News notes

Leger U.S. has changed its name to The Research Intelligence Group and will market under the name TRiG. U.S. headquarters will be in Fort Washington, Pa.

Global Market Insite Inc., a Seattle research company, has increased the size of its Singapore consumer panel from 40,000 to 85,000 double-opted-in members.

InfoUSA, an Omaha, Neb., research company, has changed its name to infoGROUP.

An institutional investor has filed a lawsuit against New York research companyArbitron, charging the firm with “false and misleading statements” regarding the rollout of its Portable People Meter (PPM) service. The complaint alleges that between July 19, 2007, and November 26, 2007, (the “class period”), Arbitron failed to disclose that the scheduled implementation of its PPM service was not performing according to internal expectations and that, as a result, the company would have to delay its implementation in nine of the planned markets.
Because of this delay, the suit says that Arbitron lacked a reasonable basis for its positive statements about the timing of the implementation, as well as its prospects and future earnings. During the period, Arbitron reiterated its guidance that revenue would increase between 5.5 percent and 7.5 percent for the full year 2007. In response to this announcement, share price rose more than 12 percent to $5.46. According to the suit, at this point CEO Stephen Morris and CFO Sean Creamer “took advantage of this temporary inflation in the company’s stock” and sold 154,334 shares, reaping more than $7.7 million. Following the announcement of the delayed PPM rollout, Arbitron stock fell $7.21 per share, or over 14.74 percent, to close at $41.70 per share.

The suit seeks to recover damages on behalf of those who purchased shares during the class period, and the plaintiff has demanded a trial by jury.

Requesting that any definition of online behavioral tracking exclude survey, opinion and marketing research, the Council for Marketing and Opinion Research (CMOR), Glastonbury, Conn., urged the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to flesh out and clarify its admittedly “broad definition” of online behavioral advertising.

“As currently conceived, the FTC’s definition could include and restrict behavioral tracking for legitimate research purposes, including the use of cookies,” said Howard Fienberg, CMOR’s director of government affairs. “The FTC’s position could strangle many possible new methods of research - methods that could better serve consumer choice and privacy than current methods - before they’ve even been conceived.”

Emphasizing CMOR’s support for most of the concepts and goals underpinning the FTC’s principles, CMOR’s official filing stated that data privacy is the cornerstone of the survey and opinion research profession. The filing added that no research companies or organizations are known to have suffered a data breach and suggested that online behavioral tracking could be a form of research particularly well-suited to the needs of nonprofit entities, political activists and for-profit businesses that are small or serve niche markets and interests.

Stamford, Conn., research company InsightExpress has been approved as a third-party ad-effectiveness research vendor within the Google content network. This approval signifies that InsightExpress has complied with Google’s new formal certification process and is now authorized to conduct brand effectiveness research studies across the Google content network.

Acquisitions/transactions

Market Decisions Corporation (MDC), a Portland, Ore., research company, has purchased a Las Cruces, N.M., call center previously owned and operated by Portland-based Research Data Design Inc. The Las Cruces call center has 100 seats and employs approximately 150 people. Las Cruces’ high concentration of bilingual Spanish/English speakers provides MDC with the opportunity to expand Spanish-language surveying capabilities. 

New York researcher The Nielsen Company has completed the acquisition of IAG Research Inc. IAG Research will be rebranded as Nielsen IAG. Alan Gould and Ken Orkin, co-founders and co-CEOs of IAG Research, will continue on as co-CEOs of Nielsen IAG.

Ipsos North America, the New York branch of Paris-based Ipsos, has purchased Monroe Mendelsohn Research, New York. Under the new arrangement, the company will be known as Ipsos Mendelsohn.

Alliances/strategic partnerships

MarketResearch.com, Rockville, Md., has partnered with Oslo, Norway, research company Comperio, which will assist MarketResearch.com in designing, implementing and operating information access platforms using the FAST ESP technology in order to complete a new search and retrieval system to be implemented by fall of 2008.

London research company TNS Sport and Norwalk, Conn., sports marketing agency Octagon have partnered to conduct the ESPN Sports Poll, which will now include information gleaned from Octagon’s Passion Drivers research.

Oxford, U.K., pharmaceutical research company PharmaVentures has partnered with Growthink Research, Venice, Calif., to roll out Growthinks’ venture capital database to industry and academic customers.

Forward Research, St. Louis, has partnered with Canada-based Ipsos Reid. The new entity will be known in the U.S. as Ipsos Forward Research and will merge its practice with Ipsos Reid’s agribusiness, food and animal health division, a specialized service based in Guelph, Ontario, and Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Six polling and market research companies, AGB Nielsen of the U.K., GfK of Germany, Medi‡n of Romania, RI Hoffmann of the U.K., Szonda Ipsos of Hungary and TNS of the U.K., have joined in an alliance named the Professional Market Researchers to promote the common goals and development of the sector. The association will focus on quality control, protecting the reputation of the trade, monitoring of the latest trends, helping spread new research methods and dealing with phenomena harming the credibility of market research.

Awards/rankings

Fairfield, Conn., research company Survey Sampling International has been awarded the 2008 Gallup Premier Partner Award from Washington, D.C., research company The Gallup Organization.

Chicago research company SPSS Inc. has received the Yphise award from Yphise, a Southbury, Conn., IT research company, for best operational predictive analysis solutions, honoring SPSS Predictive Enterprise Services, SPSS Clementine and SPSS Dimensions.

New accounts/projects

Chicago research company SPSS Inc. has been selected by Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. to increase customer loyalty and anticipate customer needs in helicopter fleets.

BBM Canada, a Toronto ratings research company, has selected a joint bid by New York research company Arbitron Inc. and TNS Media Research, New York, to deploy Portable People Meter (PPM) technology for electronic measurement of television in Canada. The PPM television service is currently scheduled to begin installation in early 2009 with a commercial launch in fall 2009.

Separately, Arbitron has signed multiyear contracts for PPM radio ratings services for All Pro Broadcasting in Riverside-San Bernardino, Calif. The agreement will take effect as and when Arbitron commercializes the new audience ratings technology in Riverside-San Bernardino.

In addition, the Radio Research Consortium, Olney, Md., which focuses on non-commercial radio station research, has signed a multiyear contract for syndicated radio ratings services in all radio markets that Arbitron measures in the U.S. The agreement covers both diary and PPM.

Finally, KVIB-FM, 95.1 Latino Vibe, a Phoenix radio station, has signed a multiyear contract for PPM radio ratings services. The agreement will take effect as and when Arbitron commercializes the new audience ratings technology in Phoenix.

Reston, Va., research company Input has launched a new community for federal, state and local government employees offering free access to Input information services and market research designed to help government agencies improve government acquisition activities.

Redlands, Calif., geographic mapping software company ESRI has been selected by Culver’s, a Prairie du Sac, Wis.-based restaurant chain, to use ESRI’s geographic information system to optimize store locations and demographics when assisting franchisees in site selection.

New companies/new divisions/relocations/expansions

U.K.-based B2B International has opened an office in New York.

Diane Frederick, Alice Fawver and Shaikat Sen, former senior executives of Research International, London, have collaborated to form Blueocean Market Intelligence, based in Phoenix.

Grand Rapids, Mich., research company Emerse Inc. has launched the Emerse research and development business unit. The group formerly functioned as InterActive Solutions and focused primarily on ethnographic research services. Emerse research and development continues the emphasis on ethnographic research but includes a broader range of consumer research and product development services.

Redlands, Calif. geographic mapping software company ESRI has opened a new division, ESRI Vietnam, in association with ESRI Thailand. Wichai Saenghirunwattana will serve as managing director of the new office.

Opinion Research Corporation will move its U.S. and global headquarters from Princeton, N.J., to Carnegie Center, N.J., in August.

MediaAnalyzer, a Hamburg, Germany, research company, has opened a new office in New York City.

Survey Sampling International, a Fairfield, Conn., research company, has opened a new office in Stockholm, Sweden.

London-based research company Livra Panels, which focuses on research in Latin America, has opened an office in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Philadelphia research company PeopleMetrics has formed a division dedicated to the market research needs of the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry called PeopleMetrics Rx.

Company earnings reports

Reston, Va., research company comScore reported revenue of $26.4 million for the quarter ended March 31, 2008, an increase of 41 percent compared to the first quarter of 2007 and an increase of 4 percent over the fourth quarter of 2007. This revenue performance exceeded the range of the company’s guidance of approximately $25.9 million to $26.2 million for first quarter 2008.

First-quarter 2008 GAAP income before income taxes was $4.2 million, up 165 percent compared to the first quarter of 2007. Net income was $2.5 million, up 64 percent compared to the same period in 2007. The tax rate included in net income is a normalized effective tax rate of 39.9 percent, inclusive of an effective cash tax rate of 1.5 percent as the company continues to utilize net operating loss carryforwards to reduce cash taxes. By comparison, the first-quarter 2007 net income includes an effective tax rate of 2.9 percent.

Rochester, N.Y., research company Harris Interactive released financial results for its third quarter and fiscal 2008 year-to-date, which ended March 31, 2008. Third-quarter consolidated revenue was $57.3 million, up 11 percent when compared to the same period last year. Acquired companies (Asia, France, Canada and Germany) fiscal third-quarter pro forma organic revenue was $11.7 million, up 26 percent. However, due to revenue declines in the U.S. and U.K., consolidated pro forma organic revenue dropped 4 percent.

Operating loss was $(1.9) million, compared with operating income of $1.4 million reported for the same period last year. The net loss for the quarter was $(2.1) million, or $(0.04) per fully diluted share, compared with net income of $1.2 million or $0.02 per fully diluted share for the third quarter of fiscal 2007.

Adjusted EBITDA, calculated by adding back $1.0 million of non-cash stock-based compensation expense, was $1.6 million or 2.8 percent of revenue, down 58 percent when compared with $3.9 million of adjusted EBITDA, or 7.6 percent of revenue reported for the third quarter.
Consolidated bookings were $61.3 million, up 7 percent when compared with $57.6 million of bookings reported for the same period a year ago. North American bookings increased 17 percent, while European bookings were down 20 percent.

Year-to-date revenue was $175.2 million, up 13 percent when compared with the same period last year. Pro forma organic revenue dropped 1 percent. Operating income for the fiscal-year-to-date was $3.1 million, down 62 percent when compared with operating income of $8.1 million last year. Net income was $1.0 million, or $0.02 per fully diluted share, down 82 percent when compared with the same period in fiscal 2007.

Germany-based GfK Group reported sales growth in the first three months of 2008. Organic growth in sales rose by 5.1 percent to EUR 268.1 Million and adjusted operating income totaled EUR 23.0 million compared to EUR 24.8 million for the same months in 2007.
The proportion of total income generated in the first quarter was disproportionately low due to seasonal effects. Operating income rose by 3.9 percent to EUR 20.9 million. Consolidated total income rose by almost 21 percent to EUR 12.5 million.

The margin, which represents the ratio of adjusted operating income to sales, amounted to 8.6 percent compared to 9.5 percent for the year prior.

The retail and technology sector expanded its strong margin further. In the media sector, GfK achieved some sales growth in organic terms. Compared with the same quarter of the prior year, the custom research sector has seen a moderate start to 2008. GfK achieved double-digit growth in organic terms in Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America, as well as Asia and the Pacific.