News notes
The Interpublic Group has entered into a definitive agreement for the sale of its NFO research unit to Taylor Nelson Sofres. Under the terms of the agreement, Taylor Nelson Sofres will pay Interpublic $425 million - $400 million in cash and $25 million in ordinary shares of Taylor Nelson Sofres stock. Interpublic will receive an additional $10 million of cash payable approximately one year after the dose of the proposed transaction subject to the appreciation of the market value ofordinary shares of Taylor Nelson Sofres. The transaction is expected to close this summer, pending regulatory clearances in the U.S. and Europe. As a result of this divestiture, interpublic expects to realize an accounting gain of approximately $100 million.
On April 28, 2003, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York issued two rulings for Chicago-based Information Resources, Inc. (IRI) in its $350 million-plus antitrust lawsuit against The Dun & Bradstreet Corp., A.C. Nielsen Co. and IMS International, Inc., according to an LRI press release.
In one ruling, the court denied ACNielsen’s motion for partial summary judgment to dismiss lRI’s claim that ACNielsen’s anticompetitive conduct had excluded lRI from 22 foreign markets. As a result, IRI will be able to seek damages at trial for its exclusion from all of these markets.
In the second ruling, the court indicated that 1RI could claim damages for injuries it suffered in the U.S. market as a result of defendants’ anticompetitive practices overseas. In its suit, IRI contends ACNielsen purposefully engaged in these practices to drain IRI of resources it needed to compete in the U.S. retail tracking market. In separate proceedings, the Canadian Competition Tribunal and the European Commission found that these overseas practices by ACNielsen were abusive and either prevented IRI from entering markets or artificially raised the costs of doing so.
In its ruling, the court concluded that "The necessity, intentionally imposed on IRI by defendants’ foreign and domestic activities, to devote the use of millions of dollars of its domestic funds to purposes other than its chosen ways of competing, was a ’direct, substantial and reasonably foreseeable effect’ on domestic trade of commerce and gave rise to a claim of attempted monopolization."
The District Court set a conference for May 21, 2003 to discuss the scheduling of a trial date.
Data for Decisions in Marketing, Inc., Fairlawn, Ohio, has changed its name to DecisionPoint Marketing & Research.
New York-based CLT Research has changed its name to Protocol Research Solutions.
Fundamental Research Group, Southampton, Pa., has been certified by the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council as a nationally certified women’s business enterprise.
International Communications Research (ICR), Media, Pa., is celebrating its 20-year anniversary.
Also celebrating 20 years in business is Q Research Solutions, Inc., Old Bridge, N.J. The firm will open its first national affiliate in Los Angeles this summer to support its consumer product research services and plans to open additional facilities in the contiguous United States over the next several years.
Taylor Nelson Sofres is bringing together all of its operations in 53 countries, including the United States, under a single brand. As part of a rebranding initiative, Taylor Nelson Sofres has been renamed TNS, uniting a business which had previously supported many different corporate brands. The company’s American business units - CMR, Taylor Nelson Sofres Intersearch and Indetec - have been renamed TNS Media Intelligence/CMR, TNS Intersearch and TNS Telecoms respectively. TNS also announced that it will rename its consumer panels division TNS Worldpanel.
Survey Sampling International LLC announced that the SurveySpot online panel now includes more than 1,000,000 unique member households woridwide. This figure represents nearly 3,000,000 household members. Of the total, 62,000 are in the U.K. and 45,000 are in Canada.
Invoke Solutions, Inc., Tenafly, N.J., which recently changed its name from NetOnCourse, has secured $6 million in funding by Bain Capital Ventures and BRM Capital.
Acquisitions
London-based research company Synovate has fully acquired technology company ViewsCast, which specializes in automated call center satisfaction monitoring.
U.K.-based Millward Brown has acquired U.K.-based Sadek Wynberg Research. The acquisition will result in the merger of Millward Brown UK’s Qualitative Unit with Sadek Wynberg to form a qualitative practice lcnown as Sadek Wynberg Millward Brown. The new operation will be headed jointly by Rebecca Wynberg and Nadim Sadek, with Sadek being appointed to Millward Brown’s global qualitative board, and Wynberg taking a position on Millward Brown UK’s management committee. Sadek Wynberg’s current Queensway offices will be used as the new practice’s London base, while Millward Brown’s Warwick office will continue to
be home to a qualitative team.
Bellomy Research Inc. (BRI), Winston-Salem, N.C., announced that Floating Point Systems software development company has joined the firm. By having an in-house software development team, BRI is able to expand offerings in the areas of interactive research and customizable real-time deliverables.
Taylor Nelson Sofres (TNS) has acquired the National Drinks Survey (NDS) a study of U.K. consumer drinking habits. Together with TNS’s FFP (Family Food Panel) service - a study of U.K. food and drink consumption - TNS will provide a consumer usage information package to food and drink manufacturers and retailers. As a result of the acquisition, TNS will take over full responsibility for ND S from Nesflwhich established the survey in 1970. TNS has been collecting and processing the data for the past four years and will now take charge of selling, marketing and servicing all clients.
Alliances/strategic partnerships
Beacon Associates, a Waitsfield, Vt., marketing research firm, has joined forces with Robinson Research Group to create BrandDirector, a new division dedicated to helping clients build their brands.
The James J. Hill Reference Library, St. Paul, and research firm Information 2 Intelligence (i2i) have formed a strategic alliance to blend the secondary research capabilities of the library with the Webbased primary research abilities of i2i.
New York-based health care research firm WebSurveyEurope and health care research firm PSYMA will work together to deliver online surveys to assess marketing research information from physicians and other health care professionals. Under the terms of the letter of intent, PSYMA will have immediate access to physicians in Europe and the United States for performing marketing research. PSYMA will perform questionnaire design and data analysis while WebSurveyEurope will field the studies and provide the results.
Online research provider Dynamic Logic and Millward Brown USA have formed a strategic partnership. The alliance gives Millward Brown USA access to Dynamic Logic’s AdIndex system. The two companies will work together to develop new product offerings for measuring the effectiveness of multi-channel marketing.
FUSE, an Australian software company specializing in rich media data collection applications for survey research, has become an SPSS MR Technology Alliance Parmer. Users will now be able to layer FUSE multimedia objects with SPSS MR’s mrlnterview survey platform.
New York-based Nielsen Media Research has selected DWJ Television, a broadcast public relations company, to beta test its new SIGMA Web Entry and Delivery system. Beginning June 2nd, DWJ and two other beta testers will be able to communicate all SIGMA requests through "SIGMA Central" via the Interact. The service will be rolled out to the rest of Nielsen’s SIGMA clients on June 16th.
Arbitron Inc., New York, announced that Médiamétrie, a French provider of TV, radio, Interact and cinema audience measurement, has signed a license agreement that will enable the independent media measurement company to evaluate Arbitron’s Portable People Meter (PPM) system in Paris. The two-year agreement will enable M6diamdtrie to evaluate the PPM encoding system and the willingness of Parisians to keep the pager-sized PPM device with them as they go about their daily routines. Médiamétrie will also appraise the radio
and television ratings from the PPM and compare the ratings to the current audience measurement systems - set-top people meters for TV and day-after telephone recall for radio - used in Paris.
Association/organization news
The board of directors the Council of American Survey Research Organizations (CASRO) has voted to continue discussions with other research industry associations that could result in the formation of a federation to coalesce industry efforts in the areas of government affairs, respondent cooperation and strengthening the image of the industry. CASRO has engaged in federation discussions with the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF), the Marketing Research Association (MRA) and the Council for Marketing and Opinion Research (CMOR) for the past several months. "Our discussions have been productive and constructive," says Paul Talmey, chair of CASRO. "One of our primary objectives has been to focus on the important ’one industry, one voice’ issues we could work on cooperatively and more effectively in a federation."
The proposed federation would be open to any industry group wishing to affiliate. "The CASRO Board is very interested in combining forces with other research industry groups to deal with these three critical issues," says Bob Cohen, CASRO immediate past chair. Talmey and Cohen serve as the CASRO representatives to the industry discussions. They were joined by the two principal elected leaders in each of the other associations. Simon Chadwick acted as facilitator for the group.
"Working together to resolve the regulatory and image issues we face as an industry makes practical sense," says Talmey. "And, if we expect to reverse the declining rates of respondent cooperationand increase respondent satisfaction, it will be the result of the industry working together on measuring the problem and determining internal and external solutions.
"While some research industry organizations are interested in a commitment to merge, the CASRO board has consistently held that the interests of our members and the industry are best served through a federation of independent associations targeted to the issues of government affairs, respondent cooperation, and industry image."
Awards
The Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) bestowed its ARF Naples Research Industry Leadership Award on two researchers, William T. Moran, president, Longman-Moran Analytics, and William J. (Jay) Wilson, vice chairman, NOP World, at the ARF annual convention in April. The award is given annually in recognition of those who have "stepped beyond the bounds of their daily business to move the research industry forward through their personal leadership." Moran was recognized for his leadership in developing methods by which to identify routes to more profitable business alternatives and Wilson for his role in bringing to life the Council of Market and Opinion Research and helping to make it a voice for the research industry.
Separately, the 2003 ARF Ogilvy Awards Grand Winner went to IBM. The winner in packaged goods was P&G’s Crest Whitestrips team and the winner in Services was Capital One’s No Hassle Card crew.
IBM’s e-business infrastructure campaign received further recognition at the ceremony as some 250 research industry leaders aclcnowledged IBM’s highly successful effort at searing into the minds of business executives the critical importance of being prepared with "ebusiness infrastructure" solutions. IBM marketing and communications researchers contributed key insights into ways to increase recognition of infrastructure problems and solutions without turning off non-technical business executives or alienating IT thought leaders. IBM’s advertising agency for this award-winning work is Ogilvy & Mather. The research agencies supporting the winning campaign include: Ameritest Research, The Maya Group and Perception Research Services.
Receiving the Grand Winner Award was Anthony Michelini, director, worldwide IMC research at IBM. Michelin also picked up the award for winner of the "Considered Purchases" category.
Other 2003 award winners:
1st runner-up, services category - Windows XP for its "Yes You Can" campaign, award received by Anne T. Groom, director of corporate and communications research, Microsoft.
1st runner-up, packaged goods category - A-1 Sauce, "Yeah, It’s That Important" campaign, award received by Diane Phillis, category insights manager, Kraft Foods.
1st runner-up, considered purchases category-Advair, "Asthma was, Advair is" campaign, award received by Karen Radkowsky, senior partner, Ogilvy & Mather on behalf of the client, GlaxoSmithKline.
2nd runner-up, packaged goods category - Ocean Spray White Cranberry Juice, "Great for Drinking" campaign, award received by David Wiesenfeld, senior manager, consumer insights, Ocean Sway Cranberry, Inc.
For 2nd runner-up, considered purchases category, there was a tie vote among the judges. The award was shared by Chevrolet Avalanche for the "It Changes" campaign (award received by David Hudson, E.V.P, director, planning and development, Campbell- Ewald); and by Lexus for the "New World of Luxury" campaign for Lexus ES (award received by Mark Miller, associate director of strategic planning, Team One Advertising).
New accounts/projects
Information Resources, Inc. (IRI), Chicago, has signed a letter of intent for a multi-year strategic consulting agreement with the Procter & Gamble Company to provide a range of 1RI’s proprietary consumer and retailer insights products and services. Financial details were not disclosed.
New companies/new divisions/relocations/expansions
New York-based Ipsos Group has launched Ipsos-Insight, the Group’s flagship U.S. company specializing in marketing research for domestic clients as well as U.S.-based multinationals. The new company brings together the staff, capabilities, products and services of Ipsos-NPD (founded in 1953) and Ipsos-Reid (created in 1979) into one organization in the U.S. Effective immediately, all marketing research services in the U.S. will be marketed under the Ipsos-Insight name.
Company earnings reports
Rochester, N.Y.-based Harris Interactive reported revenue and earnings for its third quarter of fiscal 2003 ended March 31. Revenue for the quarter was $32.1 million, up 13.3 percent from $28.3 million reported for the same period a year ago, and approximately even with $32.5 million revenue reported for the second quarter of fiscal 2003. Net income for the fiscal third quarter was $2.6 million or $0.05 per share, up 24 percent compared to $2.1 million or $0.04 per share reported for the second quarter of fiscal 2003. The company reported a net loss of $1.2 million or ($0.02) per share for the same period a year ago. For the nine-month period ended March 31, revenue was $94.9 million, and diluted net income was $5.6 million or $0.10 per share.
Austin, Texas-based Web research firm Inquisite reported its most profitable quarter to date for the quarter ending March 31. The company reported an almost 90 percent increase in sales over that same period in 2002 and acquired several new Fortune 1000 customers.
Nuremberg, Germany-based GfK Group reported that in financial year 2002 sales rose by 10.6 percent to EUR 559.4 million. GfK generated 63.4 percent of its sales abroad. The final accounts for 2002, prepared for the first time in accordance with U.S. GAAP, confirm the growth trend already evident in the preliminary figures released at the end of February. Growth in EBIT, including income from participations, was EUR 50.0 million, which outstripped the figure for 2001 of EUR 32.7 million by 53.1 percent. The EBIT margin after income from participations rose accordingly to 8.9 percent (previous year: 6.5 percent).
For the quarter ended March 31, Chicago-based Information Resources, Inc. reported net income of $260,000 or $0.01 per share compared to a net loss of $9.4 million or ($0.32) per share for the first quarter of 2002. First quarter results for 2002 included a charge of $7.1 million or $0.24 per share due to the change in accounting for goodwill and restructuring charges of $5.3 million or $0.11 per share.
First quarter consolidated revenues of $137.7 million were 3 percent higher than the first quarter of 2002. U.S. revenues of $100.2 million were fiat versus prior year. While revenues from IRI’s U.S. Retail Tracking business, which comprises about 70 percent of the U.S. business, were down 2 percent for the quarter versus prior year, the U.S. Panel and Analytics business continued to post strong growth, up 9 percent over the same period last year. International revenues of $37.5 million were 13 percent higher in U.S. dollars than the first quarter of 2002, but 4 percent lower in local currencies. International revenue grew 2 percent in local currencies excluding IRI’s German operation, which is showing signs of recovery after a difficult 2002.
SPSS Inc., Chicago, announced results for its first quarter ended March 31. Revenues and diluted earnings per share were $49.0 million and $0.08 in the quarter, as compared to $49.6 million and a loss per share of ($0.15) in the same period last year, respectively. Included in the results for the quarter ended March 31, 2002, were acquisition and other nonrecurring charges of $4.7 million, or 15 cents per diluted share.
Operating income improved to $2.0 million in the quarter from an operating loss of $4.8 million in the same period last year. Included in the results for the quarter ended March 31, 2002 were acquisition and other non-recurring charges of $4.7 million. This improved profitability was primarily due to the company’s reduced expense structure resulting from the restructuring of its field operations in the second half of 2002. In addition, SPSS reduced its facilities and terminated certain investments. These expense control programs cut total headcount by 7 percent, total payroll by 8 percent, and field sales and services personnel by 25 percent.
The company recorded another quarter of positive cash flow from operations and improvement in its net cash position. Additionally, SPSS secured a four-year credit facility with Foothill Capital Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Wells Fargo & Company, providing the company with an expanded borrowing capacity of up to $25 million.
Opinion Research Corporation, Princeton, N.J., announced revenues for the first quarter ended March 31 of $43.2 million, up from $42.5 million in the corresponding quarter last year. Social research revenues were $27.8 million, versus $24.0 million last year. Market research revenues were $12.0 million, versus $14.3 million in the prior year. Teleservices revenues were $3.4 million, versus $4.1 million last year. Net income for the first quarter was $0.7 million, or $0.12 per diluted share, versus net income of $0.5 million, or $0.08 per diluted share, in last year’s first quarter. Last year’s results included a charge of $0.3 million, or $0.05 per diluted share, for the cumulative effect of an accounting change. Cash flow was used to further reduce debt to $45.1 million from $46.9 million at December 31, 2002.
Fairfield, Conn.-based IMS Health reported first quarter diluted earnings per share of $1.71 on an SEC reported basis, compared with $0.20 in the year-earlier period, and $0.20 per share on an adjusted basis, unchanged from the 2002 first quarter. Revenue for the quarter ended March 31 grew to $313.9 million, up 8 percent. Adjusted results measure the performance of ongoing IMS core operations and exclude gains and losses on transactions, severance and impairment charges and certain other items.