News notes
Following the closing of Evo Research and Consulting in London, the company’s New York division will reopen and operate as Think Conservatory.
Chicago research company Synovate intends to close its call center in Ottumwa, Iowa, terminating 80 part-time jobs and one full-time position. Synovate will offer remaining employees the opportunity to continue working from home.
Survey Sampling International, a Shelton, Conn., research software company, has launched Research Voice, an industry-wide initiative dedicated to improving the research experience for participants.
Zogby International, a Utica, N.Y., polling company, celebrated its 25th anniversary in September 2009.
Chicago research software company SPSS Inc. reached a settlement with Norman H. Nie, its co-founder, regarding litigation involving the SPSS trademark which was pending in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, as well as related litigation seeking indemnification and advancement of expenses pending in the Delaware Chancery Court. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed.
Acquisitions/transactions
Chicago research company Information Resources Inc. (IRI) has acquired The Hendry Corporation, a Southport, Conn., marketing consulting and software company, from Symphony Marketing Solutions. Both Symphony Marketing Solutions and IRI are owned by Symphony Technology Group, Palo Alto, Calif. The acquisition is intended to strengthen IRI’s consumer and shopper insights applications.
New York researcher The Nielsen Company has acquired KoreanClick, a Seoul, South Korea, Web measurement company. The acquisition expands Nielsen’s global measurement capabilities with coverage of Internet users in South Korea.
Integral Market and Opinion Research, Vienna, Austria, has acquired a majority share in Heidelberg, Germany, research company Sinus Sociovision. Terms were not disclosed.
Babbletype LLC, a Snellville, Ga., research transcription services company, has completed its acquisition and integration of MRT Services LLC, a Loganville, Ga., research agency. The company will operate as MRT/Babbletype and has offices in Philadelphia and Snellville.
Maktoob Research, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, has signed an agreement with Yahoo!, Sunnyvale, Calif., whereby Yahoo! will acquire Maktoob Research as part of a full acquisition of Maktoob.com’s Internet portal-related businesses. The agreement will also allow Maktoob Research to access Yahoo!’s Arab Internet users for its consumer panel.
Alliances/strategic partnerships
New York research companies Survey U Inc. and Youth Pulse LLC have partnered to create Youth Pulse Inc., which will focus on tween, teen, college and young adult insights for marketing, brand and media professionals, providing news, commentary, events, research and strategy. Offerings will include a Web site (www.ypulse.com), a daily newsletter, annual conferences and a proprietary online research community (www.surveyu.com).
The National Restaurant Association, Washington, D.C., and Cincinnati research company Loyalty 360 have formed an alliance to conduct research to analyze loyalty marketing programs in the restaurant industry. Loyalty 360 will also assist the National Restaurant Association in developing strategies for its members for social and emerging media as additional methods by which to drive loyalty and engagement.
New York researcher The Nielsen Company and Chicago research company Information Resources Inc. (IRI) have formed a U.S. production joint venture to recruit, maintain and process data from a common set of households to support the Nielsen Homescan and IRI Consumer Network panels, which will continue to be operated by their respective companies. The pool of households will be owned by the joint venture, but the techniques used for projecting, analyzing and delivering insights will remain proprietary to each company.
Association/organization news
The Pharmaceutical Business Intelligence Research Group, Philadelphia, has appointed Henry Gazay of Miami research company Medimix International to its 2009-2010 advisory board.
The Advertising Research Foundation (ARF), New York, has appointed Steve Coffey of The NPD Group as co-chair of the ARF’s Online Quality Research Council.
Awards/rankings
Chicago research software company SPSS Inc. has received a 2009 Technology ROI Award from Nucleus Research, Boston, for SPSS’s Predictive Analytics Software’s contribution to Navy Federal Credit Union, Vienna, Va. Navy Federal used the software to improve member satisfaction, corporate expansion and member lifetime value.
ESOMAR, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, honored six researchers with awards at ESOMAR’s annual congress in Montreux, Switzerland, in September 2009. Kim Dedeker of Kantar received the ESOMAR Excellence Award for Standards of Performance in Market, Opinion and Social Research - The John Downham Award. Annelies Verhaeghe of InSites Consulting received the Young Researcher of the Year Award. Ed Keller of The Keller Fay Group and Barak Libai of Tel Aviv University were the recipients of the ESOMAR Excellence Award for Best Paper of the Year 2009. The Best Overall Paper - the Fernanda Monti Award - was given to Annelies Verhaeghe and Micheal Friedman of InSites Consulting. The Best Case History Award was given to Keith Bailey of Nokia and Andy Dexter, Leanne Tomasevic and Adam Chmielowski of Truth. Namita Mediratta of Unilever Indonesia and Raghavan Srinivasan and Astiti Suhirman of TNS Indonesia received the award for the Best Methodological Paper.
Research companies Infosurv Inc., Atlanta, and Second To None, Ann Arbor, Mich., have been named to Inc. magazine’s Inc. 5000 list of the nation’s fastest-growing private companies for the second and third years in a row, respectively.
GfK Custom Research North America, New York, has won a 2009 Silver Beacon award for Crystal, its global segmentation study for energy client BP.
New accounts/projects
BuzzBack Market Research, New York, has selected iRise, an El Segundo, Calif., business software company, to serve as its platform for bringing new offerings to market. BuzzBack will use iRise’s offerings to create visualizations of new Web-based product ideas early in the definition and development lifecycle and to provide a platform for testing product ideas directly with research staff and prospective market research customers.
Columbia, Md., research company Arbitron Inc. has signed an agreement with BroadSign International, a Montreal signage software company, to deliver a proof-of-play advertising audit service using its Portable People Meter (PPM) technology. Arbitron will use PPM to conduct a series of annual audits capturing when encoded audio and video advertising content is displayed on networked digital screens in 50 random BroadSign-run locations across the U.S.
Separately, Lakes Media LLC, a South Boston, Va., broadcast group, has signed an agreement with Arbitron to have Arbitron conduct a custom survey area report for fall 2009 in Northern N.C.-Southside Va.
Finally, Arbitron has formed a task force of radio and advertising industry leaders to develop an ongoing measure of “affinity” that is intended to reflect the advertising value of the relationship listeners have with their stations. The mission is to design a relevant, timely and accessible metric that captures audience involvement and has an impact on radio planning and buying.
Dallas research company e-Rewards Inc. has selected Westport, Conn., research company RelevantView’s digital fingerprinting technology RelevantID to improve respondent validation in Veracity360, e-Rewards’ quality management system.
Additionally, e-Rewards has partnered with Mexico City airline AeroMexico to expand its business-to-business and affluent consumer panels. Members of AeroMexico’s Club Premier rewards program will have the opportunity to enroll in e-Rewards opinion panels and earn Club Premier points in exchange for their participation.
Stockholm, Sweden, research company Cint has increased the size of its Panel Exchange from 30,000 to 200,000 as a result of four companies joining the Panel Exchange.
New York researcher The Nielsen Company and New York broadcasting company Time Warner have entered into a multi-year agreement to combine the Nielsen services subscribed to by all Time Warner businesses in one contract, including Nielsen’s television, online and mobile measurement services, as well as research on advertising segmentation, targeting and consumer engagement. The agreement provides Nielsen services to Time Warner’s broadcast, cable, syndication business units and affiliates.
Darmstadt, Germany, data services company Versatel AG has selected Chicago research software company SPSS Inc.’s Predictive Analytics Software in an effort to optimize the management of its marketing campaigns.
New companies/new divisions/relocations/expansions
Quick Test/Heakin Research Inc., Jupiter, Fla., has opened a facility at the Westfield Topanga Mall in Canoga Park, Calif. The facility will be called QuickView-Topanga.
Ci Research, Wilmslow, U.K., has formed a new retail division. The team of four includes Gareth Hodgson, Richard Walker, Katy Leng and Amy Wilde.
London research company Verve has opened an office in Sydney, Australia. Andrew Cooper will lead the operation, along with Lamia Lee and Charlotte Brady.
Ipsos Public Affairs, a New York division of Paris research company Ipsos, has launched its Hispanic Research Center, a resource dedicated to providing market research and insight into the lives of Hispanics in the U.S. It is also designed to provide Ipsos’ clients the opportunity to increase the visibility of publicly-released surveys and polls conducted among Hispanics.
Research company earnings/financial news
Survey Sampling International (SSI), Shelton, Conn., announced that its charitable outreach programs reached nearly 1.6 million. Since 2001, SSI has supported causes to aid those in need on behalf of its 6 million OpinionWorld and SurveySpot panelists.
Cello Group, London, announced its interim results for the six months ended June 30, 2009. Operating income was £30.2 million, a 10.9 percent decrease from the same period in 2008. Headline operating profit was £2.5 million (£4.4 million in 2008). The company also reported operating loss of £3.4 million, compared to a profit of £2.9 million in 2008.
The GfK Group, Nuremberg, Germany, reported results for the first six months of 2009. The company increased sales by 10.6 percent over the first quarter to EUR 292.8 million. Overall, sales amounted to EUR 557.5 million, down 5.5 percent on the prior year. In organic terms, sales were down by 8.5 percent. Acquisitions contributed a total of 2.2 percent to sales growth. Currency effects increased sales by 0.8 percent. Adjusted operating income increased to EUR 36.8 million, compared with EUR 14.8 million in the first quarter of the year. Income totaled EUR 51.6 million, compared with EUR 66.8 million in the same period of the prior year.
Ipsos, Paris, reported earnings for the first half of 2009. Revenues came to EUR 447.8 million, down 3.2 percent compared with the same period in 2008. This was subject to a negative currency effect of 0.8 percent. Gross margin declined by 1.9 percent. Operating margin before non-recurring items was down 110 basis points compared with the first half of 2008, due to operating expenses remaining stable at EUR 243.4 million (up 0.4 percent compared with the first half of 2008). Other operating income and expenses came to EUR 7.1 million compared with EUR 0.4 million in the year-earlier period.
Toluna, Dallas, reported results for the first half of 2009, with total revenue up 67 percent to £13.7 million. Revenue in Europe was up 50 percent to £8.5 million, with France and the U.K. making notable contributions to the performance. Sales doubled to £5 million in North America, which included the effects of the acquisition of Common Knowledge in June 2008. In Asia-Pacific, revenue climbed from £0.1 million to £0.3 million. Operating profits were up 21 percent over last year to £1.6 million. The company also acquired Greenfield Online for 40 million, and the transaction is anticipated to enhance Toluna’s earnings per share for the year ending December 31, 2010.
In-Touch Survey Systems Ltd., Ottawa, Canada, announced that revenue grew by 8 percent to 1.4 million for the second quarter of 2009. Net loss was 89,267, similar to a net loss of 86,263 in second-quarter 2008.
IPerceptions Inc., Montreal, reported financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2009. Revenue of 1.1 million was comparable to the same period in 2008. Net loss and comprehensive loss for the second quarter of 2009 was 981,600, compared to 661,083 for the prior-year period. The basic and diluted loss per share was 0.03, compared to 0.02 for the same period in 2008.