News notes
New York research firm Kantar Group, a division of WPP, of which Millward Brown is a part, announced a restructuring of its media businesses. Products and services that will move into the newly formed Kantar Media Research unit include Millward Brown Group firms TGI, KMR Software and IntelliQuest CIMS. Other parts of the new company will be MARS Pharma and MARS Medical, as well as TV ratings businesses and media solutions in over 40 worldwide markets through equity interests in AGB Nielsen, IBOPE, RSMB, Marktest and MRB Hellas. Andy Brown will lead the reconstituted KMR as CEO.
Effective last month, Germany-based GfK Group ’s organizational structure now focuses on three sectors rather than the five previous business divisions. The five business divisions - custom research, retail and technology, consumer tracking, media and health care - are now set up as the three sectors of custom research, retail and technology, and media. Gérard Hermet will remain responsible for the retail and technology sector and Wilhelm R. Wessels for the media sector, with no change.
Responsibilities will change in the custom research sector, which comprises the custom research, consumer tracking and health care divisions. Within the custom research division, Debra A. Pruent has joined the firm and is responsible for the North America region and Petra Heinlein for all other regions. Wessels retains responsibility for the consumer tracking and health care divisions within the custom research sector.
San Francisco research firm MarketTools Inc. has filed a patent application for its Survey Fraud Detection System and Method with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. MarketTools’ patent-pending data validation technology identifies and removes fraudulent responses from data sets before they can impact the accuracy of research results.
The daughter of a Missouri woman who disappeared in December 2004 has filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against three firms tied to the door-to-door surveys the woman was conducting when she was last seen alive.
In the petition, Brandy Shipp blames the companies for several failures that allegedly led to her mother Summer Shipp’s death. Among the allegations are failing to foresee the danger and risk associated with door-to-door surveys and failing to equip Shipp with protective equipment to defend herself.
The companies named in the lawsuit are GfK NOP LLC and Roper Starch Worldwide LLC, both of New York, and Roper ASW LLC of New Jersey.
Shipp was 54 when she went missing. Her car was found in an Independence, Mo., neighborhood, and a witness told police she had been conducting door-to-door surveys. Two fishermen later found remains along the Little Blue River that were identified as Shipp’s. No arrests have been made.
Waterloo, Ontario research firm Ipsos Reid has donated three sets of national opinion poll data to Wilfrid Laurier University. The announcement marked Ipsos Reid’s first-ever donation of polling data and signaled the beginning of a relationship that will see the company provide Laurier with a regular stream of data donations.
The first raw data set represents 55 national telephone surveys of 1,000 respondents each that were conducted monthly between 1990 and 1995. The second is the 2006 Canadian federal election-day poll. It contains information on 90 socio-political and demographic variables from more than 36,000 respondents. The third data set is Ipsos Reid’s recent exit poll from the October 2007 Ontario provincial election, which included 7,000 respondents. Taken together, the three sets of data represent the opinions of more than 98,000 Canadians over nearly 20 years.
Arbitron Inc., New York, announced in late November that it would delay the commercialization of its Portable People Meter radio ratings service in nine markets. New York, Nassau–Suffolk and Middlesex–Somerset–Union will be delayed by nine months; Los Angeles, Riverside and Chicago by six months; and San Francisco, San Jose and Dallas by three months.
In these nine markets, the company will extend the use of the paper-and-pencil diary system that has been serving the industry since 1965. During the delay, Arbitron will continue to work with customers, the Media Rating Council, other industry organizations and community groups on the research and business issues related to the Portable People Meter radio ratings service in local markets.
“We remain confident in the audience estimates that the Portable People Meter service is producing. However, feedback from our customers, the Media Rating Council and other constituencies has led us to conclude that the radio industry would be better served if we were to delay further commercialization of the PPM in order to address their issues,” said Steve Morris, chairman, president and chief executive officer, Arbitron Inc., in a company press release.
Dallas-based Common Knowledge Research Services has partnered with SPCA International to offer people the opportunity to support SPCA’s animal programs by completing surveys. The joint initiative, called Donate2Charity, is the first partnership between SPCA and Common Knowledge Research Services, owner of Your2Cents Online Opinion. The program allows anyone eligible for panel membership to support the SPCA, including those who may not have the money to contribute directly, but have the time to complete online surveys. After signing up at www.your2cents.com/spca, members’ rewards will automatically be donated to the SPCA once a survey is completed.
Greenfield Online Inc., Wilton, Conn., announced the organizational integration of its worldwide survey business. This integration, on top of one universal panel system or UPS technology platform, is intended to enable the company to operate its European, North American and Asian Internet survey businesses as one global organization with increasing operational efficiency.
The global Internet survey business will be led by Keith Price, newly appointed executive vice president, global Internet survey solutions. Price will assume the duties of managing the European survey business from Nicolas Metzke, managing director of Ciao Surveys GmbH, who has left the firm.
Other organizational consolidations of note include the following: global technology in the Internet survey solutions business will be managed by David St. Pierre, global chief technology officer; global marketing will be managed by Janice Caston, assistant vice president of marketing; Asia, led by Andy Ellis, managing director Asia, has been integrated into the firm’s global technology platform.
Acquisitions/transactions
Ipsos Global Network, a research company headquartered in Paris, has taken a 75 percent stake in Indica Research, an independent Indian marketing research company, with a view to increasing the holding in the future. Indica Research, which specializes in marketing and advertising research and research for customer relationship management, was founded in 1994 and has three managing directors, V.G. Pillai, V. Ravi and B. Nary Narayanaswamy.
Port Washington, N.Y., research firm the NPD Group Inc. announced the integration of the people and products of Current Analysis West under the NPD Group brand umbrella. NPD acquired Current Analysis West in May 2007, but until now had operated the business independently. With the integration, NPD offerings now include Current Analysis West’s products.
The new organization will be led by Peter Greene, vice president and general manager. Patrik Schmidle, formerly vice president, operations and product management for Current Analysis West, now leads the San Diego IT/engineering team. Rich Alires, previously executive vice president for Current Analysis West, has moved to DisplaySearch, an NPD Group company, to lead its sales efforts.
Taylor Nelson Sofres plc has reached agreement to increase its ownership of LatinPanel Holdings from 33.3 percent to 100 percent. TNS was formerly a joint venture partner with the NPD Group Inc. and the IBOPE Group in this continuous consumer panel business serving Latin America. Gross assets of LatinPanel Holdings on December 31, 2006 were approximately $9 million.
Waltham, Mass., research firm Decision Resources announced plans to acquire Wood Mackenzie’s Life Sciences business. The Life Sciences business comprises market research, data and analysis on the commercial landscape of the biopharmaceutical industry and the animal health industry.
Separately Decision Resources announced it had acquired Arlington Medical Resources Inc., a Malvern, Pa., provider of market intelligence for the pharmaceutical and diagnostic imaging industries.
Research firm IMS Health, Norwalk, Conn., has acquired MIHS Holdings, Inc. The company’s two subsidiaries – Milwaukee-based IHS and MedInitiatives, Sacramento, Calif. – provide the health care market with analytics and technology services.
London-based Synovate announced the acquisition of SPSL, a U.K.-based provider of store traffic measurement and analysis to retailers. SPSL monitors visits to over 4,600 retail premises annually in the U.K. and operates across 15 countries in Europe and North America.
Added Value, a brand development firm, has acquired Cheskin, a Redwood Shores, Calif., consulting and research firm. Cheskin is now known as Cheskin Added Value.
Paris-based Ipsos has acquired ResearchPartner, an Oslo, Norway research firm.
Synovate Healthcare, the health care arm of international market research agency Synovate, has opened a new office in Toronto office to offer ad hoc and syndicated research services to the Canadian health care and pharmaceutical markets. Leading the new operation is Otto Akkerman, who has joined the company as head of Synovate Healthcare Canada.
New York research firm TNS has acquired Landis Strategy & Innovation LLC, a research-based consultancy located in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.
Private equity fund DCA Capital Partners announced the closing of its equity capital investment into Fresno, Calif., research firm Decipher Inc.
Fairfax, Va., mystery shopping firm Bare Associates International Inc. has acquired Video Eyes LLC, a provider of video mystery shopping and video staff training.
Alliances/strategic partnerships
Cincinnati research firm Language Logic has signed an agreement to license the verbatim coding system and text categorization technology of the Institute of Information Science and Technologies within Language Logic’s Ascribe online verbatim management system.
Europe-based research firm Toluna has entered into an exclusive cooperation agreement with Incisive Media Limited, a business-to-business information provider, to build business-to-business panels across Incisive Media’s vertical markets. The agreement provides Toluna with exclusive access to Incisive Media’s readership base from print and online business-to-business titles for panel community recruitment.
Association/organization news
The Qualitative Research Consultants Association announced its new board of directors: president - Sharon Livingston; vice president - Christine Kann; treasurer - Abby Leafe; secretary - Nancy Hardwick; directors - Martha Guidry, Ilka Kuhagen, Peter Lovett, Joel Reish and Nancy Ulrich. The organization also announced that Hank Goldwasser, owner of New Directions Consulting in New York, won its President’s Award and Jeff Walkowski, owner of Minnesota research firm QualCore.com, won the Maryanne Pflug Spirit Award.
Awards/rankings
New York-based BuzzBack Market Research has earned the international MRS/ASC Award for Technology Effectiveness. The award acknowledges outstanding innovation and excellence in the application of software or technology to market, opinion and social research. BuzzBack was selected from a group of four finalists for its eCollage and Verbatim Viewing consumer research tools.
Chicago software firm SPSS Inc. announced that its data mining technology has been ranked as the leading choice in an independent survey published by Rexer Analytics. The Rexer Analytics report, “Surveying the Field: Data Mining Applications, Analytic Tools, and Practical Challenges,” found almost one-half (48 percent) of data mining professionals from more than one dozen industries and 35 countries identified SPSS as their most frequently-used data mining tool. The survey also found SPSS as the tool of choice for data miners engaged in customer relationship management and telecommunications.
20/20 Research Inc., Nashville, Tenn., has been named by Business TN magazine to the Hot 100 list, recognizing them as one of the 100 fastest-growing companies in Tennessee.
New accounts/projects
Mathew Greenwald & Associates Inc., a Washington, D.C., research firm is using Canada-based Voxco’s Command Center, a system for creating and managing survey campaigns using multiple and mixed-mode data collection.
New companies/new divisions/ relocations/expansions
Sausalito, Calif., research firm King Brown Partners Inc. has spun off its Kentucky operations to Element Market Research Inc., a new Kentucky-based company that will continue to specialize in quantitative market research. The principals and co-managers of Element Market Research will be Chris Grecco and Shannan Gabe, who previously managed the Kentucky operations of King Brown Partners in Lexington.
Vancouver research firm Vision Critical has opened an office in central London. Jeremy Holt, newly appointed sales director, will lead the branch with Paul Albert, an existing Vision Critical employee moving to London as sales manager.
Redlands, Calif., geographic information system firm ESRI has opened an office in Singapore.