News notes

Following concerted action by the European Society for Opinion and Marketing Research (ESOMAR) and the World Association For Public Opinion Research (WAPOR), a proposal to ban the publication and conduct of opinion polls in Ireland during the finai week of an election has been dropped. An amendment had been added to the country’s Electoral Reform Bill 2000 prohibiting the taking or the publication of opinion polls in the seven days prior to a general, local, Presidential, European election, or a by-election or a referendum on any change to the Constitution. The only remaining step for it to be passed was for the second chamber of Parliament to rubberstamp the bill before the summer recess. Following an alert by ESOMAR’s representative in Ireland, ESOMAR together with WAPOR conducted a rapid campaign to arrest the final adoption of the measure, which carried penalties of up to £100,000 or prison for two years for any person convicted. The letter sent by ESOMAR (and undersigned by WAPOR) to numerous politicians and journalists urged the Irish government to reconsider this proposal, stating that the right to conduct and publish polls freely is part of the modern democratic process which allows citizens to make themselves heard.

United Business Media has announced a new corporate identity research businesses. NOP World - formerly the United Information Group - includes Audits & Surveys Worldwide, Mediamark Research Inc., NOP Research, and NOP World Health (which encompasses Market Measures Interactive, NOP Healthcare, and StrateNc Marketing Corporation).

Opinion Research Corporation, Princeton, N.J., announced that its application for listing on the Nasdaq National Market System has been approved. The common stock of Opinion Research Corporation will trade under the symbol "ORCI."

Separately, the firm announced that it was cited by Fortune Small Business as one of the magazine’s "100 Fastest-Growing Small Companies."

In August, Harris Interactive Inc., Rochester, N.Y., and Total Research Corporation, Princeton, N.J., announced a merger ageement. The merger, which is subject to regulatory approval and approval by the stockholders of both companies, calls for Harris Interactive to exchange 1.222 shares of HPOL stock for each share of Total Research. When completed, existing Harris Interactive stockholders will own approximately 67.25 percent and Total Research stockholders will own approximately 32.75 percent of the outstanding equity of the combined company. Stockholders representing approximately 53 percent of the total outstanding common stock of Harris Interactive and approximately 24 percent of the total outstanding common stock of Total Research have agreed to vote their shares in favor of the transactions. The merger is expected to be finalized in the fourth quarter of this year. Following the merger, Total Research will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Harris Interactive and, initially, will continue to operate under its existing name in the United States and Europe. The company will be managed by a newly created office of the chairman with Gordon S. Black, currently chairman and CEO of Harris Interactive, continuing in this role. David H. Clemm, currently president and COO of Harris Interactive, will become vice chairman for global operations and Internet research development, and A1 Angrisani, currently president and CEO of Total Research, will become president and COO of the merged firm.

New York-based Arbitron Inc. has begun conducting syndicated radio audience measurement services for Mexico City broadcasters, advertisers, and agencies. The Mexico City radio ratings service is the first syndicated radio measurement conducted by Arbitron outside the U.S.

Dan Wiese Marketing Research, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, recently celebrated its 15th anniversary.

As of August 31, San Francisco-based Modalis Research Technologies, Inc. ceased its European operations. The action followed a long period of less-than-anticipated sales results in the region. The shutdown resulted in the layoff of approximately 40 European employees and is part of a larger, worldwide restructuring effort.

TeleSage Inc., a Seattle provider of automated telephone survey software, announced that its SmartQuest software has been certified by CT Labs, an independent testing service serving the computer telephony industry.

Brazil-based research firm Market Analysis has launched its Web site at www.marketanalysis.com.br.

Wilton, Conn.-based Greenfield Online, Inc., has received a business process patent for its online focus group business, called FocusChat invented by Hugh Davis, the company’s chief technology officer and a founder of the firm. The U.S. Patent & Trademark Office issued the patent (No. 6,256,663) on July 3 and the company learned of the action July 24. The new patent is for "a System and method for conducting focus group discussion among remotely located participants."

Maritz Marketing Research Inc., St. Louis, has shortened its name to Maritz Research.

Knowledge Networks, a Menlo Park, Calif., research firm, has secured $40 million to fund further growth. The financing was led by new investor Maveron, with participation from existing investors Oak Investment Partners, Alloy Ventures, Meritech Capital Parmers, and Oak Hill Venture Partners.

Seattle-based Global Market Insite, Inc. has been admitted tinder the terms of the Safe Harbor Agreement data protection agreement between the United States and the European Union (EU). The agreement allows the uninterrupted flow of personal information from the EU to the United States, based on established Fair Information Principles. The European Commission issued the Directive on Data Protection to protect the privacy of EU citizens. The Directive states that for those countries outside the EU whose privacy practices are not deemed "adequate," transfers of personal information from Europe to those countries would be stopped. To ensure that personal data flows to the United States are not interrupted, the U.S. Department of Commerce (under the Clinton administration) and the European Commission developed a "safe harbor" framework that allows U.S. organizations to satisfy the European Directive’s requirements.

Reston, Va.-based comScore Networks, Inc., a provider of data-based Internet infrastructure services, has established a new government solutions division to serve the needs of federal, state and local government agencies by providing Intemet analysis and solutions.

The Kantar Group is reorganizing its corporate structure to accelerate the global expansion of Kantar Media Research (KMR) under the leadership of Andy Brown, newly appointed CEO. KMR will operate as an independent division of Millward Brown, reporting to Bob Meyers, a director of Kantar and CEO of the Millward Brown Group.

Acquisitions

Total Research Corporation, Princeton, N.J., has completed its previously announced plan to sell its 51 percent interest in its Romtec-GfK joint venture to GfK, a Germany-based research company. Total Research acquired its 51 percent interest in the Romtec-GfK joint venture in its May 2000 acquisition of Romtec plc, a U.K.-based IT and telecommunications market research company. Except for the joint venture, Romtec plc has been fully integrated into Total Research.

Harris Interactive Inc., Rochester, N.Y., has acquired Market Research Solutions Limited (MRSL), a privately-owned U.K. company headquartered in Oxford, England. The part-cash and part-Harris stock deal, for an undisclosed amount, was signed in London. As part of the agreement, Harris Interactive will hire approximately 75 MRSL employees and will also take on their offices in Oxford, North London and Newport, South Wales. MRSL is expected to add approximately $8.6 million to Harris Interactive revenues for the fiscal year 2002 which started July 1.

Arbitron Inc., New York, has purchased the RADAR radio network audience measurement service of Statistical Research Inc. (SRI), Westfield, N.J., for $25 million, payable over two years. RADAR (Radio’s All Dimension Audience Research) is a national radio ratings service that measures audiences to radio commercials aired on 29 radio networks operated by ABC, American Urban Radio Networks, Premiere, and Westwood One. 

London-based United Business Media has completed the acquisition of Allison-Fisher International, Inc. for $45 million. Allison-Fisher is a supplier of pre-purchase syndicated market research to the U.S. automotive industry.

Marketing research group Taylor Nelson Sofres has acquired the entire share capital of Circulo Reider S.A., its subsidiaries, and Gallup Mexico S.A. (the CR Group), one of the largest market information groups in Mexico. Founded in 1970, the CR Group comprises five companies. Its current activities focus mainly on customized research, principally in the consumer, financial services, telecom and health care sectors. Ian Reider, managing director of the CR Group, will continue, to manage the business.

Leemis Marketing Inc., a Chicago research firm, has acquired Promotion Technology Research, Inc., Framingham, Mass.

NOP World, New York, has announced a definitive agreement to acquire Roper Starch Worldwide. NOP World will merge Roper Starch with its other consumer research firm Audits & Surveys Worldwide to form a new integrated company - RoperASW. Audits & Surveys WorldWide includes Bruskin Research.

New York-based CLT Research has been acquired by Protocol Communications, Danvers, Mass. CLT principals Lowell Allen, Leslie Moran, and David Pring will remain as directors of CLT.

Germany-based GfK Group has acquired a 51 percent majority holding in Metris, a Portuguese reserach insitute. In addition, GfK has signed a letter of intent for the acquisition of a majority holding in Intercampus in 2002. Metris, which was established in 1993, specializes in ad hoc research. The company has 33 employees.

GfK Group has further expanded its majority stake of just over 50 percent in Intomart Benelux to 100 percent. The institute group, which joined the GfK Group at the end of 1997 and operates in the GfK ad hoc research and media business divisions, was established in 1962 and has locations in the Netherlands and Belgium.

Alliances/strategic partnerships

SAS Institute, Cary, N.C., and Chicago research firm MarketTools, Inc. have announced a joint technology and business alliance. Under the terms of the agreement, SAS and MarketTools will provide preferred customer relationship management solutions-to targeted industries.

San Diego-based marketing information firm Claritas Inc. has extended its agreement with Levi Strauss & Co. to provide customer segmentation and targeting services. Financial terms of the contract were not disclosed.

Ziff Davis Media Inc. has formed a strategic alliance with Interact research firm Survey.com to create online panels of subscribers for Ziff Davis Media’s 15 publications. The online panels, called ePanels, will be developed from Ziff Davis Media’s nearly six million subscribers. EPanels will be developed for all Ziff Davis Media publications, starting with CIO Insight.

Market Measures Interactive, Livingston, N.J., and ePocrates, San Carlos, Calif., have entered into a strategic aliance to launch ePocrates Honors, a new program to recruit doctors and other health care professionals for Webbased market research.

Chicago-based Research International USA and Active Decisions, Inc., a supplier of eCRM decision support applications, have formed a partnership under which RI USA will incorporate Active Decisions’ Advisor Suite into its service line. The agreement will also facilitate and expand Active Decisions’ distribution of the product.

ACNielsen has formed a strategic direction partnership agreement with Unilever Bestfoods Europe under which ACNielsen will provide market research information and services covering 16 European countries. ACNielsen will also provide Unilever Besffoods Europe with cross-border services to support the business needs of its European Categories/Innovation Centres and senior management.

Itracks, a Canadian online research software and services firm, has reached a global distribution agreement with SPSS MR, Chicago, under which Itracks will license its qualitative software to SPSS MR.

GfK eSolutions, the online_segment of Germany-based GfK’s Ad Hoc Research division, has expanded its competence in online research with three new strategic alliances. IBEXnet AG and CIAO.COM AG are making their membership of more than 800,000 subscribers throughout Europe available for surveys and thereby allowing GfK access to specific target groups. In addition, GfK and Issaquah, Wash.-based Global Market Insite Inc. have con-cluded a license agreement, as a result of which GfK can access a survey pool of 400,000 Internet users worldwide. IBEX_net AG is a hardware and Interact services provider. CIAO.COM is a German and European consumer portal.

Association/organization news

The Marketing Research Association (MRA) and Qualitative Research Consultants Association (QRCA) jointly sponsored the Bridges Workshop, themed "Can We Talk?", at the annual MRA conference in New York in June. The workshop was intended to foster a better understanding of perspectives among focus facility owners, moderators and clients. To continue the dialog, the QRCA Field Committee will offer a similar program at the QRCA annual conference in Chicago on October 25. Due to the room capacity at the hotel, the session will be limited to 80 attendees, including facility owners and field directors from the Chicago area.

The MRA has elected a new board of directors. Officers installed to the board were: Carl Iseman of Assistance in Marketing/Baltimore, Towson, Md., as president; Peter Van Brunt of ReData, Inc., Bethesda, Md., as president-elect; J. Patrick Galloway of Galloway Research Service, San Antonio, Texas, as treasurer; Michael Mermelstein as secretary; and Judy Hominy of Pat Henry Market Research, Inc., as immediate past president. Installed as directors at large were: Joan Bums of Teradyne, Inc., Boston; Jane Cook of Frank N. Magid Associates, Inc., Marion, Iowa; Stephen Gerzovich of Ziment, New York; Sue McAdams of Herron Associates, Greenwood, Ind.; Joseph Ottaviani of Burke, Inc., Cincinnati; Jane Rosen of Nichols Research, Sunnyvale, Calif.; Merrill S. Shugoll of Shugoll Research, Bethesda, Md.; Scott W. Spain of DigitalBiz Corporation, West Jordon, Utah; Terri Turley of Proctor & Gamble, Cincinnati; and Betsy Peterson, MRA Executive Director, Rocky Hill, Conn.

Separately, Patricia Hatch has joined the MRA as professional development manager.

Lynd Bacon, senior vice president and chief scientist of Knowledge Networks, a Menlo Park, Calif., research firm, began serving as vice president of the American Marketing Association’s Research Council in July. In addition, Janet Streicher, vice president and managing director of Knowledge Networks’ New York office will serve as the national membership and chapter relations committee chair for the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR).

The AAPOR gave Norman H. Nie and Douglas Rivers, co-founders of Knowledge Networks, its 2001 Innovators Award at the organization’s annual conference. Nie and Rivers received the award for their development of a probability sampling method for Intemet-based surveys in the United States.

Awards

An online study conducted using the Burke, Inc., CHOICES discrete-choice approach has garnered Sprint an honorable mention in the 2001 EXPLOR awards. The EXPLOR awards are designed to salute "Exemplary Performance and Leadership in Online Research" and are administered by the University of Wisconsin’s A.C. Nielsen Center for Marketing Research and the American Marketing Association.

Primary research for the Sprint study honored was fielded by Cincinnati-based Burke last September. Burke also designed and programmed the Web survey instrument and performed the data analysis the study required. Ralph Hubbard of Breakthru-Strategies, an industry management consultant, designed the overall study architecture and created a five-year forecasting model from the research results.

New accounts/projects

Ottawa-based Beyond 20/20 Inc., a data analysis and visualization software company, has signed a contract worth CAD $2.6 million with France’s Institut National de la Statistique et d'Études Économiques (INSEE). The agreement will make Beyond 20/20’s software the standard throughout INSEE headquarters and all regional offices, and will be used to analyze, visualize, and publish all national data sources and surveys beginning with France’s Year 2000 Population and Housing Census.

U.K. research firm BMRB has selected the E-Tabs Reader software to deriver the quarterly results of its TGI (Target Group Index) study. E-Tabs, a U.K. data delivery software firm, has produced a customized version of its E-Tabs Lite Reader designed to improve access for subscribers to the TGI survey.

Kraft Foods has reached a series of agreements to make ACNielsen the company’s primary provider of marketplace measurement throughout most of the world. In addition, Kraft Foods North America has a new long-term agreement with Information Resources, Inc. (IRI) for select, strategic research services for all Kraft’s brands in the United States. Under the new agreement, ACNielsen will now provide retail measurement, consumer panel, decision support, and modeling and analytical services to Kraft Foods International in approximately 50 countries within Europe, Asia Pacific and the Middle East/North Africa. In addition, ACNielsen will create a separate client-service organization dedicated solely to working on the company’s international business. The agreement covers all of the company’s core categories, including beverages, snacks, cheese, convenient meals and grocery.

Opinion Research Corporation, Princeton, N.J., has been awarded a new $7 million contract by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to support the new, "Healthy Passages" initiative, a longitudinal study of health behaviors.

New companies/new locations

Stanford Klapper Associates is now SKA Division of Mediafax Inc. Its offices are located at 1606 Ponce de Leon Ave., Santurce, RR., 00909.

Research firm Desrosiers Automotive Consultants has moved to 80 Fulton Way, Suite 101, Richmond Hill, ON, L4B 1J5.

Smithmark Corporation has relocated its headquarters to an expanded location at 4136 N. Keystone Ave., Indianapolis, Ind., 46205.

International Communications Research, Media, Pa., has opened an office at 388 Market Street, Suite 500, San Francisco, Calif., 94111.  The new office will be headed by Gale Wallmark.

DataPrompt International, a market research field collection and tabulation firm, has opened at 360 North Michigan, Suite 1610, Chicago, Ill., 60601.

U.K.-based research software firm E-Tabs has opened a new office in Chicago. Tom Schlak will head up the sales division for the new office.

Communique Partners, a new firm specializing in building and manaNng proprietary advisory online panels for research purposes (e-panels), has opened at 824 E. St., San Rafael, Calif., 94930.

Goodmind, LLC, a new technology-focused research consultancy led by Peter Mackey, has opened at 1202 Lexington Ave., Suite 341, New York, N.Y., 10028. The firm also serves as a strategic partner to Netpoll, Ltd., a European firm measuring user attitudes towards digital communication platforms.

Company earnings reports

For the second quarter ended June 30, Arbitron Inc., New York, reported revenues of $50.3 million, an increase of 10.1 percent over revenues of $45.7 million for the second quarter of 2000. Earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) for the second quarter were $12.8 million, compared to $13.2 million for the second quarter of 2000, a 3.1 percent decrease. Net income for the quarter was $4.7 million, compared with $8.0 million reported during the same period of 2000, a decrease of 41.1 percent. Net income per share was $0.16 (basic and diluted), compared with $0.27 pro forma net income per share in 2000. The 2000 earnings per share amount has been adjusted to reflect the one-for-five reverse split, which became effective following Arbitron’s reverse spin-off from Ceridian. Arbitron reported EBITDA of $13.9 million for the second quarter, a 2.0 percent decrease compared with EBITDA of $14.2 million reported during the second quarter of 2000.

For the second quarter of 2001, revenues for Opinion Research Corporation, Princeton, N.J., were $45.2 million, an increase of 11 percent compared to $40.7 million in the secondquarter of 2000. EBITDA was $4.2 million compared to second quarter 2000 EBITDA of $4.5 million. Operating income for the current quarter was $2.1 million compared to $2.8 million a year ago. Net income for the quarter was $354,000 compared to second quarter 2000 net income of $834,000. Cash earnings per share (net income plus goodwill amortization expense after-tax) for the second quarter were $0.17 compared to second quarter 2000 cash earnings per share of $0.28. Diluted earnings per share for the second quarter of 2001 were $0.06, compared to $0.18 in the second quarter of 2000. Diluted EPS and cash EPS in the current quarter reflect a 32 percent increase in shares over the comparable period last year due primarily to common equity issued in the third quarter of 2000.

Harris Interactive, Rochester, N.Y., announced financial results for the fiscal 2001 fourth quarter and. for the entire fiscal 2001 year. The company reported total revenue of $17.7 million for its fiscal fourth quarter ended June 30, versus $15.8 million in the third quarter and $15.3 million a year ago, representing increases of 12 percent and 16 percent respectively. Revenue for the entire fiscal year was reported at $60.1 million, up 17 percent from the $51.3 posted the previous fiscal year. These results include revenue from Yankelovich custom research group acquired effective February 2001. Intemet revenue for the year was reported at $32.6 million -up 55 percent versus fiscal 2000. The net loss before restructuring charges for the quarter was $3.9 million, or ($0.11) per share, down from a loss of $5.9 million or ($0.17) per share in the third quarter. One-time restructuring charges increased the total loss to $4.5 million for the year or ($0.13) per share - an improvement of 32 percent from a year ago. Net loss before restructuring charges for the year was reported at $23.4 million or ($0.68) per share.