News notes
New York broadcaster CBS will become the first U.S. broadcast TV network to count digital viewers in its Nielsen TV ratings, with Nielsen to measure the viewing of CBS All Access, the digital subscription service for CBS. The agreement is part of Nielsen’s Total Audience Measurement effort, which is set to debut at the end of this year and aims to capture viewing across TV and digital devices.
Ipsos Public Affairs U.S., Washington, D.C., has joined the AAPOR Transparency Initiative as a charter member. The initiative promotes openness and honesty in public survey research by establishing standards of methodological disclosure.
Oslo, Norway, feedback management company Questback has confirmed it remains compliant with the European Union/European Economic Area (EU/EEA) data protection regulations following a recent European Court of Justice ruling to invalidate the Safe Harbor data-transfer agreement between the U.S. and the EU/EEA. The new ruling means technology companies processing data under the Safe Harbor framework are no longer in compliance with the EU/EEA regulations and customers using such services may be in breach of the law.
U.K. grocery retailer Tesco has abandoned the sale of its data analytics unit dunnhumby.
Fort Washington, Pa., firm M3 Global Research was mentioned in two Policy Research Perspectives by the American Medical Association (AMA). The AMA used samples of physicians from the M3 Global Research panel for the reports.
McGraw Hill Financial Inc., New York, is pursuing a sale of J.D. Power, the company’s market research unit based in Westlake Village, Calif. McGraw Hill said it has hired Morgan Stanley to seek strategic options for its J.D. Power unit.
Moat Inc., a SaaS marketing analytics firm based in New York, has become the first company to be accredited by the Media Rating Council for mobile viewability for its measurement of viewable ad impressions and related viewability metrics in both mobile Web and mobile in-app.
Acquisitions/transactions
Reston, Va., media measurement and analytics company comScore and Portland, Ore., media measurement firm Rentrak have entered into a definitive merger agreement under which the companies will combine in a stock-for-stock merger. Pursuant to terms of the merger, Rentrak will merge into a wholly-owned subsidiary of comScore and each share of Rentrak will be converted into the right to receive 1.15 shares of comScore. Upon completion of the merger, comScore shareholders are expected to own about 66.5 percent and Rentrak shareholders are expected to own about 33.5 percent of the combined company on a fully diluted basis. ComScore’s current CEO, Serge Matta, will lead the combined company as CEO. Bill Livek, Rentrak’s current vice chairman and CEO, will serve as the company’s executive vice chairman and president. Mel Wesley will continue as the CFO.
Englewood, Colo., software company Evolving Systems Inc. has acquired Durham, N.C., mobile marketing software and services firm Sixth Sense Media.
Iselin, N.J., data collection company Schlesinger Associates has acquired Chicago-based fieldwork company MedQuery. MedQuery will continue as a stand-alone operation under the same management by Chris Lee and Michael Schulte.
France-based communications firm Havas has acquired market research group CSA and the Intervalles agency, both formerly wholly owned subsidiaries of France-based investment firm BollorŽ Group, owner of a 60 percent stake in Havas.
London-based media agency ZenithOptimedia has acquired Australia-based marketing agency FirstClick Consulting. FirstClick will become part of Performics Worldwide, ZenithOptimedia’s global performance marketing network and will rebrand as Performics Australia.
Canada-based research firm Insights West has acquired a focus group facility originally operated by Vancouver firm SmartPoint Research and has reopened the facility as Vancouver Insights Centre.
Chicago-based business intelligence firm Q1 Productions has acquired the practice of Think Marketing, Research and Consulting Services of Columbus, Ohio.
Media, Pa., research firm SSRS has merged with Allentown, Pa., firm Survey Technology and Research (STR). The new company will carry the name SSRS. Gregg Kennedy, STR founder and president, has been named chief strategic operations officer for SSRS and will be based in the Allentown office.
Google, through its German division, has acquired a share in the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence. Google aims to boost its cooperation with the German and European research communities and strengthen the future prospects of its project portfolio.
Seattle-based social media analytics firm Simply Measured has acquired Data Rank, a social intelligence solution based in Fayetteville, Ark.
San Jose, Calif., retail analytics firm RetailNext has acquired Chicago-based mobile marketing company Pikato.
San Francisco-based customer service software firm Zendesk has acquired We Are Cloud SAS, the France-based maker of BIME Analytics software. BIME Analytics will become the core technology for Zendesk’s customer data platform, allowing Zendesk to integrate data analytics capabilities across its platforms.
Alliances/strategic partnerships
Portland, Ore., researcher Rentrak has partnered with AMC Networks, New York, to develop cross-platform analyses of program viewing by integrating viewing behavior from Rentrak’s television and video on demand information with census-level video viewing collected from AMC’s digital platforms. The partnership will show how audiences use the mix of platforms by demographics, advanced demographics and custom segmentations to help AMC better service its advertisers. Separately, Rentrak has entered into a partnership with London-based movie analytics firm Gower Street Analytics.
Tokyo-based consumer insights and marketing analytics firm Macromill-MetrixLab has entered a joint venture with Amsterdam mobile marketing firm TTC Mobile, with a focus on emerging markets. The new venture will incorporate TTC’s mobile panels into Macromill’s sample ecosystem. In addition, the two firms will integrate their panel management systems and survey platforms to carry out mobile surveys in Africa, South East Asia and Latin America.
Nielsen, New York, and Nuremberg, Germany, research firm GfK are forming a partnership for targeted future cooperation within the book sector that aims to help customers identify multinational trends and to more closely observe market developments. The cooperation centers around figures from the audience market in the U.S. and the U.K. Industry-specific information obtained from Nielsen will be integrated into the GfK databases and provided to customers via connected Web tools. They provide an overview of best sellers, popular topics and successful authors in different genres and enable conclusions to be made on sales traffic in other countries like Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
Ipsos Healthcare, London, has partnered with HoneyB Health LLC, a spinout company of Arizona State University, Tempe, Ariz., to deliver insights into connected health. HoneyB Health’s database of physiological assessments of connected health devices will be linked with Ipsos Healthcare’s research insights into the attitudes and behavior of end users and physicians. The partnership aims to advance how patients, physicians, practitioners and hospitals can use new health technology and devices to share information, inform diagnoses and improve medical treatments.
Shelton, Conn., research firm SSI is partnering with Upromise by Sallie Mae, a Newton, Mass.-based loyalty program provider. Upromise members who enroll in SSI’s Save with Surveys can earn money for college by participating in surveys.
Association/organization news
Marketing research industry organizations MRA and CASRO are in discussion about joining forces to become one, new association serving the U.S. research industry and profession. The respective boards and staffs will continue their discussions and work through a business plan that addresses governance, structure, management, staffing, budgeting and other issues. Both MRA and CASRO member structures, dues, benefits and agendas will remain intact in 2016. If approved by both boards, this change would have to be approved by the membership of both organizations. Although no decisions have been made as to how the new merged association would function, the aim is to maintain all current benefits through a newly branded association that would be positioned to do more for its combined membership than either association is able to do on its own. Goals of joining forces include speaking with one message in a stronger, louder voice before the public, media and government officials and harmonizing industry standards, ethics and guidelines from one consensus source.
The following individuals won the Qualitative Research Consultants Association (QRCA) 2015 Young Professionals Grant: Laura Albers, Kaleidoscope LLC, Santa Monica, Calif.; Tory Rebecca Gentes, the Palmerston Group, Lebanon, N.H.; Kayte Hamilton, Brado Creative Insight, St. Louis, Mo.; Ellen Hart, Vivisum Partners, Durham, N.C.; Heather Hilgenkamp, iModerate Research Technologies, Denver; Emily Hoffman, Research Partnership, Ambler, Pa.; Elizabeth Marconi, GfK, Conshohocken, Pa.; Margaret Mariani, the Strat Lab, Tampa, Fla.; Meghan Morales, Cocker Fennessy, Seattle and Shatha Richards, PSEARCH Associates Company Ltd., Kingston, Jamaica. The recipients attended the QRCA Annual Conference in Orlando, Fla., on Oct. 7-9. Separately, QRCA announced the winners of its awards at its annual conference. Rick Weitzer, principal of Prell Organization in St. Louis, received the President’s Award for his leadership and dedication to the Membership Expansion Task Force and Industry Relations Committee. Marta Villanueva, chief insights officer for NuThinking Inc. in San Antonio, received the Maryanne Pflug Spirit Award for her positivity, leadership and commitment to QRCA. Sidney Clewe, research insights navigator for TripleScoop Premium Market Research in Castle Rock, Colo., received the Rising Star Award for her leadership, the co-establishment of the Rocky Mountain Chapter and her contributions to the Chapter Success Task Force.
Awards/rankings
John Castellano, senior vice president of client relationships at New York data collection firm SHC Universal, was presented with the 2015 Circle of Excellence Award at the PMRG Institute’s Award Dinner on Oct. 5. The award recognizes Pharmaceutical Marketing Research Group (PMRG) employees, volunteers and officers who advance the PMRG through their efforts.
France-based researcher BVA and the Secretariat-General for Government Modernisation won the Excellence Award for Best Paper at the ESOMAR congress in Dublin. The award is given to a paper presenting an innovative and creative research approach likely to meet the challenges faced by market research today.
Amber Leila Esco, vice president of sales, market research at Fort Washington, Pa., firm M3 Global Research, received the 2015 PMRG President Award in recognition of her long-term commitment to the organization. She is currently ending her term as the chair of the board for PMRG after serving multiple roles with the organization.
Stamford, Conn., analytics software provider OdinText has been awarded the Research Entrepreneur of the Year award by CASRO for its Next Generation Text Analytics software-as-a-service product. The award acknowledges an organization that has introduced a new direction or service to its research business portfolio and provides innovative services that expand traditional market, opinion and social research.
Reston, Va., media research firm comScore received the Chairman’s Prize at the Print and Digital Research Forum for innovative research, led by Steve Millman, vice president of research at comScore, on how viewability and latency impact advertising effectiveness.
Researchers from GfK MRI, New York, received three awards at the Print and Digital Research Forum in London for work in measuring magazine readership, connecting advertisers to print audiences via programmatic buying and boosting the reliability of consumer surveys. Mickey Galin, executive vice president of research at GfK MRI, and Lori Jacobs, director of Time Inc., won the Best New Idea prize, while Julian Baim, chief research officer at GfK MRI, and Martin Frankel, consultant at GfK MRI, each won an award for Best Technical Innovation.
New accounts/projects
Confirmit Horizons, a software platform by Oslo, Norway, research software firm Confirmit, has been selected by U.K.-based social research company CFE Research as the market research solution supporting its expanding portfolio of research and evaluation services focusing on education, well-being and the economy.
U.K. consumer science company dunnhumby has selected France-based researcher Toluna to power its Behavioral Attitudinal Research (BAR) platform, which draws upon data from shoppers and gathers attitudinal data, providing a better understanding of shoppers. Toluna’s technology provides dunnhumby BAR users with access into insights like survey creation, consumer targeting and reporting and data visualization.
New companies/new divisions/relocations/expansions
The Government and Public Sector Practice of London-based communications firm WPP has launched a hub in Sydney to offer communications and research for public sector clients in Australia and New Zealand. The hub will give clients access to global best practices and thinking on government communications, behavior change programs, citizen engagement and digital government transformation. The Government and Public Sector Practice Australia and New Zealand Hub will be led by Kathryn Cooper.
London-based market research firm Zappistore has opened a regional office in Singapore, to be headed up by Roxan Toll, senior vice president for sales and marketing in Asia and the Pacific.
Cincinnati firm Illumination Research has opened its West Coast operations in San Francisco and tapped Brad Weiss as senior vice president of West Coast operations.
Stockholm, Sweden, software company Cint has opened an office in Hong Kong and has appointed James Rogers as regional head of supply acquisition and APAC MD. This coincides with an office move in Japan to accommodate expansion and facilitate growth out of its Tokyo premises, which acts as a sales and operations hub for the region.
Fort Washington, Pa., firm M3 Global Research will open its first research facility, M3 Philadelphia Studios, in January 2016. The facility will provide a full-service research space for the health care community and the consumer goods industry. M3 Philadelphia Studios is being established and will be managed by Lindita Mezani, vice president of market research.
Austin, Texas, research firm Latin Field has opened a focus group facility and call center in Mexico City.
U.K. recruitment company People for Research has launched User Viewing, a user testing lab and market research viewing facility in Bristol, U.K.
A new market research facility, i-view Warsaw, has opened in Warsaw, Poland.
Salt Lake City customer experience technology firm MaritzCX has opened a new office in Sydney to fuel business growth in Australia and New Zealand.
Former Microsoft Director Jessica Jobes has launched a new Seattle-based marketing agency called OnTheGrid LLC. The marketing agency occupies a cross-section between market research and inbound marketing and offers a customer interview service influenced by Google Ventures’ research sprints.
Cincinnati firm MarketVision Research has opened an office in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Research company earnings/financial news
Stamford, Conn., audience measurement firm Tru Optik has closed a $1.7 million venture financing led by angel investor Alex Blum and Progress Ventures.
Voxpopme, a U.K. video platform for market research, has completed a $1.5 million growth funding round. Existing shareholders and U.K. angel investors contributed to the funding round.
U.K. researcher YouGov has reported a revenue of £76.1 million for the year to the end of July, a 13 percent increase.
Nielsen, New York, reported Q3 revenues of $1.53 billion for 2015, down 2.6 percent due to the impact of foreign exchange, but up 5 percent on a constant currency basis compared to Q3 2014.
New York-based marketing and advertising holdings company Omnicom Group has reported Q3 2015 worldwide revenue of $3.7 billion, down 1.1 percent from the same period in 2014.
From July to September 2015, Paris researcher Ipsos recorded EUR 428 million in revenue, up 3.7 percent over the same period of the preceding year. At constant scope and exchange rates, revenues were down 2.2 percent in the quarter. For the first nine months of the year, the firm saw revenue of EUR 1.26 billion, up 7.9 percent.
France-based communications firm Havas has reported a Q3 revenue of EUR 516 million, up 15.7 percent from the same period last year.
London-based communications firm WPP has reported Q3 revenue of £2.9 billion, up 5.9 percent from the same time last year.
Cambridge, Mass., firm Forrester Research has reported 2015 Q3 revenue of $74.8 million, compared to $75.4 million for Q3 2014. Research revenues increased 3 percent and advisory services and events revenues decreased 9 percent compared to Q3 2014. On a constant currency basis, research revenues increased 7 percent and advisory services and events revenue decreased 6 percent compared to Q3 2014.