News notes
In a global study, BBC Worldwide, London, will use facial tracking technology to test audience reaction to trailers or pilots of new television programming. The process utilizes installed Webcams and machine learning to interpret a viewer’s emotions and, while similar to dial testing, does not require any active participation. The project is aimed at helping BBC Worldwide invest in guaranteed hits, such as The Walking Dead or Breaking Bad, according to Mary Kyriakidi, vice president at BBC Worldwide. Working with London marketing firm CrowdEmotion, BBC has already piloted emotion detection among focus groups in the U.K., Australia and Russia.
Seattle and London-based technology firm autoGraph has received a U.S. patent for its Consumer Self-Profiling GUI, Analysis and Rapid Information Presentation Tools and covers aspects of the company’s profile technology along with the Swote (swipe + vote input) tool.
Less than a week after launching its Rooms app, which allows users to create groups for anonymous sharing, Facebook, San Francisco, was challenged by creators of a different app, Room, who claim that Facebook stole their intellectual property. Room is an iOS app, developed by Room Inc., Paris. It is designed to let users “create and join mini private chat rooms of up to 500 people,” using only a nickname and avatar to sign up. Facebook’s Rooms app requires that members be Facebook members but they can join groups anonymously.
In Waltham, Mass., researcher Affectiva has reached the milestone of having collected emotion analytics from more than 2 million faces across 80 countries, resulting in over 7 billion emotion data points. This database is aimed at allowing researchers to more accurately understand consumers’ emotional reactions to brands and video content while allowing for cultural variations.
Acquisitions/transactions
Tokyo-based researcher, Cross Marketing Group (CMG), has acquired Singapore researcher Kadence International. CMG planned no changes to the Kadence brand or management structure.
Yahoo!, San Francisco, has acquired BrightRoll, a San Francisco digital video advertising software firm. Its reporting suite includes tools from comScore, Nielsen, Vizu and InsightExpress. The deal was valued at around $640 million in cash.
Chicago researcher Market Track has acquired Media Iris, a Chicago online marketing intelligence firm. Michael Ciaglia, president and founder of Media Iris, has joined the Market Track staff.
IHS, a Denver analytics company, has agreed to acquire JOC Group, a Newark, N.J., maritime business intelligence firm.
Boston marketing firm Semcasting has acquired the Marketing Grid, Buffalo, N.Y., after partnering for several years with the Marketing Grid utilizing Semcasting’s Smart Zones prediction modeling platform.
Maritz Holdings Inc. has acquired Allegiance Software Inc., Salt Lake City, and merged it with Maritz Research Inc., Fenton, Mo., to form a stand-alone company, MaritzCX. The new firm combines Maritz Research’s consulting and research work with Allegiance’s software and program services and will have over 900 employees in 18 offices. Allegiance CEO Carine Clark has been named CEO of MaritzCX.
Truven Health Analytics, a Detroit technology firm, has acquired Joan Wellman & Associates (JWA Consulting), a Seattle management consulting company, and Heartbeat Experts, a New York software firm. Truven will be merging its software platforms, including MarketScan, Advantage Suite, Micromedex, CareDiscovery and ActionOI, with JWA’s health care process improvement services.
Private equity firm HGGC has signed an agreement to invest in the parent company of Survey Sampling International LLC, Shelton, Conn. The investment, which makes HGGC the majority owner of the company, is done in partnership with Providence Equity Partners and Sterling Investment Partners, who have jointly owned the company since 2011 and are retaining minority stakes in the business. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed but a person briefed on the matter told The New York Times DealBook that the deal valued SSI at about $500 million.
New York researcher Nielsen has acquired Waltham, Mass., software specialist Affinnova, which helps companies identify ideas with the best potential for success. The Affinnova team will be integrated into the Nielsen Innovation Practice division.
New York digital marketing specialist MediaMath has acquired Rare Crowds, a software firm specializing in audience targeting in Bellevue, Wash., for an undisclosed sum. Eric Picard, Rare Crowds founder and CEO, will join MediaMath as vice president of strategic partnerships.
Merkle, a Columbia, Md., CRM firm, has acquired San Francisco-based loyalty program firm 500friends for an undisclosed sum.
St. Petersburg, Fla., marketing firm Catalina has acquired San Jose, Calif., marketing firm Cellfire, which specializes in digital grocery coupon solutions. The purchase is geared toward enabling Catalina to develop personalized offers for shoppers. Terms were not disclosed.
MWW, a New Jersey public relations firm, has acquired Ideation Inc., a New York-based technology firm. Ideation founder Robert Dilio will join MWW as chief technology officer.
Chicago researcher fieldwork Inc., has extended its commitment at 111 East Wacker Drive, Chicago, which houses the company’s national headquarters and downtown Chicago focus group space.
Survey Monkey, San Francisco, is investing $5 million into the Marcus Buckingham Company (TMBC), a Los Angeles leadership development firm. The two companies plan to develop new tools to help monitor employee performance and productivity and provide supervisory coaching techniques. Jason Averbook has been named CEO at TMBC and Damon Cronkey, senior vice president of corporate development and strategy at SurveyMonkey, will join the TMBC board.
Paris marketing firm Publicis Groupe will acquire Boston-based information technology firm Sapient in a $3.7 billion transaction. Sapient includes three divisions, Global Markets, Government Services and Sapient Nitro.
Paris marketing firm Publicis Groupe has acquired RUN, a New York advertising technology firm, for an undisclosed sum.
In Englewood, Colo., information services company IHS will acquire DisplaySearch and Solarbuzz, research firms in Santa Clara, Calif. The two companies are subsidiaries of Port Washington, N.Y., researcher the NPD Group. Terms were not disclosed.
Alliances/strategic partnerships
After two years of partnering, Stockholm, Sweden, research company Cint and Survey Monkey, Palo Alto, Calif., agreed to expand their strategic relationship. The Cint platform for global sourcing and supply chain management will now serve as the preferred technology for Survey Monkey in the markets where Survey Monkey does not have its own supply. The deal is designed to benefit both companies, with Cint seeing growth of its global supply platform and SurveyMonkey increasing its reach and improving customer service.
Los Angeles online panel company Prodege will work with Seattle researcher TrueSample to provide verifications of its survey response pool.
London-based online research specialist DigitalMR is partnering with MRB Hellas, a research firm in Athens, Greece, to expand its listening247 platform and communities247 multilingual service to companies in Greece.
Market Publishers Ltd., London, and Market Analyix, London, have signed a partnership agreement allowing Market Publishers to distribute and sell the Market Analyix research reports.
Social@Ogilvy, the social media department of Ogilvy & Mather, New York, is partnering with Unmetric, a New York-based social media intelligence firm to use its social media intelligence and benchmarking platform which tracks the online behavior of 25,000 brands across all major social media channels.
D. Gustafson and Associates (DGA), a research firm in Dresher, Pa., is joining with JONCKERS, a Brussels translation and localization firm. The partnership is designed to ensure DGA data collection methodologies are equivalent across market segments and locations and that its translations are accurate and allow for cultural and linguistic nuances.
New York publisher Billboard and New York researcher Nielsen have agreed to a multi-year extension of their current agreement and will expand the agreement to include joint development of new initiatives to better measure and analyze market trends in the music industry.
Macromill, a research firm in Tokyo, and MetrixLab, a research company headquartered in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, are merging and will operate under the Macromill brand. The new firm will be led by Han de Groot, global CEO, and Katsumi Konishi, Japan/Asia CEO. Jan Willem Gerritsen, former COO/CFO at MetrixLab, will become executive officer managing the U.S., European and Latin American businesses. Naoya Sugiyama of Macromill will be responsible for staff and general administration and Naofumi Nishi of Macromill will oversee corporate development. Financial terms of the merger were not disclosed.
Atlanta researcher Decooda has partnered with Austin, Texas-based Bazaarvoice to expand Decooda’s MC3 cognitive-linguistic text analytics engine. The updated version is designed to incorporate Bazaarvoice ratings and reviews, allowing clients to monitor consumer reviews along with social media and business data. The integrated model also aims to analyze how consumers relate to a brand; how a brand is delivering compared with expectations and how consumer experiences link to sales.
New York travel industry researcher PhoCusWright has partnered with Mapie, a Brazil-based research company that specializes in the Latin American market. The agreement includes Mapie assistance with fielding surveys, assisting clients and distributing PhoCusWright travel, tourism and hospitality research in Latin America.
Twitter and IBM are partnering to integrate Twitter data with IBM ExperienceOne customer engagement tools, designed to allow sales, marketing and customer service departments to track customer sentiment and behavior. IBM Global Business Services professionals will have access to Twitter data to enhance their consulting services.
Specific Media, an Irvine, Calif., Internet firm, has expanded its partnership with New York researcher Nielsen and will combine Nielsen’s brand media FMCG dataset with Specific Media’s behavioral data to launch Shopper Access, a shopper-based targeting solution.
Qualia Media, a New York marketing company, and Placed Attribution, a Seattle Internet firm, have signed an agreement allowing Qualia to access the Placed location technology, designed to determine the location of 250,000 opted-in panelists.
Research Runner, a Sawbridgeworth, U.K., research firm, has partnered with London marketing firm Magnificent Stuff in a move designed to provide clients with a range of digital and print marketing services.
Awards/rankings
Roni DasGupta, head of market research sales at M3 Global Research, Washington, D.C., and co-worker Bill Friedrich, director of research services, received the 2014 Pharmaceutical Market Research Group Circle of Excellence Award.
IMRB International, Mumbai, India, was named MR Agency of 2014 at the 24th annual market research seminar of the Market Research Society of India in Mumbai in November.
In Baldwinsville, N.Y., RMS Healthcare, a division of Research and Marketing Strategies, was ranked fourteenth in size among U.S. patient-satisfaction survey firms by Modern Healthcare magazine. Rankings were based on the total number of clients and engagements in 2013.
New accounts/projects
Koski Research, San Francisco, has been selected as the market research content provider for IRIS, a Web site for financial services entrepreneurs which includes topics such as sales, personnel, technology and lifestyle. Koski will also design and administer the IRIS research poll of timely and relevant topics.
London researcher Mintel has opted to bring its survey programming in-house for the first time, licensing the Beacon market research and reporting platform of Decrypt, a London market research firm.
The BBC, London, has selected the Digital Analytix software of Reston, Va., research company comScore to provide analytics for all of its digital content, including Web, mobile and video content for all domestic and global services.
The phone, dialer and Web survey data collection platforms of Montreal-based software firm Voxco have been chosen by by IMPAQ International, a Baltimore research company, for its Survey Research Division.
In London, the Broadcaster’s Audience Research Board has combined its contract for its establishment survey and the contract for recruiting panel eligible homes into one contract, effective with the Q1 2015 bidding for the January 2016 contract.
Portland, Ore., researcher Rentrak and Weigel Broadcasting, Chicago, have expanded their contract to provide local market TV ratings for three additional stations in Chicago and four in Milwaukee.
London financial services firm Old Mutual will utilize New York research company Millward Brown for its international brand tracking program, aimed at measuring the performance of its brands in key global markets.
New companies/new divisions/relocations/expansions
Q Research Software, Sydney, has opened a London office, which will be led by Nigel Cartman.
London marketing firm Creston has been rebranded as Creston Unlimited, with its research companies now being named ICM Unlimited and Marketing Sciences Unlimited.
Toronto researcher Advantage International has opened a New York City office which will be headed by Sal Fiordelisi.
In Austin, Texas, Matt Sanchez has launched Cognitive Scale, a technology company. Its Insights Fabric platform is designed to analyze large amounts of structured and unstructured data to generate insights from “dark data,” defined as information not readily machine readable or easily accessible, such as blogs, e-mails, social media and images.
Singapore-based researcher Kadence International has opened a Middle East office in Dubai, which will be led by Amit Garde and Rakesh Dayal. The firm also plans to open an office in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Birmingham, U.K., researcher VoxPopMe has expanded to the U.S. with the opening of an office in Denver. It will be staffed by Dean Macko as managing director, North America. VoxPopMe offers a platform designed to capture video as consumers provide feedback on brands. The software is also aims to provide sentiment analysis to determine the attitude of the consumer.
72Point, London, the parent company of research firm OnePoll, has expanded to the U.S. market with the launch of an office in New York. It will be led by U.S. CEO Tim Haslam.
Research company earnings/financial news
Reston, Va., research company comScore’s Q3 2014 revenues were up 15 percent to $82.1 million. It also posted a GAAP net loss of $3.3 million due to a $6.9 million impairment charge related to its mobile operator analytics division, which will be divested or shut down. Year-to-date revenues were $239 million, up 14 percent from the same period in 2013.
Forrester Research, Cambridge, Mass., announced total Q3 2014 revenues of $75.4 million, with research revenues increasing 2 percent and advisory and event revenues increasing 24 percent, compared with Q3 2013.
Cardlytics, an Atlanta advertising and technology firm, has launched a $70 million funding round.
Gigya, a Mountain View, Calif., software firm, raised $35 million in a Series F round. Gigya software is designed to help businesses utilize customer log-ins to identify users, aggregate data and personalize campaigns.
Stamford, Conn., research firm Information Services Group announced third-quarter revenue up 3 percent in constant currency terms, to $53.3 million. Revenues in Europe rose 10 percent to $19.7 million while they were flat in the Americas and fell five percent in the Asia-Pacific region.
Portland, Ore., research company Rentrak Corporation announced its fiscal second quarter results, with total revenue up 41 percent to $25.2 million. The firm’s TV Everywhere business grew 85 percent to $13.3 million and its Movies Everywhere service grew 16 percent to $7.4 million, while its OnDemand Everywhere and other services were flat.
Gartner, a technology research firm in Stamford, Conn., reported a 15 percent increase in third-quarter revenue to $470.9 million, with the revenue from its Research division also increasing 15 percent to $365.3 million.
Cambridge, Mass., software firm InsightSquared secured a $13.5 million Series C funding round.