News notes
Mountain West Research, Pocatello, Idaho, has agreed to pay a $20,000 fine in a settlement with the Attorney General’s Office for illegal push polling conducted in July on behalf of Democrat politician Paul Hodes. Mountain West made telephone calls defined as push polling by state election law and were illegal because the company did not provide necessary disclosures. Law requires the pollster to identify either the candidate on whose behalf the call is being made or the candidate being opposed in the push poll and provide the telephone number from where the push polling is being conducted.
Berkeley, Calif., research company NeuroFocus has released NeuroStandards, a set of principles for conducting EEG-based, full-brain measurements intended for application to market research studies. The three core segments of NeuroStandards are standards for study design, protocols and the establishment of statistical sampling processes and sample sizes; standards for laboratory operations, including specialized design and construction techniques and materials, staffing and training, data collection and management and lab processes and procedures; and safeguards for maintaining strict protections for consumers, their rights and their data.
Acquisitions/transactions
Facts International, a Kent, U.K., research company, has acquired London research company acefieldwork for an undisclosed amount. The companies will continue to trade separately under their existing brand names but plan to merge in 2011.
New York research company WorldOne has acquired Field Facts UK, a Framingham, Mass., research company. The Field Facts facilities will operate under the name WorldOne Studios.
Alliances/strategic partnerships
Montréal research company Voxco Inc. and MARSC, a Dorking, U.K., research software company, have partnered to provide a software package combining MARSC’s panel management software with Voxco’s data collection software.
Fort Washington, Pa., research company Centris and Chicago research company New Paradigm Resources Group Inc. have formed a strategic alliance to expand the market analysis services available to telecommunications companies.
Ugam Research Solutions, New York, has entered into a strategic partnership with Physicians Interactive Holdings (PIH), a Marlborough, Mass., medical resources and services provider, to offer health care data collection for the market research industry using Ugam’s data collection and PIH’s panel of 170,000 U.S. physicians.
Atlanta research company CMI has partnered with Mountain View, Calif., research software company NetBase to offer NetBase’s social media capabilities to CMI’s marketing research clients. The agreement aims to allow CMI to use semantic technology to gather insights from several sources of public and private online information.
Association/organization news
Several crowdsourcing companies have collaborated to create Crowdsortium, a trade organization intended to serve as a resource to crowdsourcing funders, practitioners, customers, researchers and eventually the crowd themselves. Membership in the Crowdsortium is free to join, but all members must meet a number of membership criteria, including being a crowdsourcing practitioner, customer, researcher or funder. For more information visit crowdsortium.org.
The Advertising Research Foundation, New York, has launched its Research Quality Super Council (RQSC) to provide leadership and member intellectual capital for research quality initiatives. The RQSC will aim to develop frameworks and acid tests by which “the better” can be more clearly discerned with greater speed and assurance. It will also offer a forum for sharing research-on-research and solutions to quality issues and will address practices as well as methods.
Awards/rankings
ESOMAR, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, has announced the winners of its 2010 ESOMAR Congress awards. David Bakken of KJT Group won the award for best paper overall; Ludovic Depoortere and Wim Hamaekers of Rogil Marketing and Sensory Research won the award for best case history; and Florian Bauer of Vocatus won the award for best methodological paper.
Additionally, ESOMAR has named Keith Bailey, Adam Chmielowski, Andy Dexter and Leanne Tomasevic the recipients of its excellence award for best paper 2009/2010.
Finally, Will Goodhand of BrainJuicer Group PLC was awarded the title of 2010 ESOMAR Research Superstar for his presentation aimed at persuading a traditional research buyer to use an online community.
Reston, Va., research company comScore Inc. has been named to the Deloitte Technology Fast 500, a ranking of the fastest-growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and clean technology companies in North America. Rankings are based on percentage of fiscal-year revenue growth from 2005-2009.
BrainJuicer Group PLC, London, received the award for research innovation at the Jay Chiat Strategy Festival.
The Marketing Science Institute, Boston, has named Renana Peres of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and Ron Shachar of the Fuqua Business School at Duke University recipients of the top award for their research proposal “Multichannel word of mouth: the effect of brand characteristics.” The methodology outlined in the plan was developed in collaboration with Fresno, Calif., research company Decipher Inc.
Columbia, Md., research company Arbitron Inc.’s multicultural marketing manager Oveda Brown has been named to Radio Ink’s list of Ones to Watch.
ColoradoBiz magazine has named Carl Rossow, co-founder of iModerate Research Technologies, Denver, one of the top 25 most influential young professionals under the age of 40.
Scottsdale, Ariz., research company Thumbspeak LLC’s business application achieved No. 1 ranking on iTunes on October 18.
New accounts/projects
Chicago confections company Wm. Wrigley Jr. has adopted New York research company TRA Inc.’s solution to evaluate the impact of television advertising on sales.
New York researcher The Nielsen Company has signed a five-year contract to serve as the preferred research supplier to the New Zealand Print Media Industry Research Review Group.
Scripps Television, Knoxville, Tenn., has chosen Portland, Ore., research company Rentrak’s StationView Essentials local TV ratings service for Scripps’ ABC-affiliate WXYZ-TV in Detroit.
Reston, Va., research company comScore Inc. has adopted San Francisco research company MarketTools Inc.’s TrueSample validation platform to certify the consumer survey responses for comScore clients that request the service.
Orem, Utah, research company Opinionology has added Westport, Conn., research company Imperium LLC’s Verity service to Opinionology’s online respondent identity validation techniques.
Telefónica O2, a Berkshire, U.K., telecommunications provider, has selected Cologne, Germany, research company Globalpark to survey its employees.
Columbia, Md., research company Arbitron Inc. has signed a multi-year agreement with Adelante Media Group LLC for Arbitron’s Portable People Meter and diary radio rating services in all markets.
New companies/new divisions/relocations/expansions
L&E Research, Raleigh, N.C., has opened its Tampa, Fla., facility at 100 N. Tampa St. The location was formerly the site of a TAi Companies research facility.
Stockholm, Sweden, research company Cint has opened offices Los Angeles; Princeton, N.J.; and San Francisco. The company is also relocating to larger office spaces in Atlanta and Toronto.
Horsham, Pa., research company TNS has established its corporate development division and named Matthew Froggatt chief development officer.
Qualvu, a Golden, Colo., research company, has opened an office in Dublin, Ireland. This is the first European office for Qualvu, and Anne-Marie O’Sullivan has been appointed to lead the operation.
Fresno, Calif., research company Decipher Inc. has reopened its Los Angeles office at 6380 Wilshire Blvd.
Recently-merged U.K. research consultancies SPA and Future Thinking have opened a Paris office at 117 avenue Victor Hugo, 92100 Boulogne-Billancourt.
Research Panel Asia Inc., Tokyo, has opened an office in Los Angeles. This is the first U.S. location for the company.
Research Now, Dallas, has opened an office in Milan, Italy. The office will be headed by Robinson Leoni.
Chennai, India, research agency krea has launched the India Field Network for quantitative and qualitative data collection.
Research company earnings/financial news
Vision Critical, Vancouver, B.C., announced a three-year commitment to provide financial support to the Dr. Peter AIDS Foundation, a Vancouver organization focused on helping those whose lives have been affected by HIV/AIDS, addiction, mental illness, poverty and discrimination.
GutCheck, Denver, has closed a $2 million Series A round of funding. The round was led by Highway 12 Ventures, Boise, Idaho; Village Ventures, Williamstown, Mass.; iModerate Research Technologies, Denver; Benenson Strategy Group, New York; and several others in the market research industry.
The Nielsen Company, New York, announced that on September 30 its indirect wholly-owned subsidiaries, Nielsen Finance LLC and Nielsen Finance Co., priced an offering of $750 million aggregate principal amount of 7.75 percent senior notes due 2018 at a price to the public of 99.267 percent of principal amount in a private offering that is exempt from the registration requirements of the Securities Act of 1933. Nielsen intends to use the net proceeds from this private offering to redeem a portion of Nielsen’s $869 million 10 percent senior notes due 2014 and related obligations.