News notes
President Barack Obama has nominated Robert Groves, director of the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor’s survey research center, as director of the U.S. Census Bureau in preparation for the 2010 census. Groves served as an associate director of the bureau from 1990-92 and is a former president of the American Association for Public Opinion Research.
The Auckland, New Zealand, division of Chicago research company Synovate has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Unite Union in an effort to reach a final settlement regarding the 30+ call center workers who were notified via text messages on April 10, 2009, that they were locked out of the office after turning down a pay increase of NZ$0.20 per hour.
According to the call center employees’ union Unite, almost all the firm’s employees in New Zealand are paid the minimum wage of NZ$12.50, less than half the figure workers get in Australia, where wages were increased by 3.5 percent in January 2009. The telephone interviewers were asking for a NZ$0.50-per-hour pay raise to take their wage to about 4 percent above the minimum wage level. They also wanted 12 hours’ notice of roster changes, rather than finding out whether they are working that day when arriving at work.
The key points of the MOU are as follows: Synovate and the union members will set up a working party to negotiate a performance pay scheme for interviewing staff; the working party has six weeks from April 14, 2009, to reach agreement; during that time, there will be no further strike action, nor will there be any other industrial, picket or protest action against or targeting the company, its clients or associated individuals; and union members will return to work immediately.
IMS Health, a Norwalk, Conn., research company, and SDI, a Plymouth Meeting, Pa., heath care analytics company, have filed a joint petition for a writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of IMS Health vs. Ayotte, the U.S. Court of Appeals First Circuit ruling that upheld a New Hampshire law restricting the commercial use of prescriber-identifiable data. The decision reversed a U.S. District Court decision that had previously ruled that such restrictions were in violation of the First Amendment’s protection of commercial speech. The appellate court, instead, found that the First Amendment afforded no such protection to the gathering, analysis or publication of data for commercial purposes, and that restriction of such data was not an abridgment of free speech. A writ of certiorari asks the Supreme Court to review the lower court’s opinion.
The petition that IMS and SDI are filing argues that the Court of Appeals’ decision represents a threat to the most basic constitutional right of free speech. The petition was submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court on March 27, 2009. The Court is expected to decide whether to take the case before its summer recess in July.
Domenichelli Business Services, a Ludlow, Mass., transcription services company, has changed its name to Modern Day Scribe LLC and added copyediting and data entry to its list of services offered.
Dallas research company Toluna has completed its integration with Common Knowledge, a fellow Dallas research company Toluna acquired in 2008. As of April 2, 2009, Common Knowledge officially became Toluna USA Inc.
Acquisitions/transactions
Majestic Research, New York, has acquired Rood Research, New York, in an effort to expand its offerings to include health care market research.
Omaha, Neb., research company infoGroup Inc. has closed a $155 million deal to sell Macro International Inc., a Calverton, Md., research subsidiary of infoGROUP, to ICF International, a Washington, D.C., consulting firm.
The GfK Group, a Nuremberg, Germany, research company, has acquired Surrey, U.K., research company, Ascent Market Intelligence. The company will operate under the name GfK Ascent-MI Limited.
Alliances/strategic partnerships
The Hartman Group, a Bellevue, Wash., research company, and GfK Custom Research North America, a New York division of Nuremberg, Germany, research company The GfK Group, have formed an alliance to conduct Future Buy: The New Shopper Value Paradigm, a study intended to uncover business opportunities for companies looking to connect and remain relevant with shoppers in a retail marketplace.
Ipsos Reid, a Toronto division of Paris research company Ipsos, and Winnipeg, Manitoba, research company Tell Us About Us Inc. (TUAU) have partnered to combine Ipsos Reid’s analysis services and TUAU’s data collection and reporting services.
Association/organization news
Amsterdam, Netherlands, research association ESOMAR has launched the Young Researcher of the Year Award. The award will be presented for an outstanding original and creative piece of research that can effect change within some of the most topical and controversial issues globally. The award is part of ESOMAR’s Developing Talent initiative designed to enhance the skills, know-how and expertise of future market research professionals.
Contenders must be under the age of 30, skilled in producing high-quality research with a commitment to human development, ethics and a fair and just world. An international jury of industry leaders chaired by ESOMAR will review each submission, with the three finalists invited to present at the ESOMAR Annual Congress in Montreux, Switzerland, September 15-18, 2009. For more information on the contest and how to enter visit www.esomar.org/youngresearcher.
The Marketing Research Association (MRA), Glastonbury, Conn., has called for all members of the research profession in Massachusetts to take action against regulations passed in Massachusetts that the MRA believes could hurt research with health care practitioners.
On March 11, 2009, the Massachusetts Public Health Council released new regulations (the Marketing Code of Conduct) with health care practitioners. By requiring the public reporting of payments to practitioners that originate from pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers, the Code may make practitioners less likely to participate in vital survey research that provides benefit to the public. Reduced participation will lead to less research performed in Massachusetts, resulting in significant loss of jobs and income.
Julian Vermaas, senior research director of Omaha, Neb., research company The MSR Group has earned Professional Researcher Certification from the Marketing Research Association at the expert skill level.
Awards/rankings
EMI Surveys, a Cincinnati research company, celebrated 10 years of business in April 2009. The company was also presented with a Certificate of Recognition by the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber of Commerce for its success.
San Francisco research company MarketTools Inc. has been named the top market research supplier in the annual survey of research decision makers conducted by MarketResearchCareers.com, a Stamford, Conn., market research online job database. The survey polled 600+ market research professionals, with MarketTools being ranked No. 1 in customer satisfaction out of the 18 full-service vendors rated in the survey.
The Advertising Research Foundation (ARF), New York, has named Dr. A.K. Pradeep of Berkeley, Calif., research company NeuroFocus the Grand Winner of its Great Mind Award for Innovation award for 2009.
Other winners of the ARF Great Mind Awards include Joseph C. Philport, The Traffic Audit Bureau for Media Measurement Inc., New York (Gold); Carl Marci, Innerscope Research, Boston (Gold); Caleb Siefert, Innerscope Research, Boston (Silver); George Shababb, TNS Media Research, New York (Silver); and Brendan Light, BuzzBack Market Research, New York (Bronze).
The ARF has also awarded Lifetime Achievement Awards to Gerry Lukeman, chairman emeritus of Paris research company Ipsos, and Gale D. Metzger of Menlo Park, Calif., research company Knowledge Networks.
Additionally, Efrain Ribeiro and Renee Smith of Paris research company Ipsos Global Operations together with Tom Evans of ESPN, Bristol, Conn., have been recognized by the ARF for their project Foundations of Quality, an initiative that examined several principles and fundamentals of online market research involving multipanel membership and its impact on data quality and respondent engagement.
The Cable and Telecommunications Association for Marketing, Alexandria, Va., has awarded Knowledge Networks (KN) and NBC Universal (NBCU) its first place 2009 Research Case Study Award for the Total Touch study KN conducted for NBCU that provided a single-source assessment of consumer exposure and reaction to Olympics coverage across media.
TruMedia Technologies, a Tampa, Fla., research company, has been named in the list of Cool Vendors in the Cool Vendors in Retail 2009 report by Gartner Inc., a Stamford, Conn., IT advisory company.
New accounts/projects
Columbia, Md., research company Arbitron Inc. has signed a multiyear agreement with Bonneville International, a Salt Lake City media company, for PDA Web, a new software service for Portable People Meter (PPM) ratings. PDA Web is an online version of PD Advantage, a programming tool designed to track the top-line view of stations’ performances. Originally built for the diary service, it analyzes PPM radio ratings data and allows radio station programmers to determine the station preferences of PPM respondents, when listeners are tuning in and tuning out and to what stations they are going when they do tune out.
Separately, Arbitron has begun cell-phone-only household sampling in an initial 151 diary markets for the Spring 2009 radio survey. The company plans to expand cell-phone-only sampling to all radio markets in the entire U.S. with the fall 2009 survey.
Consumer Contact ULC, a Toronto research company, has become a Net Promoter Loyalty Partner and has adopted Net Promoter’s measurement and tracking metrics for its clients.
Ci Research, Cheshire, U.K., has been contracted by U.K. business association Trading Standards North West to undertake the Youth Alcohol and Tobacco Use Survey. Ci Research will record, analyze and collate 12,000 questionnaires from 14-17-year-olds and present the findings to 20 local authorities. It is the third consecutive year that Ci Research has been awarded the contract, the results of which will be used to help deal with the sale of cigarettes and alcohol to underage youth.
A new Toronto research company Fresh Intelligence has been selected by Capital C, a Canadian marketing agency, to serve as Capital C’s exclusive intelligence-gathering group.
New companies/new divisions/relocations/expansions
Research facility alliance Focus Coast to Coast has added three facilities in Eastern Europe to its network - WorkLine in Moscow and St. Petersburg, Russia, and InMind in Kiev, Ukraine.
Courteney Wilds has launched CourtLynn Research LLC, a new firm set to specialize in qualitative research. The firm is located in Woodbridge, N.J.
New York research company ModeratorNetwork has opened its doors. The firm will focus on providing savings on moderator fees, as well as other expenses involved in marketing research, by connecting marketing research professionals to skilled, reasonably-priced moderators and by providing an online management system for the qualitative research process. The firm is online at www.moderatornetwork.com.
Hamphsire, U.K.-based eDigitalResearch has opened a new London office. The office will be managed by Dominic Bean, head of business development. The company has also appointed Ben Benson as senior Web application developer.
Karen Gonçalves has reopened her practice, offering market research and marketing planning services. She has added professional writing to her offerings. Karen P. Gonçalves, Marketing Consulting, will be based in Santa Monica, Calif.
Charles Pearson has launched a new research agency named EasyInsites, based in Surrey, U.K. Pearson will be joined by Jo Winning, both formerly of Research Now, London.
Research company earnings/financial news
IMS Health, Norwalk, Conn., announced first-quarter 2009 net income of $133.3 million and diluted earnings per share (EPS) of $0.73, compared with net income of $59.2 million and EPS of $0.32 in the first quarter of 2008. After adjusting for certain tax and foreign exchange hedge-related items, net income on a non-GAAP basis for the first quarter of 2009 was $68.7 million and EPS was $0.38, up 1 percent and 3 percent, respectively, year over year.
With more than 60 percent of revenue generated outside the U.S. and the strengthening of the dollar, foreign exchange had a significant impact on first-quarter revenue, which declined 8 percent to $526.9 million. Operating income in the 2009 first quarter was $100.9 million, compared with $116.4 million in the year-earlier period, down 13 percent or 20 percent constant dollar.
The Nielsen Company, New York, announced financial results for the year ended December 31, 2008. Reported revenues for the year were $5,012 million, an increase of 6 percent over reported revenues for the previous year of $4,707 million. Excluding the impact of currency fluctuations, revenues for the year increased 4.5 percent.
Reported operating income for the year was $118 million compared to $416 million for the previous year. These results were negatively impacted by $552 million and $174 million, respectively, of charges relating to certain items such as goodwill impairment charges, restructuring costs, deal-related costs and compensation agreements. Adjusting for these items, operating income increased 12.5 percent.