News notes
The latest global market research study by the European Society for Opinion and Marketing Research (ESOMAR) shows that the total market for market research worldwide in 2002 was $16.6 billion.
The U.S. and the E.U. eachaccounted for 38 percent of the total world market in 2002. This compares to 2001’s breakdown - when the U.S. accounted for 39 percent of the total world market and the E.U. 37 percent. Meanwhile, Central and South America’s share of the world research market has fallen to 4 percent and the Asia-Pacific share remains 13 percent. The estimate for the Middle East and Africa market remains at 1 percent of world share.
Growth recovered to 4.5 percent and the market grew by $715 million over 2001 but this was largely an exchange rate effect and there was only minimal real growth - when measured in Euros, the year-on-year decline was EUR 115 million or 0.6 percent. In 2001, the market grew by $435 million or 2.8 percent over 2000.
Growth in the five major markets which represent 70 percent of the total was 2 percent in the U.S. and 6 percent in the U.K., 8 percent in Germany, and 10 percent in France, while the market in Japan shrank by 6 percent.
The largest market for market research worldwide is the U.S., followed by the U.K. and Germany. Together the top 10 countries account for 81 percent of the total world research market and the top 25 for 92 percent. Russia and New Zealand have moved into this group in 2002 and Finland and Argentina have dropped out.
Among the top 25 countries, most followed a similar pattern of low levels of real growth. However two countries showed spectacular growth in U.S. dollars: China was up by 54 percent after taking inflation into account and Russia by 48 percent. The biggest decline was in Argentina, where a post-inflation decline of 39 percent in local currency and 75 percent in dollars (from $72 million to $18 million) was the result of turbulent economic conditions.
Seattle research firm NetReflector, Inc. has been named Washington State’s 16th fastest-growing technology company as part of Deloitte & Touche’s Technology Fast 50 Program. Rankings are based on the percentage of growth in fiscal year revenues over five years, from 1998 to 2002. NetReflector increased its revenues by 1,087 percent from $123,000 in 1998 to $1,460,000 in 2002.
Perseus Development Corporation, a Braintree, Mass., research firm ranks #318 on Inc. magazine’s annual Inc. 500 ranking of the fastest-growing private companies in the country the list. With five-year sales growth of 559 percent, Perseus is the 21st fastest-growing, privatelyheld software company in America, according to the list.
Acquisitions
Synovate has acquired Censydiam NV, a Belgium research firm employing 170 worldwide. Censydiam will rebrand as Synovate Censydiam, a specialist research division.
Separately, Synovate announced its full acquisition of Blackstone Market Facts in India. Synovate had previously held 25 percent ownership of the company. Headquartered in Mumbai, Blackstone Market Facts has 12 offices around the sub-continent.
Paris-based Ipsos has acquired Marketing Metrics (MMI), a Paramus, N.J., research company specializing in customer relationship and customer satisfaction management (CRM/CSM). CRM/CSM, which will be offered globally under the Ipsos Loyalty brand name in 2004, currently accounts for 8 percent of total Ipsos revenues and is one of the company’s five research specializations. The Ipsos Loyalty research division will be headed by Henri Wallard, Paris-based CEO of Ipsos. MMI, which generated close to $10 million in revenues last year, was founded in 1984 by Terry Vavra.
Separately, Ipsos has acquired Partner Market Research of Taipei, Taiwan. Partner Market Research, to be named Ipsos Taiwan, will generate revenues of $1 million this year. To reinforce the management team, Ipsos has appointed Alan Chien as general manager of Ipsos Taiwan.
Alliances/strategic partnerships
Techneos Systems Inc., a Vancouver, Canada-based supplier of mobile data collection solutions, has announced that Trevenque Sistemas de Información has launched a localized Spanish version of Techneos’s Entryware Professional software.
Millward Brown has signed a worldwide licensing agreement with French market modeling agency Interstat to use its SAPIENS market mix model. Designed for sales volume forecasting across both packaged goods and business-to-business product categories, the Sapiens model measures sales for an entire product category. It will be marketed by Millward Brown under the CategoryDynamics name.
Association/organization news
Robert L. Barocci has been elected president/CEO of the Advertising Research Foundation. Barocci is former president of Leo Burnett International and founder/CEO of McConnaughy Barocci Brown advertising in Chicago.
A new group representing organizations serving the mystery shopping industry has been formed. The International Mystery Shopping Alliance (IMSA) will initially offer mystery shopping and related services in 15 European countries, and plans to expand to offer worldwide coverage. The member firms have 33,000 mystery shoppers carrying out more than 300,000 mystery shopping visits annually. The organization’s members also offer other services such as customer satisfaction and service auditing systems, incentive loyalty and staff training programs, and consulting. The seven founder members have elected Alex Mahave of ThinkSmart, Spain, as the first president and Harvey Gilbert of ESA in the U.K., as vice president.
Awards
Datascension, a Brea, Calif.-based data processing and research firm, has been named Supplier of the Year for Telephone Research Data Collection by Ipsos-Vantis, a division of the Ipsos Group. The award recognizes consistently superior performance in the supply of services to Ipsos-Vantis.
New accounts/projects
Major League Baseball Properties (MLBP) has selected Scarborough Sports Marketing, Chicago, for consumer and fan research services. Through the contract, MLBP will utilize Scarborough’s Multi-Market database and have access to the sports consumer information that Scarborough measures.
New companies/new divisions/relocations/expansions
San Mateo, Calif.-based Merrill Research, LLC has opened an office in Dallas. The new location will be headed by Leslye Geller. New York-based e-mail list man-agement and brokerage firm NetCreations has created a new marketing research division called SurveyDirect.
Czech Republic research industry growing
Editor’s note: In conjunction with Prague setwing as the site of the annual European Society for Opinion and Marketing Research (ESOMAR) congress in September; the organization released the following profile of the market research industry in the Czech Republic.
Market and opinion research is a growth industry, in the Czech Republic, with revenues of $42 million in 2002, according to ESOMAR’s latest global market research study. The sector grew by 4 percent over the previous year and has nearly doubled over the last five years despite fluctuations in the local business cycle.
Much of this growth parallels regional and global developments: the growth of multinationals and the introduction of their brands, the increasing pace of commerce, and the liberalization of trade, capital flow and investment arejnst afew of the global trends being felt in Czech society, industry and business.
Ordinary Czechs have also been affected, becoming more mature consumers in a rapidly developing consumer society. Evidence for this is found in heavier, more sophisticated product use, in greater involvement with brands, and in rising consumer expectations. Czech consumers have become a force that businesses shouldn’t ignore, either in terms of product offerings, levels of customer satisfaction or in advertising and promotional support.
In general, the major research companies in the Czech Republic have responded by offering internationally validated research techniques that can diagnose specific problem areas and allow for comparison from project to project. They also offer more sophisticated analysis of consumer needs and their relationship to brands and approaches that look at all aspects of a brand or company’s performance.
To deliver these services, market research companies recognize the need to establish ongoing working partnerships with their clients and these frequently include an international dimension, as virma!ly all of the larger Czech research firms are now affiliated with multinational research companies.
The Czech research industry employs an estimated 11,200 people, of whom 10,500 are interviewers and 700 are researchers, data processors and support staff.
Who is buying the research? About 40 percent of research is commissioned by manufacturing companies. Other key sectors commissioning research are telecommunications and financial services.
The vast majority of research in the Czech Republic (77 percent) is commissioned by domestic clients though these often include the local affiliates of multinational firms. A much smaller proportion of research 23 percent is commissioned from outside the country. Over two-thirds (70 percent) of the research on the Czech market is consumer research, while less than a third is non-consumer research, especially in retail and business-to-business.
Just over one-third (34 percent) ofresearch revenues in the Czech Republic are generated by continuous research, and 66 percent of revenue comes from ad hoc projects. Of these ad hoc projects, 51 percent is quantitative and 15 percent qualitative. More than half of quantitative interviews are conducted face to face, mostly in-home, and another fifth are carried out by telephone.
The growing reliance on market research results for business decisions and concerns over privacy have underscored the need for self-regulation and quality standards, and a number of professional organizations have been formed to adopt and enforce them.
Members of SIMAR (The Association of Market Research Agencies/Sdruzeni Aentur pro Vzkum Trhu), the Czech Marketing Association, and CIMA (The Czech Institute of Marketing) have undertaken to abide by the ICC/ESOMAR International Code of Marketing and Social Research Practice. This code takes into account privacy regulations and sets out the core principles governing researchers’ relations with respondents, clients and other researchers. Its key principles are that respondents’ cooperation is always voluntary, their confidentiality should be maintained, and that marketing research activities must be clearly differentiated from direct marketing activities. SIMAR has taken the additional step of introducing quality standards modeled on those developed by EFAMRO (the European Federation of Associations of Market Research Organizations).