has acquired Semetric, a London software firm with the Musicmetric tool which allows music industry artists and marketers to track their sales, downloads and social media metrics.
Tradedoubler, Stockholm, has acquired Adnologies, a provider of ad retargeting technology based in Hamburg, Germany. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Paris-based research and software firm Bilendi is set to acquire M3 Research, Funen, Denmark, for an undisclosed sum. M3 Research’s team of 26 employees will join Bilendi, and founders Mik S. Oddershede and Steen Agerskov and CEO Helle Oddershede will continue in their roles.
Alliances/strategic partnerships
Invoke Solutions, Boston, has merged with Academic Management Systems, Buffalo, N.Y. The two companies will continue to operate independently but will share software development, engineering, back office resources and financial management.
In London, Quidco, an online cashback site, is partnering with Stockholm software firm Cint to add the Quidco panel of 70,000 members to Cint’s OpinionHub platform. Quidco, with more than 4 million U.K. members and 4,200 retail partners, maintains transactional data on its panelists which can be used to profile audiences by online buying habits or to attach transactional data to survey data.
The Platt Retail Institute, a Hinsdale, Ill., research firm, has joined with the Integrated Marketing Communications department of Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill., to create the Retail Analytics Council. Steven Keith Platt has been named the Council’s research director.
QEP Marketing Clinic, a Chicago researcher, and Creando Associates, a New Delhi research firm, are partnering to market QEP Marketing Clinic’s proprietary methodology in India and to assist in its expansion in Asia. QEP, in turn, will promote Creando Associates to global clients interested in the Indian and Asian markets.
New York researcher Nielsen has partnered with Vancouver, Canada, software designer ResponseTek to create the Nielsen Listening Platform, which measures and analyzes customer feedback as it is received. The tool can provide performance metrics and benchmarking against competitors, as well as send automated alerts for any necessary corrective actions.
Birdzi, a Iselin, N.J., technology firm, has partnered with ProLogic Retail Services, a technology company in Chandigarh, India, to allow retailers to deliver personalized offers to shoppers at the checkout. The partnership will combine the Birdzi platform data collection with the ProLogic CRM software which helps retailers identify top shoppers and develop targeted offers.
Starcom MediaVest (SMG), a Chicago marketing firm, and FourthWall Media, a Washington, D.C., marketer, have formed a partnership providing SMG access to FourthWall’s anonymous, non-aggregated viewership data. SMG will integrate the FourthWall Media dataset with its TARDIIS planning and buying platform.
BDRC, a London research group, has entered into a joint venture with Fusion Analytics, a research firm based in Washington, D.C., to launch BDRC Americas. Fusion will merge into the new company and Matthew Petrie, founder and president of Fusion, and Fusion director Liz Healy will assume similar positions. BDRC will be the majority stockholder.
New accounts/projects
The Romanian television industry committee, ARMA (Asociatia Romana pentru Masurarea Audientelor), has extended its contract with London research firm Kantar Media until the end of 2019.
New York media services company Horizon Media will utilize the full suite of ratings services of Portland, Ore., researcher Rentrak. Separately, the Tennis Channel, Santa Monica, Calif., has agreed to use Rentrak’s TV measurement services.
New companies/new divisions/relocations/expansions
Afghanistan Monitoring and Research opened in Kabul on January 1, 2015. It is the first company in Afghanistan to conduct daily television audience research and planned to provide gross rating points and target rating points for television viewership by the end of March.
In Los Angeles, research firm uSamp has re-branded to Instantly Inc., with its products and services acquiring the Instantly name, shown on the new instant.ly.com Web site. “Changing our name to Instantly allows us to directly connect our sample business to our insights platform and expand both business units together,” said Alan Gould, CEO. Separately, Instantly has opened a New York office.
Millward Brown, New York, has established a new division, Millward Brown Analytics, to offer combined research, analytics and brand knowledge. The business will be staffed with analysts and researchers from its marketing science and MaPS (Marketing and Planning Systems) teams. Chris Petranto, managing partner at MaPS, and Chris Murphy, executive vice president and managing partner of Millward Brown Client Solutions and Analytics, will jointly lead the new business.
In London, Mehmet Xhambazi and Abdi Sa•d have launched Red Dot Research, which will specialize in online research and panel provision, as well as public relations research services.
The Havas Creative Group, Paris, is merging its data agencies Havas EHS and Havas Discovery into a new unit, Helia. It will be led by Havas EHS Group CEO Tash Whitmey and COO Matt Fanshawe and Havas Worldwide Chicago Group President Paul Marobella. The EHS and Discovery agencies provided direct marketing, loyalty, CRM, e-commerce, demand generation, data intelligence and analytics programs.
Dapresy, a Stockholm-based data reporting technology specialist, has opened new offices in Germany and Australasia.
London research firm Mintel has opened a new office in Munich which will serve as the company’s hub for the Germany, Austria, Switzerland and central eastern Europe region. Frank Weibelzahl will lead the office.
Ian Murray and Catherine Heaney have opened a new agency, house51, which offers brand, communications and social research through a group of senior consultants. Designed to be a “research collective,” they plan to integrate market research with psychology, behavioral economics and neuro-scientific approaches. They have offices in London and Glasgow.
Turkish social media specialist adMingle has opened an office in Singapore, to be led by Oz Aksugur. AdMingle calculates the influence and reach of social media by attaching values for each tweeting or posting activity and then measuring its followers, retweets or favorites.
Tractica, an industry analyst firm, has opened in Boulder, Colo., and will provide research reports and advisory services on user interface technologies, wearable devices and automation and robotics.
Metrix Consulting, Perth, Australia, has opened an office in Melbourne, to be led by Asher Hunter.
Leeds, U.K.-headquartered youth research and marketing strategist Dubit has opened an office in Melbourne, Australia. It will be headed by Adam Schoff as vice president of digital strategy for Asia Pacific.
Research company earnings/financial news
London marketing services firm WPP plans to take a 15 to 20 percent stake in comScore, a Reston, Va., research firm. ComScore will issue 4.45 percent in shares in exchange for both partnership benefits and the acquisition of European Internet audience businesses in some European markets. WPP will purchase up to a 15 percent share of comScore with an offer price of $46.13.
Study Hall Research reported its CY 2014 revenues increasing 28.7 percent and its client contracts up 32.1 percent over CY 2013 figures. The firm has moved to new and larger corporate headquarters in South Tampa, Fla.
Research Now Group, Plano, Texas, has entered into an agreement with Court Square Capital Partners, a private equity firm. The current management team at Research Now will remain. No financial terms were revealed.
The University of Cyprus has secured continued funding of more than Û1.5m over the next six years for its Economic Research Centre. The Centre conducts monthly reviews for the European Union survey program, including studies of the service, retail trade, manufacturers and consumer sectors.
San Mateo marketing software firm Beckon has closed a $13 million round of Series B funding, which will be used to continue development of its platform.
In Bordeaux, France, researcher Strategir has invested an undisclosed sum in Paris consumer research agency WSA, which will become Strategir-WSA. The new company will be 70 percent owned by Strategir and 30 percent by the current managers of WSA, Pascal Bluteau, Dominique Suire and Jean-Pierre Michel.
Nuremberg, Germany, research company the GfK Group reported its sales figures for the 2014 financial year fell by 2.9 percent to Û1.451 billion, with organic sales down by 2.1 percent. Currency effects accounted for a sales reduction of 0.9 percent.
Portland, Ore., research firm Rentrak reported revenue of $26.9 million for the third quarter of FY 2015, an increase of 38 percent over the same period in the previous year. The TV Everywhere business accounted for $14.8 million. Group operating expenses were $19.7 million, an increase from $14.5 million in the third quarter of FY 2014.
London-based Kadence International reported a 14 percent increase in its gross global half-year revenues, taking in $16 million. The increase was driven by growth in its U.S. and Indian operations.
Gartner, Stamford, Conn., reported a Q4 revenue of $584 million, a 12 percent increase over Q4 2013. The company’s net income for the 2014 quarter was $59.1 million, a decrease of 4 percent over Q4 2013 which was attributed to acquisition-related charges and a higher tax rate.
Forrester Research, Cambridge, Mass., reported a 4Q 2014 increase in research revenues of five percent, reaching $53.8 million. For the full year ending December 31, research revenues were $207.5 million compared with the previous year total of $202.8 million. Net income was $5.7 million compared to $4.0 million in 2013.
In New York, Nielsen reported Q4 revenue of $1.6 billion, an increase of 1.4 percent. Eliminating the effect of its Arbitron and Harris Interactive acquisitions reduced the increase to just 0.1 percent, still enough to continue its pattern of revenue growth over 34 consecutive quarters. For the full year which ended December 31, 2014, group revenues rose 10.3 percent to $6.3 billion. Buy revenues were up 3.4 percent to $3.5 billion and Watch revenues up 20.4 percent to $2.8 billion.
Reston, Va.-based comScore reported a 19 percent increase in its 4Q 2014 revenue to $89.1 million on a pro forma basis. GAAP net loss was $2.7 million. Full year 2014 adjusted EBITDA increased 24 percent to $75.9 million from the previous year.
Bloomfield Hills, Mich., researcher RDA Group announced 2014 revenue of $23.8 million, up 14 percent year-on-year and up 60 percent over the last five years.
IMS Health, Danbury, Conn., released its financial results for the quarter and year ending December 31, 2014, showing a 6.2 percent increase in revenue to $678 million in Q4 and 5.9 percent increase to $2,641 million for the full year on a constant currency basis. IMS said technology services revenue grew 13.6 percent while information revenue rose by 0.8 percent at constant currencies.
Meetrics, a Berlin-based ad measurement firm, obtained a seven-figure investment in its second financing round.
At HealthStream, a Nashville, Tenn., health care researcher, revenues for 4Q 2014 increased 22 percent from 4Q 2013 to $45.3 million and full-year revenues were up 29 percent from 2013 to $170.7 million.
The Enero Group, Sydney, Australia, parent company of Australian research firms the Leading Edge and Jigsaw Research, reported net revenue down 9 percent to $56.2 million in Australian dollars ($43.69 million U.S.) for the half year ending December 31, 2014.