News notes
According to the Market Research Society’s Annual League Table, which ranks, by U.K.-based revenue, the largest organizations (those with revenue exceeding £3 million) in the U.K. research and insight industry in 2014, the 86 organizations eligible for entry generated over £2.7 billion in revenue, representing a 4 percent overall year-on-year growth.
In December, Apple closed down Topsy, the Twitter and general social media analytics service it bought two years ago for more than $200 million.
Reston, Va., firm comScore and Portland, Ore., firm Rentrak each scheduled shareholder meetings for January 28 to seek shareholder approval of the proposed merger. At press time, the closing of the merger remained subject to approval by comScore and Rentrak shareholders. The merger agreement was unanimously approved by the boards of directors of both companies and comScore and Rentrak expected the deal to close after the shareholder approval. Assuming shareholder approval, the combined company was expected to trade under the comScore ticker symbol (SCOR).
Tampa, Fla., firm Study Hall Research has made a contribution on behalf of its clients to the UNICEF Kids In Need of Desks (K.I.N.D.) global education campaign to provide desks and supplies to a classroom of 40 students in Malawi, Africa.
Acquisitions/transactions
Nanuet, N.Y., firm Target Research Group plans to merge with Barrington, Ill., firm Relevation Research. Once the merger is completed, each of the companies will operate as separate entities. Nan Martin, current president of Relevation, will become the new president of Target Research Group and Greg Spagna will remain the CEO of the combined companies.
Dublin-based information services company Experian has completed the sale of its consumer insights businesses Hitwise and Simmons (which form part of Marketing Services) to Palo Alto, Calif., private equity firm Symphony Technology Group for $47 million plus an earnout of up to $5 million.
Stamford, Conn., research technology company FocusVision has partnered with EQT, a private equity group, for an arrangement under which EQT and FocusVision’s management team will acquire the company. Terms were not disclosed.
New York health care research and consulting firm Kantar Health has acquired Prague-based research firm CEEOR.
San Francisco-based social media scheduling firm Buffer has acquired social media customer service and brand monitoring tool Respondly. The firm will be rebranding it as Respond and it will remain a stand-alone tool.
New York media investment firm GroupM has acquired London-based marketing solutions company The Exchange Lab and its proprietary programmatic marketing technology Proteus.
France-based communications group Havas has acquired Westbrook, Conn., health care marketing, communications and consulting agency Gemini Healthcare LLC and will combine the firm with existing Havas group Managed Edge to create a new company, Havas Gemini. Gemini Healthcare is currently led by Gary Ainsworth and Michael Pill. Ainsworth will serve as CEO and Pill will serve as CCO to the new company.
Microsoft, Redmond, Wash., has acquired Palo Alto, Calif., big data start-up Metanautix.
Ireland-based security company Tyco International has reached a definitive agreement to acquire ShopperTrak, a Chicago-based retail analytics firm, for approximately $175 million.
Alliances/strategic partnerships
Detroit-based research and consulting firm Morpace Inc. has formed a strategic alliance with Keller Fay Group, a company of Montreal social technology firm Engagement Labs, to offer word of mouth advocacy and influencer research and consulting services to the automotive sector. Separately, Morpace Inc. has formed a strategic partnership with Provo, Utah, survey platform provider Qualtrics to make research and technology solutions available to organizations globally.
Oslo, Norway, customer experience software firm Confirmit has partnered with Emotient, a San Diego-based emotion detection and sentiment analysis technology firm, to bring insight to market research organizations and voice of the customer programs. The partnership allows research organizations to use behavioral analytics to extract insight from research surveys.
Portland, Ore., firm Rentrak has expanded its relationship with Nexstar Broadcasting Group Inc. in Irving, Texas, by adding KASW (CW) Phoenix and KLAS (CBS) Las Vegas to its client roster of Nexstar-owned or -operated stations.
Research reporting firm E-Tabs and survey software firm Merlinco, both based in London, have entered a strategic partnership allowing integration of their tools, enabling market researchers to perform survey data processing in Merlinco’s MERLIN survey tabulation system and export the results directly into E-Tabs’ suite of reporting tools for charting and full report automation.
Walgreens has tapped research panel provider Verve Chicago to help capture consumer insights from members of its Balance Rewards Loyalty program through a new shopper panel. Walgreens Viewpoint is an online research community where registered users can read about and post on various topics, receive Walgreens-related news and participate in surveys and sweepstakes.
PlaceIQ, a location-based audience and insights platform based in New York, has formed a new alliance with Chicago researcher IRI. PlaceIQ’s location intelligence platform will leverage IRI’s CPG purchase data to provide marketers with insights into the customer shopping journey, including the ability to use offline purchase insights to increase the effectiveness of targeted advertising. The resulting insights will allow brands to inform campaign targeting and align it with contextually relevant scenarios for consumers.
TiVo Research, New York, and U.K.-based researcher RealityMine have partnered with NBCUniversal, New York, to provide single-sourced cross-platform measurement of the 2016 Rio Olympic Games. The project will be conducted during the games from Rio de Janeiro on August 5 through August 21, producing an analysis of how viewers who opted in to participate in the study consume NBCUniversal’s Olympic content across multiple devices including TV, mobile and digital.
In the U.K., research agency Millward Brown and Reston, Va., firm comScore have partnered to give brands an understanding of how their digital advertising is performing. The global partnership, excluding the U.S., Canada and Taiwan, will enable brands and their agencies to assess the full value of their digital advertising. The combined data will also benefit publishers looking to demonstrate the power and value of their platforms to advertisers.
Association/organization news
In Los Angeles, market research non-profit organization Women in Research has launched its 50/50 initiative, which was developed to provide greater visibility and thought leadership opportunities for women across the marketing intelligence industry by matching them with speaking opportunities at the industry’s events.
Awards/rankings
India-based researcher MRSS received the Digital Market Research Agency of the Year award and Raj Sharma, chairman of MRSS India.com, received the Digital Entrepreneur of the Year award at the Mobile and Digital Marketing Summit hosted by the World Marketing Congress at Taj Lands’ End in Mumbai on November 27.
Michelle Andre, vice president of marketing for Fishkill, N.Y., firm Virtual Incentives, was named a winner in the Marketing Executive of the Year category in the Best in Biz Awards, an independent business awards program judged by members of the press and industry analysts. She won the award for her leadership in creating marketing programs for B2B technology companies.
Rebecca Brooks, partner and co-founder of Los Angeles research firm Alter Agents, has been named a bronze winner in the small business category for the Best in Biz Awards.
Kristen Murphy, a senior planning analyst for New York energy company Consolidated Edison (Con Ed), has been awarded the Client Award for Excellence by Research Business Report. The award recognizes excellence in clients’ use of specific categories of research. Con Ed was nominated for the co-creation research category.
El Segundo, Calif.-based technology firm Ace Metrix announced the Brand of the Year winners for each of the 17 most competitive video advertising categories. For the third year running, Google was named the top software and Web sites brand, followed by Android. Other winners include Amazon and Petco, tying in the retail category, and HBO, which earned the Brand of the Year distinction in the telecom category.
New accounts/projects
Portland, Ore., firm Rentrak has signed a long-term TV measurement agreement with Waterman Broadcasting in Fort Myers, Fla.
Mountain resort company Vail Resorts has implemented Palo Alto, Calif., customer experience management company Medallia’s software to align its operations. Medallia enables Vail Resorts to integrate guest data into its day-to-day operations, understand customer expectations and respond in real-time.
Research & Marketing Strategies Inc., Baldwinsville, N.Y., was granted approval from Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to conduct the OAS CAHPS Survey beginning with the National Implementation in January. RMS has been approved to administer the survey in the mixed-mode, mail-only and telephone-only data collection modes. The OAS CAHPS survey will collect information about patients’ experiences of care in hospital outpatient surgery departments and ambulatory surgery centers.
India-based researcher MRSS India has been selected by the Times Group, a media conglomerate, as its research partner for three projects: Times Architect Study, Times Tech Study and Times Best Brands. The projects are key influencer studies to understand top brands/companies in India across different sectors based on consumer/influencers ranking.
New companies/new divisions/relocations/expansions
Katrina Noelle, president of KNow Research and Janet Standen, director of JS Strategic Insights, have joined forces to launch Scoot Insights. The new consultancy offers agile, real-time insights to answer clients’ research questions using real-time recruiting, dual moderators, live analysis and interactive debrief sessions via an in-person, online or hybrid approach. Scoot Insights is based in San Francisco.
France-based research and loyalty services firm Bilendi has opened a second German office in Cologne. Additionally, Andreas Knappstein is joining the German team as sales director in the DACH countries (Germany, Austria, Switzerland).
Antares Advisors, a new business intelligence and consulting firm in Philadelphia, has launched its new consultancy practice serving clients in the U.S. Antares Advisors provides services such as business growth strategy and planning, customer journey mapping, ROI and KPI development and primary and secondary data insights and analysis.
VuPoint Research, a subsidiary of Portland, Ore., firm MDC Research, has expanded its Dallas office by adding a 40-seat call center.
The Branded Content Marketing Association (BCMA) has re-launched in the U.S. under the name BCMA USA rather than BCMA North America and will operate under a chapter agreement. Mike Wiese, head of branded content and entertainment at J. Walter Thompson New York, will be president.
IBM, Armonk, N.Y., has opened its global headquarters for its new Watson Internet of Things (IoT) unit in Munich, Germany, launching a series of new offerings, capabilities and ecosystem partners that will be available through the IBM Watson IoT Cloud. The global headquarters will also serve as its first European Watson innovation center that will bring together 1,000 IBM developers, consultants, researchers and designers and will serve as an innovation lab for data scientists, engineers and programmers. IBM will also deliver Watson APIs and services on the Watson IoT Cloud Platform. In addition, the company has opened eight new Watson IoT Client Experience Centers across Asia, Europe and the Americas.
Tonawanda, N.Y.-based market research firm Segmedica has launched a new brand, xsperient, which will serve customers with products and services related to health and wellness.
Microsoft’s Bing Pulse is changing its product name and brand identity to Microsoft Pulse. Microsoft Pulse has also become a multi-platform service, integrating with several products within the Microsoft family, including Skype for Business, Power BI and others. In addition to a new and upgraded producer app, the brand now offers new features to the current services lineup, including Pulse for Market Research, Pulse for Broadcast and others.
Plano, Texas, firm Research Now has created a new sales structure for the North American team. The announcement came after a 12-month engagement with the Alexander Group (AGI), a Scottsdale, Ariz., consulting firm. Based on AGI’s recommendations, a more streamlined organization was created. The new Americas sales organization is led by Greg Ellis, executive vice president, Americas sales and business development and his executive leadership team.