News notes
Publishers Daily reports that Trusted Media Brands, which owns titles such as Taste of Home and Reader’s Digest, has formed an Insights Lab to provide brand marketers with data and information on consumer and B2B audiences and marketing trends. The lab will also use national panels from research partners and the Trusted Media Brands Inner Circle community of 3,500+ online members “to drive understanding of the changing habits, attitudes and behaviors of the American consumer and today’s media landscape,” said company CEO Bonnie Kintzer.
The University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business has announced a new data and business analytics concentration for its full-time MBA (FTMBA) degree program. The new concentration will be offered beginning in fall 2018.
Acquisitions/transactions
Sweden-based research firm Norstat Sverige AB has acquired Sweden-based data collection company Concilia’s Web panel. The panel, consisting of randomly telephone recruited active members, will be added to Norstat’s online panel, panel.se. In addition, effective July 1, the two owners and founders of Concilia, CEO Per Jansson and CEO Torbjörn Månsson, will also start working for Norstat.
Israeli technology company NICE Systems Ltd. will acquire U.S. cloud-based analytics company Mattersight to further enhance its offerings and customer base. NICE will offer to purchase the outstanding share capital of Mattersight for $2.70 per share, a 25 percent premium on the Chicago-based company’s share price, for a total of $90 million.
Canadian pollster Angus Reid has acquired the Your Insights panel, formerly owned by Insights West. Effective immediately, the panel will be known as the Angus Reid Forum. Reid will be chairman of the board of the new entity. Insights West Founder Steve Mossop will become president and CEO, leading a Canada-wide team of researchers and panel managers.
Alliances/strategic partnerships
Research Now SSI has formed a partnership with voter data firm Aristotle International to offer pollsters, PACs, public opinion groups and nonprofits behavioral and modeled variables to connect with verified registered American voters to conduct opinion polling via online and CATI modes. Aristotle’s national voter file contains more than 500 attributes such as voting and donor histories, political party registration and affiliation, hobbies and more. Separately, Research Now SSI also announced a partnership with Data Trust, a voter file and data management company, to enable more accurate online polling leveraging Data Trust’s voter data. The new offering allows pollsters to merge Research Now SSI’s online political survey responses with responses from the Data Trust voter files.
Marketing analytics firms Truesight Consulting, New York, and Marketscience Consulting, London, have launched a strategic development partnership under which they will deliver a suite of new unified demand analytics solutions and services to the marketplace.
Research firm PersonaPanels has joined the Nielsen Connected Partner Program. Working with Tanjo Inc.’s machine learning platform, PersonaPanels creates populations of simulated consumers for research panels that can provide continuous feedback to companies and marketers.
B-CITI, a software platform for connecting cities and residents, and Canada-based research firm Leger are partnering to integrate Leger Metrics into the B-CITI platform to give users global management and integration of digital data; real-time measurement of residents’ satisfaction; and integration and artificial intelligence for data management.
Insight platform Voxpopme announced new partnership integrations with technology platforms Delvinia, Digsite, Invoke Solutions and Protobrand. Delvinia will offer Voxpopme video insights in the Canadian market through its AskingCanadians panel and also offer Voxpopme video insights in North America through its Methodify research automation platform. Digsite adds Voxpopme to its qualitative Sprints and online communities. Under the agreement, Invoke Solutions adds video-based input to get insights from consumers in real time. And Protobrand adds video-based open response questions to its Meta4 Insight methodology.
Association/organization news
The Insights Association’s new Code of Standards and Ethics for Marketing Research and Data Analytics was unanimously approved by members and the association’s board of directors. Adherence to this enforceable code is required by all members of the Insights Association. “Our new code builds on the industry standard-setting legacies of CASRO and MRA while reflecting many recent changes in research process and practice,” said David W. Almy, CEO of the Insights Association. “It plays a vital role ensuring ethical behavior and best practices beneficial to research participants, the pubic, our members and the entire research and insights community.” The code was developed over the past year by a task force and refined in consideration of suggestions and comments from members. It is designed to feature concise, plain language and to cover all research and insights activities. It reflects changes in research and insights practice in a global context, while relying on supplemental guidance by ESOMAR/GRBN, EphMRA and other research and insights resources.
The Data & Marketing Association (DMA), the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) and the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM) are joining with 15 DMA member companies to develop, test and adopt standards for audience data quality and transparency. The initiative, which is being spearheaded by DMA’s Council for Data Integrity, is designed to help marketers, agencies, data providers and publishers identify and make better decisions on high-quality, responsibly-sourced data. DMA aims to deploy a standard data label – much like an FDA-approved nutrition label – that displays data segment ingredients in a simple and transparent fashion.
Non-profit organization Women in Research (WIRe) has added three new members to its advisory board: BV Pradeep, VP CMI for country and customer development for Americas and Europe in the new C4G organization at Unilever in London; Joanna Derry, head of consumer insights and marketplace intelligence for Nestlé Oceania Limited, Sydney; and Pratiti Raychoudhury, a director of research for Facebook in Menlo Park, Calif. After completing a two-year service term, advisory board members Anthony Michelini, Eric Salama, Jane Frost and Marie-Agnes Mourot de Lathyle will transition to emeritus board members.
Awards/rankings
Toronto-based research firm Sklar Wilton & Associates was named a Best Workplace for Women by the Great Place To Work Institute and placed 11th in Canada as a Best Workplaces - Fewer than 100 Employees. This award builds on wins in 2017 for both the Best Workplace in Canada for Small Companies as well the Best Workplace for Celebrating Success.
Market Strategies International, a Livonia, Mich., research firm, announced that it has earned Certified status for information security by HITRUST, an information management and security organization.
New York-researcher Nielsen has earned the #19 ranking on the 2018 DiversityInc Top 50 list for corporate diversity and inclusion, moving up 13 places. This is Nielsen’s fifth consecutive year moving up on the annual ranking of companies that excel in hiring, retaining and promoting women, minorities, people with disabilities, LGBT+ and veterans.
Research software firm Confirmit announced the winners of the 2018 Confirmit ACE (Achievement in Customer Excellence) Awards, which recognize clients who demonstrate “proven excellence and innovation” in their customer experience programs. Categories and winning organizations include: Voice of the Customer: AIG Travel, ANSYS, Asurion, Authorize.net, Cybersource, Deltek, Empire Today, Grainger, NCR: DI University, NCR: Digital Insight Software Solutions, HMS, Infor, McKesson, Moore Medical, OpenText, Philadelphia Insurance Companies, PODS Enterprises LLC, Quest, Selective Insurance, Siemens Building Technologies, The Hanover Insurance Group, Virgin Money, Visma, Waters Corporation, Wyndham Vacation Resorts Asia Pacific. Voice of the Employee: Accenture, Cognita, ENGAGE with Moss Bros.Business Impact: ANSYS, Kongsberg Digital, The Hanover Insurance Group, Virgin Money, Visma, Wyndham Vacation Resorts Asia Pacific. B2B: Amadeus, B2B International, Grainger, HMS, OpenText, Visma. Innovation: Amadeus, CSAA, HMS, Philadelphia Insurance Companies, Rockbridge Associates Inc., W5 with DEASP. Multi-Channel: Cognita, Grainger, Erie Insurance, Wyndham Vacation Resorts Asia Pacific.
New accounts/projects
Nielsen announced that yogurt maker Chobani LLC has selected the Nielsen Data Management Platform (Nielsen DMP) for its cross-screen media campaigns across connected TV (CTV), online video and programmatic channels. Additionally, Nielsen’s multi-touch attribution (Nielsen MTA) capabilities will help Chobani measure and optimize its media and marketing ROI.
The government of Tanzania has endorsed Denver-based research firm GeoPoll for research services in Tanzania, with an office address in Dar es Salaam.
New companies/new divisions/relocations/expansions
Pittsburgh research firm Olson Zaltman announced a new health division. The firm discovered that the mind has a single, universal orientation to health and created, after an audit of over 140 health care studies, its Deep Metaphor Health Framework, which is designed to allow marketers and strategists to tap into the orientation.
Kantar announced the launch of an analytics practice that will unify a global network of over 1,500 data scientists, analytics consultants, technologists and data designers from across Kantar businesses such as MaPS and Analytics Quotient. In India, WPP has combined the analytics teams from Kantar and GroupM to form one combined practice.
Katie Harrison, Sheila Roche, Erin Thornton and Jenifer Willig have created Hive, a New York-based social impact consultancy.
Elys Roberts, previously U.S. CEO of Ipsos Marketing Practices, has launched BEESY, a Summit, N.J.-based company bringing together a team of behavioral scientists, consumer insights professionals and marketing strategists to serve clients in CPG, financial services, biopharma/health care and other industries.
U.K.-based Explain Market Research has expanded into Scotland after securing new client wins. The company has added Scottish Water and SGN to its portfolio of clients in the utilities sector.
New York research firm maslansky + partners has opened a new office in Sydney and appointed David Baynham to the new role of managing director of APAC.
New York-based market research firm GBH Insights has launched its first international office, in London. In support of the London office opening, the firm appointed Mark Connolly as a non-executive director and member of the GBH advisory board.
Research company earnings/financial news
Three employees of Vernon Research Group have purchased the marketing research firm from Cedar Rapids, Iowa-based holding company Folience, which acquired the company in 2013. The Corridor Business Journal reports that Lori Dockery, Andrew Juhl and Linda Kuster have closed on the deal, with an effective ownership date retroactive to April 1. The company will continue to do business as Vernon Research Group, operating from its Cedar Rapids office.
New York-based Nielsen Holdings plc announced its first-quarter 2018 results. Revenues were $1,610 million for the period, up 5.5 percent, or 2.4 percent on a constant currency basis, compared to the first quarter of 2017.
MR2 Group, a market research and consulting firm operating under the Precision Opinion brand, filed with the SEC to raise up to $18 million in an initial public offering. The Las Vegas-based company was founded in 2007 and booked $16 million in revenue for the 12 months ended December 31, 2017. It plans to list on the Nasdaq under the symbol MRMR. ThinkEquity is the sole bookrunner on the deal. No pricing terms were disclosed.
Paris-based researcher Ipsos reported revenue of €367 million in the first quarter of 2018, down 5.9 percent from the first quarter of 2017. In the absence of any scope effect, this change was driven by currency effects, the company said. Organic growth had a positive effect of +2 percent and the transition to IFRS 15 had an impact of +0.4 percent. The increase in the organic growth is an improvement on the first three months of 2017 (+1 percent). It is weaker than in the second half of 2017, which had seen organic growth rates of more than 4 percent, in part, as the company had indicated in July, due to the closing of the gap observed in mid-2017 between stable revenue and a rise in the value of contracts sold.
Reston, Va.-based comScore Inc. reported financial results for the first quarter of 2018, ended March 31. Revenue advanced 5 percent year-over-year to $105.9 million from $100.9 million reported in the same period for 2017. GAAP net loss for the first quarter of 2018 was $51.5 million, or $(0.93) per share as compared to $40.8 million, or $(0.71) per share reported in the same period for 2017. On a non-GAAP basis, net loss for the first quarter of 2018 was $13.8 million, or $(0.25) per share, excluding investigation and audit-related expenses, stock-based compensation expense and certain other items. This compares to a non-GAAP net loss of $17.7 million, or $(0.31) per share, reported in the same period for 2017.
Stamford, Conn.-based research and advisory company Gartner reported first-quarter 2018 earnings per share of $0.72 on an adjusted basis, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $0.58. Earnings also increased 20 percent on a year-over-year basis. Revenue was $973 million in the first quarter, up 16 percent. The average spend reached $191,000 per business enterprise, up 5 percent.