News notes
The Boston Herald reported that New York researcher the Nielsen Company has acknowledged problems in its sampling for New Hampshire and Massachusetts television stations. A WCVB television sales manager blamed its ratings decline on Nielsen sampling too many viewers under 35 and New Hampshire residents while undersampling the Massachusetts segment, causing double-digit declines in numbers.
Portland, Ore., research company Decipher has offered $2,500 to match any new private or corporate donations to the nonprofit Schoolhouse Supplies program, Classroom Champions, for a total donation of $5,000. The program provides teachers and students free classroom supplies. For information on how to give, contact Lisa Palermo at 503-249-9933 ext. 9.
Sixteen trade associations including the Direct Marketing Association asked the U.S. Congress to establish a national standard for notifying consumers of a security breach.
Thoroughbred Research Group, Louisville, Ky., has been selected as a preferred vendor for the Renal Services Exchange Program to provide administrative services to National Renal Administrators Association members.
Shelton, Conn., research company SSI hosted a March for Babies walkathon in which more than 50 SSI employees, friends and family participated. This is the annual fundraising event for the March of Dimes. The SSI representatives raised over $6,900 and SSI contributed another $3,100 for a total donation of $10,000.
The Court of Justice of the European Union, Luxembourg, ruled against Google Spain and Google Inc. and in favor of a Spanish citizen requesting that the search engine remove links to his information. The court found that the Google search engine could be considered a data controller and was subject to the same rules as all other companies handling personal information, thereby requiring Google remove outdated information about a person at their request.
Baldwinsville, N.Y.-based Research and Marketing Strategies has received approval as a survey vendor for the 2014 In-Center Hemodialysis Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems Survey (ICH-CAHPS). The firm has also been chosen by the Renal Services Exchange, a subsidiary of the National Renal Administrators Association, as a preferred vendor to conduct ICH-CAHPS patient surveys.
Acquisitions/transactions
Palo Alto, Calif., research company TIBCO has acquired San Francisco software company Jaspersoft.
Nuremberg, Germany, research company the GfK Group has acquired TerrEtude, a Mouchamps, France, agricultural tracking company, and will integrate it into its GfK Kynetec France division. Separately, GfK announced that it has become the majority shareholder in Genius Digital, a U.K.-based firm that captures and analyzes viewer data for the TV industry.
Walldorf, Germany software company SAP has agreed to acquire SeeWhy, a Boston technology company.
New York research company Kantar has sold its Colorado-based call center business, Center Partners, to outsourcing company Qualfon, Mexico.
New York company Nielsen is closing its Scarborough Research’s call center in Sarasota, Fla. Scarborough is now part of Nielsen’s Local Insight Suite. Separately, Nielsen is closing its call centers in Columbia, Md., and Radcliff, Ky.
Chicago research company Precision Dialogue has acquired Opinion Centers America, a Cleveland research company. The Opinion Centers staff will relocate to the research and customer experience division in the Westlake, Ohio, office of Precision Dialogue under Cathleen Zapata, chief experience officer.
Louisville, Ky., technology company ZirMed has acquired Intelligent Healthcare, a Santa Monica, Calif., medical information firm. The Intelligent Healthcare services, which include the collection and analysis of data from health care information sources, will be integrated into the ZirMed platform.
Rotterdam, the Netherlands, research company MetrixLab announced that MarketTools, San Francisco, and CRM Metrix, Paris, have been integrated into the Metrix Lab network. All U.S., European and Asian offices will now operate under the MetrixLab brand. MetrixLab had acquired CRM Metrix in 2010 and MarketTools in 2012.
C Squared Networks, a London marketing firm, has acquired the I-MIS benchmarking survey, which analyzes the reputations of international media agencies and brands.
New York technology company Unified Social has acquired San Francisco software company awe.sm. Awe.sm’s technology will be integrated into the Unified software platform.
Google has purchased software company Adometry, Austin, Texas, which will become part of Google’s Analytics unit. Adometry’s SaaS-based program is designed to track how marketing efforts lead to purchases.
New York research company Millward Brown has agreed to acquire Bucharest, Romania, research company Daedalus Consulting S.R.L. and its subsidiary Visionwise Consulting S.R.L. Daedalus founder Daniel Enescu will continue in his position of chairman of the board; Daniela Lazar will continue as managing director.
AOL, New York City, has acquired technology company Convertro, Santa Monica, Calif. Convertro’s attribution and marketing analytics software is designed to maximize return on advertising purchases.
London research company Marketing Sciences has acquired Walnut Group, a London neuroscience firm. Walnut Group founder Cristina de Balanzo has joined the Marketing Sciences staff.
Boston research company Extreme Reach acquired Emeryville, Calif., advertising firm BrandAds. The acquisition is designed to provide clients with additional information on advertising reach and audience demographics.
Calgary, Canada, marketing company Chaordix has acquired Napkin Labs, a Denver technology company.
Little Rock, Ark., technology company Acxiom has agreed to acquire San Francisco marketing company LiveRamp for approximately $310 million in cash, with the transaction expected to close in mid-summer.
San Francisco software company Meltwater Group has acquired Strategic Planner, a Montreal software firm.
Alliances/strategic partnerships
Atlanta firm Next Level Research and Chicago marketing company Acclaro have reached an agreement for Next Level Research to provide research services for Acclaro clients. Joel Reish, Next Level Research president, was also named as research director for Acclaro.
Boston social media software company Crimson Hexagon has partnered with Vancouver, Canada social media management company HootSuite. The arrangement will allow Crimson Hexagon’s ForSight platform to stream information into the HootSuite platform and for its customers to plug their analytics directly into HootSuite.
Ottawa, Canada, research company Ramius Corporation has partnered with Blauw Research, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, to use the Ramius Recollective software platform for the Blauw online research communities.
Littleton, Colo., payment disbursement company CheckIssuing has joined the Pharmaceutical Marketing Research Group, Minneola, Fla.
London research companies dunnhumby and SkyIQ have paired dunnhumby’s customer behavior analysis with the SkyIQ’s viewing panel to assist clients in understanding of the effectiveness of their TV advertising.
Market Publishers Ltd., London, has partnered with Goulden Reports, Wiltshire, U.K., and Greystone Research Associates, Amherst, N.H., to distribute and sell their research reports.
Waltham, Mass., research company Affectiva and 20|20 Research, Nashville, Tenn., have partnered to distribute Affectiva’s facial coding software, Affdex Discovery.
Association/organization news
Steve Schlesinger, CEO of Schlesinger Associates, and Merrill Dubrow, CEO of M/A/R/C Research, have collaborated with the Qualitative Research Consultants Association (QRCA) to introduce and fund the Young Professionals Grant. The QRCA Grant Committee will offer 10 enthusiastic young qualitative research professionals the opportunity to attend the 2014 QRCA Annual Conference in New Orleans on October 15-17. The Grant will welcome applications from individuals who are 35 years or younger. To qualify, a researcher’s primary professional role must consist of designing, conducting and analyzing qualitative research - or the person must be in training to conduct these activities. The closing date for applications is August 14. For more information visit www.qrca.org/ypg.
London research company Euromonitor International has entered into partnership with Amsterdam-based ESOMAR and will support ESOMAR events throughout the year.
The boards of directors of the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) and Brand Activation Association (BAA) have approved plans for the ANA to acquire the BAA as of July 1, 2014.
Awards/rankings
Paris research company Ipsos InnoQuest received a Bronze Award at the Edison Awards ceremony for its Archetype IQ System. The award was for Research and Business Optimization in the Applied Technology category.
Oslo, Norway, research company Confirmit has received a 2014 CRM Excellence Award, presented by CUSTOMER magazine.
Indianapolis software company Interactive Intelligence was named a 2014 Service Leader winner in the category of interactive voice response by CRM magazine.
New accounts/projects
The Yaffe Group, a Detroit marketing agency, has expanded its contract with Portland, Ore., research company Rentrak Corp. to completely replace its current measurement service with Rentrak’s rating service. Separately, Rentrak signed a contract with Kelly Scott Madison, a Chicago media agency, to provide its StationView Essentials television ratings service.
Singapore research company Fisheye Analytics, a division of Kantar Media, has retained its contract with the World Economic Forum for an additional three years.
Los Angeles direct response agency D2H Partners has selected New York software company Info Tech’s Media Management System.
New York marketing company IPG Mediabrands has selected Reston, Va., Internet company comScore’s validated Campaign Essentials software for evaluating digital display and video campaigns.
New York company IBM announced that Television Broadcasts Limited, a Hong Kong television station, has adopted its Social Media Analytics technology which is designed to analyze social media comments.
Research software company MFour, Costa Mesa, Calif., has adopted the Socrates qualitative moderator technology of Windsor Heights, Iowa-based research company Quester for use in MFour’s Surveys On The Go mobile research tool to add probing and other qualitative research features to mobile surveys.
London charity the Children’s Society has selected ResearchBods, a Leeds, U.K., research company to build and manage its online supporter panel.
Boston software company Experian Data Quality announced that McMillion Research, Charleston, W. Va., will use its data enhancement and data quality services to verify new as well as current panelists.
The Muscular Dystrophy Association, Tucson, Ariz., has selected Omaha, Neb. research company Infogroup Targeting Solutions to manage its donor lists.
New companies/new divisions/relocations/expansions
Beijing Internet company Baidu opened its U.S. research and development center in Sunnyvale, Calif., adding to its AI Lab, Beijing Deep Learning Lab and Beijing Big Data Lab. Andrew Ng has been appointed chief scientist.
Seattle research company Global Market Insite has opened a new office in Frankfurt and has appointed Norman-Rene Schwalme to lead the office.
The Ipsos MediaCT division of Paris research company Ipsos has opened a data science unit in London, led by Neil Farrer as chief data science officer.
London recruitment company Aspire Global Network has repositioned all its divisions, including pfj, the Graduate Recruitment Company, RPCushing, Periscope and Aspire Global Network Asia, to operate under the Aspire name.
Palo Alto, Calif., survey software company SurveyMonkey will open an office in Sydney, Australia, making Australia the first country outside the U.S. to have access to all SurveyMonkey products, including Enterprise, Audience and Contribute.
Research company Hall and Partners has moved its global headquarters to Procter Street in London due to recent growth.
Radius Global Market Research, New York, has opened a Beijing office. Cindy Han has been appointed as managing director, Radius Asia.
Asian market research company ABN Impact has opened an office in Shanghai, China, and has appointed Stephane Courqueux as managing director.
London research company Flamingo has opened a Sao Paulo location. Andy Connor will lead the office.
Dallas research company ConsumerDNA has opened, after acquiring the assets of Savitz Research Solutions. Michael Kassab, former president of Savitz Research, has been appointed CEO. The company is online at www.dnamarketresearch.com.
Gladys Concon, Patti Allen and Barbara Ireland have launched Observations, a Newmarket, Canada, research company. Observations is online at www.observationsinc.ca.
Chicago research company AdGooroo, a Kantar Media company, has opened a London office.
Jim Easton, Jonny Baynes and Phil Stone have launched Plural Strategy Group in London. The company is online at www.pluralstrategy.com.
Research company earnings/financial news
Pasadena, Calif. research company UberMedia has received $8 million in funding from Gordon Crawford, Capital Research and Management, and Blue Chip Ventures.
Stamford, Conn., research company Gartner reported first quarter revenue of $446.7 million, a 10 percent increase.
Indianapolis research company Interactive Intelligence Group has reported first-quarter 2014 revenue of $79.4 million, an 8 percent increase.
Stuart, Fla., research company Information Services Group has announced first-quarter 2014 revenue of $48.2, a drop of 5 percent.
DJS Research, Cheshire, U.K., reported a 32 percent increase in 2013 revenues over 2012.
Palo Alto, Calif., software company Attensity has raised $90 million in equity financing.
Nuremberg, Germany, research company GfK announced financial results for first quarter 2014. Adjusted operating income increased by 2.7 percent to Û23.6 million despite revenue declining 3.7 percent to Û344.9 million.
Stockholm technology company Innometrics has announced a $5 million Series A funding round to allow European expansion and enhancements to its Profile Cloud solution.
Boston Internet company Ditto Labs has raised $2.2 million in a second round of funding.
St. Louis software company Click With Me Now has raised $2.25 in investment funding and has named Bud Albers as CEO.
Hampshire, U.K. research firm eDigitalResearch reported a 20 percent revenue increase in 2013.
Singapore research company YOYO Holdings raised $1.3 million, which will be used to increase its growth, strengthen its management and staffing levels and boost its marketing efforts.
Chennai, India research company ResearchSuite Technologies has secured angel funding from start-up investor Pravin Shekar, who joins the ResearchSuite board of directors as the chairman in a non-executive capacity.