News notes
New York organizations the Mobile Marketing Association and the Interactive Advertising Bureau, aided by the Media Rating Council, have partnered to release a set of mobile ad guidelines to establish an industry-wide framework for online advertising best practices. The groups’ goals for the mobile ad guidelines include creating a global definition and methodology for counting Web impressions; distinguishing between an online ad impression and a mobile Web impression; and providing marketers with metrics for buying mobile Web ads.
The Marketing Research Association, Glastonbury, Conn., has released its Guide to the Top 16 Social Media Research Questions, a set of techniques and guidelines that aims to identify issues researchers should consider when conducting social media research and then frame a research industry discussion to set a baseline for further development of best practices and standards. The guide addresses reliability; execution; interaction with other kinds of research; ethics and legal compliance; data quality; process; and outputs. Jim Longo of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, research company Itracks headed the guide-development committee.
Vancouver, B.C., research company Angus Reid Public Opinion successfully predicted the outcomes in the three U.S. states where it surveyed voters leading up to the mid-term Congressional election in November 2010. The electoral outcome for 13 of the 14 main candidates was predicted within the margin of sampling error advertised in the Angus Reid Public Opinion surveys released on Oct. 31.
Acquisitions/transactions
GfK Custom Research North America, New York, has acquired full ownership of Westport, Conn., research company Interscope.
M3 USA, parent company of Washington, D.C., research company MDLinx, has agreed to acquire EMS Research, London. The division will operate as M3 Global Research.
Alliances/strategic partnerships
Ebony Marketing Research, New York, has partnered with List Service Direct Inc. (LSDI), Leonia, N.J., to append LSDI’s ethnic data to Ebony’s respondent database.
New York research companies GfK Roper Consulting and Weiner, Edrich, Brown Inc. (WEB) have partnered to combine GfK’s consumer trends data with insights from WEB. The companies’ first collaboration will focus on the global economic climate.
Association/organization news
ESOMAR, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, has announced its 2011/2012 council: Dieter Korczak, president; Mike Cooke, vice president; and Pravin Shekar and Dan Foreman, council members.
Awards/rankings
The Marketing Research Association (MRA), Glastonbury, Conn., has recognized several industry leaders for service to the association and its members. Award recipients include Fort Washington, Pa., research company Marketing Systems Group, Celebrated Company Award; Paul Posluszny of Marketing Systems Group, Rising Star Award; Debby Schlesinger Hellman of Edison, N.J., research company Schlesinger Associates Inc., Shining Star Award; and the Southwest Chapter of MRA, Best Chapter Education Event Award.
Online networking group Next Gen Market Research has awarded Sean Conry of Vancouver, B.C., research company Techneos and AJ Johnson of Los Angeles research company Ipsos Open Thinking Exchange the Disruptive Innovation Individual Award for their collaboration in the area of self-completion mobile digital ethnography.
Plano, Texas, research company Research Now has been ranked 11th in the Dallas 100 Awards, presented by the SMU Cox Caruth Institute for Entrepreneurship, Dallas. To qualify, a company must be privately held and headquartered in the Dallas area. Rankings are based on the percentage increase in sales and absolute dollar growth in the three years preceding the event.
American Water, a Voorhees, N.J., water and wastewater services company, was named the winner of the 2010 EXPLOR Award at The Market Research Event 2010 in November 2010 in San Diego. The EXPLOR Awards recognize the most innovative applications of technology in research.
InContext Solutions, a Chicago virtual shopping company, has received the first Up-and-Comer Award presented at the Chicago Innovation Awards in November 2010, which highlight innovations that creatively fill unmet needs and can demonstrate a marketplace impact.
New accounts/projects
Reston, Va., research company comScore Inc. has adopted Austin, Texas, research company Kinesis Survey Technologies LLC’s Kinesis Survey platform to deliver multimode surveys.
Portland, Ore., research company Rentrak Corporation has been selected to provide its StationView Essentials local TV ratings service to Barrington Broadcasting, Hoffman Estates, Ill., and Nexstar Broadcasting, Washington, D.C.
Westlake Village, Calif., research company J.D. Power and Associates has signed separate agreements with research companies Clarabridge, Reston, Va., and NetBase, New York, to expand its capabilities in digital research.
Market Publishers Ltd., London, has signed partnerships agreements with The PRS Group Inc., East Syracuse, N.Y.; BPA Consulting Ltd., Surrey, U.K.; and Cutting Edge Information, Limassol, Cyprus, authorizing MarketPublishers.com to distribute and sell the companies’ research reports.
Richard Day Research, Evanston, Ill., has selected Oslo, Norway, research software company Confirmit’s CATI solution to support its telephone research activities. The deal extends Confirmit’s role at Richard Day Research, where the platform is used for the agency’s Web interviewing and reporting activities.
Melbourne, Australia, research company Luma has adopted Vancouver, B.C., research company Vision Critical’s technology to launch ad nest, an ad research tool.
New York research company WorldOne has adopted Westport, Conn., research company Imperium’s RelevantID digital fingerprinting technology.
Stockholm, Sweden, research company Cint has added London research company Tpoll’s MindMover panel to the Cint Panel Exchange.
New companies/new divisions/relocations/expansions
Quick Test/Heakin, a Jupiter, Fla., research company, has relocated its West Oaks Mall facility in Houston to Suite 129.
New York research company StrategyOne has opened an office in Brussels, Belgium. Antoine Harary will lead the operation.
Jon Batterham and Tom Levesley have launched Chrysalis Research in Bristol, U.K. The firm is online at www.chrysalisresearch.co.uk.
IMS Research, Wellingborough, U.K., has opened an office in Seoul, South Korea. The Korean operation will be headed by Harry (Sung Dong) Cho.
Omnicom Media Group, New York, has launched Annalect Group, a digital data and analytics division.
Rochelle Park, N.J., research firm Strativity Group Inc. has opened an Australian office in Sydney. Brad Meehan will lead the office.
The Court of Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, and Washington, D.C., research company Gallup have partnered to create an independent center for social research and analysis in Abu Dhabi.
Research company Decision Resources Inc. has moved its global corporate headquarters from Waltham, Mass., to 8 New England Executive Park, Burlington, Mass.
Lightspeed Research has moved its headquarters from Basking Ridge, N.J., to 3 Mountain View Road, Warren, N.J.
Research Now has relocated its headquarters from Dallas to Plano, Texas. Additionally, the company has consolidated its New York offices so that all New York Research Now staff will be located at 58 West 40th St., New York.
Sydney, Australia, research company The Leading Edge has opened its first North American office in New York. Daniel Binns has been appointed to lead the operation.
Chicago research company Synovate has launched Synovate Management Analytics, an analytics consulting business. Patrick Cummings will head the division.
Boston research company Chadwick Martin Bailey has launched a sister company, South Street Strategy Group, also in Boston. The firm is online at www.southstreetstrategy.com.
Omaha, Neb., research company The MSR Group has begun expanding its corporate offices and call center. MSR will add over 500 square feet of executive office space to its corporate offices and 30 stations to the call center.
San Antonio research company Frost & Sullivan has debuted its Capital Markets Support Services in North America.
Research company earnings/financial news
SurveyMonkey, Menlo Park, Calif., has successfully completed a $100 million senior debt financing. Proceeds will be used to retire the company’s existing debt and for general corporate purposes.
Harris Interactive, Rochester, N.Y., announced first-quarter financial results for its 2011 fiscal year. Total revenue was $37 million, compared with $38.9 million for the prior-year period. Operating loss for the first quarter was ($1.3) million, compared with an operating loss of ($0.4) million for the prior-year period. Net loss was ($1.3) million, as compared with ($0.6) in 2010.
Framingham, Mass., research company Kadence USA reported year-over-year growth for the first quarter ended September 30, 2010, including a 96 percent increase over the previous quarter. Overall sales for fiscal year 2010 grew, with the $2.5 million generated already surpassing 2009’s total for the year.
Additionally, Kadence International increased global revenue to $4.2 million in first-quarter 2011, representing a 59 percent rise over the same period in 2009.
The Nielsen Company, New York, reported financial results for the quarter and nine months ended September 30, 2010. Reported revenue for the quarter was $1,289 million, an increase of 5 percent over reported revenues for the prior-year period. Reported operating income was $201 million, compared to an operating loss of ($326) million for the same period in 2009.
Reported revenue for the nine months ended September 30, 2010 was $3,755 million, an increase of 7 percent over reported revenues for the prior-year period. Reported operating income was $515 million, compared to an operating loss of ($42) million for the same period in 2009.
Ipsos, Paris, generated revenues of 283.6 million euros in the third quarter of 2010, up 27.9 percent over the same period last year. Revenues were up 10.5 percent - the first time since the first quarter of 2007 that Ipsos has registered double-digit organic growth. Ipsos’ revenues for the first nine months of 2010 totaled 812.5 million euros, up 21.3 percent over 2009.
National Research Corporation, Lincoln, Neb., announced results for third-quarter 2010. Revenue was $16 million, up 18 percent over the prior-year quarter. Net income was $2.1 million, up 7 percent from 2009.
Revenue for the first nine months of 2010 increased 8 percent to $47.5 million, compared to $43.9 million for the same period in 2009. Net income increased 11 percent over 2009 to $6.9 million.
The GfK Group, Nuremberg, Germany, reported financial results from the first nine months of 2010. Sales rose by 10.9 percent to 932.1 million euros, including organic growth of 7.6 percent. Adjusted operating income totaled 120.4 million euros, up 34.1 percent over the previous year. Operating income increased by 62.7 percent to 93.6 million euros.
Arbitron Inc., Columbia, Md., announced results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2010. The company reported revenue of $99.5 million, an increase of 1.4 percent over the third quarter of 2009. Net income was $11.3 million, a decrease of 17.4 percent compared with $13.7 million for third-quarter 2009.
For the nine months ended September 30, 2010, revenue was $283.7 million, an increase of 0.1 percent over the same period in 2009.
ComScore Inc., Reston, Va., announced financial results for the third quarter of 2010. The company’s results reflect the acquisitions of the products division of Nexius Inc. on July 1, 2010, and Nedstat on September 1, 2010. In the third quarter comScore achieved record quarterly revenue of $45.7 million, an increase of 43 percent over the prior-year period.
Synovate, Chicago, reported earnings for the first half of 2010. The company generated revenue of £152.9 million, compared to £145.4 million in the first half of 2009. Operating profit was £4.7 million, compared to operating loss of £3.2 million in 2009.
IPerceptions Inc., Montreal, reported financial results for the third quarter of 2010. Revenue was $1.3 million, up 5 percent over third-quarter 2009.