News notes
Borderless Access, based in India, has marked 10 years in the online and digital market research industry.
LIM College, a New York City-based college focused on the study of business and fashion, has received approval from the New York State Board of Regents to offer a Master of Science degree in consumer analytics. The degree program will launch in the fall of 2019.
The University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn., has added a data analytics major to its curriculum.
The Certification Institute for Research Quality, an ISO audit and certification body and subsidiary of the Insights Association, has awarded certification to Portland, Ore.-based research company Hansa|GCR for compliance to ISO 27001. ISO 27001 provides a framework for companies to manage data security and establishes requirements for information controls to manage people, processes and technology.
Acquisitions/transactions
Adobe has agreed to acquire San Mateo, Calif., marketing software and solutions firm Marketo for 4.75 billion. Marketo’s engagement platform will be added to Adobe Experience Cloud, allowing Adobe to offer customer experience solutions across industries. The transaction is expected to close during the fourth quarter of Adobe’s 2018 fiscal year. Until the transaction closes, each company will continue to operate independently. Upon close, Marketo CEO Steve Lucas will join Adobe’s senior leadership team and continue to lead the Marketo team as part of Adobe’s digital experience business.
New York research firm Advanced Focus has acquired MarketView Research, located in Danbury, Conn.
U.K.-based social intelligence company Brandwatch and Boston-based consumer insights company Crimson Hexagon have signed a merger agreement. The merger is expected to close in Q4. Work to integrate the company’s products will begin immediately but both products will continue to be supported and operate independently for an extended period.
Dentsu Aegis Network has acquired U.K. research company B2B International. The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. B2B International will become part of gyro, a full-service global agency dedicated to B2B marketing, and operate under the brand B2B International – a gyro company.
Paris-based researcher Ipsos has successfully completed the acquisition of the four global divisions of Nuremberg, Germany, research company GfK’s custom research business (customer experience; experience innovation; health; and public affairs) for an enterprise value of €105 million.
Paris-based researcher Ipsos has acquired the mystery shopping staff, shoppers and clients of research company Market Pulse International. As part of the transaction, 30 people from Market Pulse International will join Ipsos in Australia, New Zealand and Thailand. Ipsos’ expanded Australian and New Zealand mystery shopping activities will be led by former Market Pulse International employee Shaun Hellyer as director, mystery shopping Australia and New Zealand. The Thailand mystery shopping operations will be led by former Market Pulse International Manager Witchaya Lekagul.
Nielsen, New York, has acquired Nuremberg, Germany, researcher GfK’s pet specialty point-of-sale business. The investment doubles Nielsen’s coverage of the pet specialty segment by adding neighborhood pet specialty and veterinary clinics to its retail roster. It will also provide retailers and manufacturers with a view of performance and competition across the retail landscape, inclusive of pet specialty stores, grocery stores and mass merchandisers, from a single source.
According to a statement by Mark Read, CEO of London-based communications firm WPP, the company’s board has approved a formal process to review strategic options for market research company Kantar, including the possibility of a strategic or financial partner, with WPP remaining a share owner.
Alliances/strategic partnerships
London-based consumer electronics retailer Dixons Carphone and Nuremberg, Germany, research company GfK have signed a partnership to share physical and online sales information. Dixons Carphone will become part of GfK’s point-of-sale tracking solutions for their sectors, which underpin GfK’s prescriptive analytics around market insights, consumer insights, marketing effectiveness and sales effectiveness.
InSites Consulting has onboarded Mentha Capital, a private equity firm, to help it accelerate non-organic growth through both regional expansion and the addition of strategic capabilities.
Nielsen, New York, and Rakuten Intelligence have entered into an agreement that combines Nielsen’s online purchase data and product reference data with Rakuten Intelligence’s consumer-sourced e-commerce panel. Released through Nielsen, the combined solution will provide a picture of the omnichannel retail landscape for the U.S. FMCG industry, giving a view into online and offline market performance and shopper behavior.
Los Gatos, Calif., TV streaming company Roku Inc. has announced a Measurement Partner Program to help brands and publishers quantify the impact of OTT advertising campaigns running on the Roku platform. The 11 partners include Acxiom, comScore, Experian, Factual, IHS Markit, Kantar, Nielsen, Nielsen Catalina Solutions, Oracle Data Cloud, Placed and Research Now SSI.
Costa Mesa, Calif., research company J.D. Power has formed an alliance with online reputation management platform Reputation.com. The alliance combines J.D. Power’s consumer research, data analytics and advisory capabilities with Reputation.com’s technology for capturing customer insights from social media and review sites to create a customer experience data solution for B2C enterprises.
Separately, J.D. Power has formed an alliance with customer experience analytics firm ClickFox. The alliance combines J.D. Power’s consumer research, data analytics and customer experience advisory capabilities with ClickFox’s customer journey analytics platform that analyzes cross-channel journey interactions at financial services, energy, retail, health care and insurance companies, allowing organizations to determine actual customer interaction paths.
MFour Mobile Research, Irvine, Calif., has partnered with Newton, Mass., data analytics platform MarketSight on a solution that gives users customizable options throughout the research process. Clients who use MFour’s consumer data can export it in SPSS or Excel form to the MarketSight platform. Users can then create crosstabs and translate crosstabs into charts and other graphic representations.
Association/organization news
The Advertising Research Foundation (ARF), New York, has acquired the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM). Under the acquisition, CIMM will become a subsidiary of the ARF, focusing broadly on the advancement of media measurement. The new division, which will retain the CIMM name and logo, will be headed by current CIMM CEO and Managing Director Jane Clarke. The acquisition was approved by the boards of both organizations.
Members of the QRCA, St. Paul, Minn., have elected its board of directors for the 2018-2020 term. The board members include: Tom Rich as president; Kelly Heatly as vice president; Caroline Volpe as treasurer; Roben Allong as secretary; and Isabel Aneyba, Pam Goldfarb-Liss, Ilka Kuhagen, Janet Standen and Laurie Tema-Lyn as directors.
The Marketing Research Education Foundation (MREF) has developed a three-year strategic plan, which focuses on four key areas: financial resource development; providing service opportunities for research professionals such as trips to see the MREF’s work in Haiti; creating leadership opportunities for researchers to gain experience as a member of a nonprofit board or committee; and giving grants to nonprofits that are doing work that fulfills the MREF mission.
Nonprofit organization Market Research Institute International, Ann Arbor, Mich., has appointed Jeffrey Henning as executive director, effective Jan. 1, 2019. Henning replaces Reg Baker, who will retire on Dec. 31.
Industry practitioners from analytics and artificial intelligence have joined together to form the Association of Data Scientists in India (ADaSci), a nonprofit organization for professionals in data science, analytics, big data, artificial intelligence and machine learning. Envisioned by Analytics India Magazine, ADaSci aims to foster collaboration among data science decision makers and stakeholders and serve as a forum for promoting research, empowering data scientists and enthusiasts and addressing the current challenges of data science faced by organizations.
The interim board of the Canadian Research Insights Council (CRIC), the new industry association established in response to the MRIA’s closure, has taken steps to formalize the association. The board voted in September to endorse the standards of ESOMAR and has also taken measures to ensure the continuation of the Certified Marketing Research Professional designation, voting to support an initiative spearheaded by Robert Wong, a fellow of MRIA, retired program coordinator of Georgian College’s post-graduate research analyst program and principal of RMCG Inc. Steps have also been taken to ensure the continuation of the Survey Registration System, which allows members of the public to verify the legitimacy of research projects and to lay complaints. The board is aiming to hold its first formal open board meeting in the first quarter of 2019. Once incorporated and formalized, CRIC’s membership will be opened up to the broader industry. The interim board will remain in place until the association is formally established.
The A to Z Communications Coalition and the Insights Association have urged the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to adopt an autodialer definition that is consistent with Congress’ intent in 1991 rather than following the lead of a recent court decision that expands the definition of an autodialer to “equipment that does not possess random or sequential number generators” in violation of the original Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled that the TCPA is ambiguous about whether the law’s phrase “using a random or sequential number generator” affects the storage and production of such numbers, dismissing the court decision that triggered the current rewrite of TCPA regulation at the FCC and any regulations issued (or to be issued) by the FCC.
Awards/rankings
Los Angeles-based nonprofit Women in Research announced the winner of the Best Places to Work award, naming Greenberg Strategy in first place and acknowledging EMI Research Solutions as runner-up.
Caroline Frankum, CEO of Warren, N.J., researcher Lightspeed, and Helene Silverman, senior vice president of client relations in North America for Lightspeed, have been named HERoes Champions of Women in Business 2018, which recognizes female role models who are helping increase gender diversity in the workplace.
Oslo, Norway, research solutions firm Confirmit announced the winners of the 2018 AIR (Achievement in Insight and Research) Awards. Roisin Cooke, SVP Operations, BuzzBack, was named AIR Market Research Professional of the Year. Winners in the Agency category include Beehive Research, B2B International, W5 and 2CV, with Join the Dots winning Judges’ Choice. In the Project and Innovation category, winners include AND Agency (for both text analytic project and multi-mode project), Beehive Research, Delvinia, GMO Research and QRS Research, with Intu and B2B International winning Judges’ Choice.
Claire Sporton, senior vice president of customer experience innovation at Oslo, Norway-based research technology company Confirmit, has been named a winner of the 2018 CX Impact Awards by the Customer Experience Professionals Association.
Research company GfK will hold its NextGen Data Science Hackathon Competition from Jan. 17 to Jan. 28, 2019. Undergraduate students will work to solve marketing problems supplied by GfK client mentors. GfK will provide access to consumer data for the students to analyze and interpret. On Jan. 28, participating teams will have 10 minutes each to present their findings and suggested actions. The winning team will receive a 5,000 award, meet remotely with client mentors to discuss their work and be featured in GfK publicity related to the event. The competition is open to undergraduates from any major attending schools in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
Los Angeles-based nonprofit Women in Research (WIRe) presented the WIRe MRX Diversity Champion Award at The Market Research Event, recognizing Babita Earle, executive vice president of strategic partnerships at ZappiStore, as the first-place Gold award winner and JD Deitch, chief revenue officer at P2Sample, as the Silver award winner.
Mario Xavier Carrasco, co-founder and principal of Burbank, Calif., cultural insights agency ThinkNow, has received the 2018 Industry Change Agent of the Year award by the Next Gen Market Research Group. The award recognizes Carrasco’s work to launch ThinkNow ConneKt, a planning and segmentation tool focused on the multicultural market.
New companies/new divisions/relocations/expansions
Research technology company Georama is rebranding as QualSights, a qualitative insights platform. QualSights offers software to conduct mobile ethnography, diary studies, remote in-depth interviews, focus groups (digital or at a facility) as well as software to enhance in-person fieldwork.
Customer insights agency SKIM has opened a new office in Berlin, led by Julia Görnandt as country manager Germany. SKIM now has four offices across Europe and 10 worldwide.
U.K. research and UX viewing studio firm i-view is opening a new facility in Leeds City Centre, Yorkshire. The facility has four studios, including digital technology for UX testing, dial testing, eye-tracking, behavioral observation, emotional testing and neuromarketing.
BDI Research, a Spain-based research services provider owned by Schlesinger Group, has opened a new facility in Madrid. The facility includes three studios for focus groups, mini groups and in-depth interviews and product tests. Features include a four-room research suite, client lounges and high-specification technology.
Lotus Research LLC, based out of Los Angeles, is changing its company name to Ready to Launch Research.
Online research company Rakuten Insight Global Inc. has opened an office in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, its eleventh location and eighth office in the Asia region. The local team will be led by former Nielsen executive Collin Leow.
London-based company Chime’s Insight and Engagement Division, which includes Facts International and Opinion Leader, has consolidated and restructured its agencies, rebranding the division under its customer experience consultancy Watermelon Research. Additionally, Watermelon has joined VCCP, an integrated creative agency group.
Software company InsightsCentral and consulting company Olivetree Research have merged to create Olivetree Insights, based in Cincinnati. The new company has launched a planning and management support system for scoping, prioritizing and measuring the success of insights projects. Carol Shea will act as president of Olivetree Insights.
U.K. research company Liveminds has announced expansion plans, funded by triple digit revenue growth and a round of international private investment. The company has made several new hires in the behavioral recruitment, account management and development teams. The company has also announced new technical developments focused on expanding from Facebook into other advertising networks like GoogleAds, LinkedIn and Weibo and automation of the process to increase capacity for clients.
Denver-based research company GeoPoll has opened a new office in Johannesburg, allowing the company to further expand its public affairs portfolio. The company, which has been active in South Africa since 2014, has employees already based in the region and is in the process of hiring research support staff, media analysts and account executives. Over the coming years GeoPoll expects the office to grow further with business development, client services and operations staff.
London-based information company Ascential has merged its analytics businesses Brand View, Clavis Insight, One Click Retail and PlanetRetail RNG to form Edge by Ascential, a new business that provides e-commerce-driven data, insights and advisory services for brand manufacturers and retailers. Michael Lisowski has been named president of Edge by Ascential and Boren Novakovic has been named managing director. The business has over 400 employees in 10 offices across North America, Europe and Asia.
Research company Q-insights, Los Angeles, has launched Driven by Q-insights, a division dedicated to automotive research. The division’s suite of solutions includes car clinics, usability tests, focus groups, online research, quantitative and qualitative telephone interviews, quantitative telephone-to-Web interviews and ethnographic in-home research.
Information, research and advisory firm AOTMP has launched new research practice areas for its global research and advisory business unit: new and emerging technologies, supported by Andrew Hartwyk, research and advisory senior research director; telecom expense management/enterprise mobility management, supported by Hartwyk and Scott Lawrence, analytics VP, performance insights; and market/industry, supported by Lawrence and Matt Swift, analytics performance expert.
Research company earnings/financial news
SVMK Inc., the parent company of San Mateo, Calif., survey software firm SurveyMonkey, closed its initial public offering of 17,250,000 shares of its common stock at a price of 12.00, which includes the full exercise of the underwriters’ option to purchase 2,250,000 additional shares of its common stock. The shares began trading on The Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker symbol “SVMK” on Sept. 26.
U.K.-based video insight firm Voxpopme has received a £1.5 million follow-on investment from investment group Mercia Technologies PLC. Mercia first invested in the company in Oct. 2017, making its first direct investment in March 2018. Voxpopme says the investment will support the expansion of its technical and commercial teams with new hires in its offices across the U.K., U.S. and Australia.
Research software company Qualtrics, co-headquartered in Provo, Utah, and Seattle, has filed for a 200 million IPO with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company has applied to list its Class B common stock on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker symbol “XM” but did not list how many shares it would offer or the anticipated price per share.
Nielsen, New York, reported revenues of 1.6 billion for the third quarter of 2018, down 2.5 percent compared to the third quarter of 2017.
Paris-based researcher Ipsos reported revenue of €427.9 million for third-quarter 2018, down 1.4 percent compared to €434 million in third-quarter 2017. The company reported revenue of €1.21 billion for the first nine months of 2018, down 4.3 percent compared to €1.27 billion in 2017.