Gladson & Associates, a Lisle, Ill., product database firm, has acquired Chicago-based Information Resources, Inc.’s National Product Library. The two firms have formed a joint venture to serve the e-commerce needs of each company’s customers. Separately, IRI has reached an agreement with Starer Bros. Markets in which the grocery store chain will provide IRI with census-level data from its stores. In other news, IRI has opened an office in Bentonville, Ark., to serve its local consumer packaged goods clients. In addition, IRI and Procter & Gamble have signed an agreement in which IRI will continue to be the company’s primary provider of UPC-based research and insight in the U.S.
Field & Focus, a Lake Worth, Fla., research fmaa, has added a DSL line for ActiveGroup access.
Mature Marketing and Research, Boston, has published the results of a pilot survey conducted with the 50+ population. Survey categories include automotive, financial services, (banking/ investment), computers and Interact usage, fast-food/restaurant usage, health care, retirement plans, vacation planning/hotel selection.
Blauw Marktonderzoek, a Netherlands-based research firm, has joined the INRA (Europe) network. E-tabs, formerly ISPC, has moved to 4 Gresham Gardens, London, NW11 8PB, England.
Canada Market Research, Toronto, has changed its name to IFOP CMR. The change reflects the sale last fall of CMR to IFOP, a French research concern.
The Broadcastweb Network, a Maine-based firm that owns and operates several Internet radio stations, has joined the InfoStream Webcast ratings alliance of Arbitron Internet Information Services, NewYork.
CARMA International, a Washington, D.C., media analysis firm has extended its services to India through a joint venture with Media Research Services, Bangalore, India.
Telmar Group, a New York supplier of media planning software, has formed an alliance with Strata, Inc., a Chicago media-buying software firm, to offer an integrated supply of software systems for media planning and buying.
Chicago-based Trans Union has purchased a minority interest in Credi Cromer, which operates Costa Rica’s largest credit information database.
Chamberlain Research Consultants has moved to new offices at 710 John Nolen Dr., Madison, Wis., 53713-1422. The new facility features three focus group suites, one-on-one interviewing rooms and a commercial kitchen.
Opinion Research Corp., Princeton, N.J., has introduced a new Internet-based panel consisting of 1,000 executives from small- and medium-sized U.S. businesses.
As a result of a merger, Austin, Texas-based IntelliQuest will has changed its name to Millward Brown IntelliQuest.
Calgary, Alberta-based Secret ShopNET has merged with Service Intelligence, a Seattle research firm, and will now operate under the name Servicelntelligence.com and be headquartered in Seattle. The firm has relocated its Calgary office to 6940 Fisher Rd., S.E., Suite 125, Calgary.
London-based Isis Research has opened an office at Quarry Park Place, 9175 Guilford Rd., Columbia, Md.
Research firm Gelb Consulting Group has moved to 4611 Montrose Blvd., Suite A230, Houston, Texas.
@FocusRoom.com, a facility designed for hardware/software testing and other high-tech research needs, has opened in New York City.
New York-based m@x RACKS, Inc., a postcard advertising firm, has engaged the Traffic Audit Bureau to develop an auditing methodology for the postcard-advertising medium. Auditing would provide advertisers with the number of people exposed to an advertiser’s message on a postcard.
InfoTek, a Beaverton, Ore., research firm, has moved to larger quarters featuring expanded interviewing and recruiting facilities. The new address is 4915 S.W. Grifflth Dr., Suite 200, Beaverton, Ore.
Creative Research Services, Inc., Atlanta, has opened an account services office in Dallas. Frank McGinn has been named senior vice president and will manage the office, which is located at 9518 Brentgate Drive, Dallas, Texas.
Chevron Corporation has selected the Inquisite survey system from Austin, Texas-based Catapult Systems Corp. to survey its 33,000 employees worldwide.
In March, Wilton, Conn.-based Greenfield Online, Inc. filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering of its common stock. The offering is being managed by Credit Suisse First Boston, Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc., and Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette. All shares are being sold by Greenfield Online.
The Interpublic Group of Companies, Inc., New York, and NFO Worldwide, Inc., Greenwich, Conn., have agreed to revised terms relating to their agreement and plan of merger dated as of December 20, 1999. The firms had previously announced a definitive agreement whereby The Interpublic Group would acquire NFO in a stock for stock transaction valued at $26 per NFO share. Under the terms of the original agreement, NFO’s stockholders were to receive a number of shares of Interpublic stock (the "Exchange Ratio") based upon the average closing price of Interpublic’s common stock during the 10 trading days ending six business days before the closing date. The Exchange Ratio was subject to a collar, whereby the shares to be received by NFO stockholders were subject to a maximum of .5274 of a share, and a minimum of .3898 of a share, of Interpublic stock for each NFO share. In addition, if the average trading price of Interpublic’s stock was below $46.40 per share, NFO was entitled to terminate the transaction, providing that Interpublic declined to adjust the exchange ratio to provide $26 per share in value. Under the terms of the revised agreement, the collar on the Exchange Ratio was modified whereby the shares to be received by NFO stockholders are now subject to a maximum of .5503 of a share of Interpublic stock. This modification ensures that NFO stockholders will receive $26 in value if the average trading price of Interpublic’s stock is between $47.25 and $66.70. In addition, NFO’s right to terminate the transaction has been modified so that it is only exercisable if the average trading price of Interpublic’s stock is below $44.88. Finally, the parties have agreed to increase the termination fee payable to Interpublic in certain circumstances from $25 million to $30 million.
NFO also announced that it had received an unsolicited proposal to be acquired by an unidentified third party for $27.50 per share payable in cash. NFO’s board of directors had made the determination required under the merger agreement with The Interpublic Group to permit NFO to enter into discussions with, provide non-public information to, and negotiate with this third party. However, during these discussions, the company determined that it was unable to accept this proposal, as certain terms specified by the potential buyer were unacceptable to the company. As a result, the NFO Worldwide board of directors rejected the offer and also determined that The Interpublic Group revised offer was superior.
New York-based Nielsen//NetRatings announced that its Intemet measurement panels now have a total of 88,000 individuals under real-time measurement in the U.S., Japan, Australia, the U.K., Singapore, New Zealand and Ireland. Anheuser-Busch has selected Schaumburg, Ill.-based ACNielsen U.S.’s Convenience Track as its syndicated source of sales information and insights for the convenience store channel.
LensCrafters has selected Chicagobased SPSS Inc.’s Clementine data mining software to enhance its data mining efforts.
Survey.com, a San Jose, Calif., research company, has entered into a research partnership with The Data Warehousing Institute (TDWI), an educational organization in the data warehousing and business intelligence market. Under terms of the deal, Survey.com’s BI/DW Research Program and TDWI will jointly develop a series of primary market research surveys designed to assess user satisfaction with business intelligence software, services, and hardware provided by industry vendors and consultancies. Additionally, TDWI has agreed to co-sponsor Survey.com’s Database Solutions III: Europe report, a research project designed to assess the state of the European business intelligence and data warehousing market. Separately, Survey.com has entered into a research partnership with Windows 2000 Magazine. As part of the partnership, Windows 2000 Magazine and the BI/DW Research Program of Survey.com will execute a series of primary market research surveys over the next year. Separately, Survey.com has opened a European office in Surrey, England.
Rochester, N.Y.-based Harris Interactive, a leading Internet-based market research firm, and Excite Canada, a joint venture between Excite @ Home and Rogers Media Inc., have announced a strategic relationship under which Harris Interactive will provide research and polling expertise to Excite Canada in return for links to its Harris Interactive Web site. The links will enable Harris Interactive to expand its population of on-line Canadian respondents.
New York-based Medscape, Inc., a provider of health and medical information on the Web, and United Information Healthcare Group (UIHG), a Livingston, N.J.-based research firm, have formed an alliance to combine UIHG’s capabilities in pharmaceutical research with Medscape’s reach among physicians, allied health professionals and health care consumers. The companies plan to market and sell a new suite of services including both syndicated audits and custom research capabilities.
The Telecom Investor Forum at SUPERCOMM has selected RHK as its research partner. RHK, based in San Francisco, is a market research and consulting firm analyzing the public telecommunications network.
Tustin, Calif.-based Scantron SurveySolutions has added consulting services to its offerings. The company also plans to introduce benchmarking as a means of providing comparative data by industry and topic. The firm will also offer validated question item banks and benchmark research studies for various markets, including financial institutions, marketing research firms and human resources professionals.