News notes
Columbia, Md., research company Arbitron Inc. is suing LM Communications, Lexington, Ky., for allegedly using its copyrighted radio ratings estimates for the Charleston, S.C., market. LM subscribes to Arbitron data for the Lexington market through March 2014 but does not subscribe to Arbitron data for Charleston. Arbitron seeks a total of no less than $725,000 with interest, as well as attorney’s fees.
Paris research company Ipsos has filed a lawsuit against Aegis Group PLC, London, alleging that Aegis inflated profits and failed to disclose tax and fraud probes at Synovate before it sold the market research unit to Ipsos in 2011.
New York regulatory bodies the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the Mobile Marketing Association and the Media Rating Council have released the final measurement guidelines for mobile application and mobile Web advertising. The two complementary guidelines provide a benchmark for mobile advertising to ensure that media companies, networks, ad servers and other active members of the industry deliver high-quality data to ad buyers. Both guidelines went through public comment periods.
The U.S. Department of Justice has reached a settlement with the Gallup Organization, Washington, D.C., over charges that Gallup had violated the False Claims Act and the Procurement Integrity Act in connection with federal contracts. Gallup has agreed to pay $10.5 million to resolve these allegations.
According to the 2013 Honomichl Top 50 Report from the American Marketing Association, Chicago, the marketing research industry had total U.S. revenues of more than $9.5 billion in 2012, up 1.7 percent over 2011. But after adjusting for inflation, that number fell to -0.4 percent. The number of full-time employees in market research was 33,506, down 3.7 percent from 2011. Honomichl cites pullback in government spending, the proliferation of online data collection and the slowing of focus group usage as factors that contributed to the industry’s weak overall performance.
Acquisitions/transactions
Kantar, the London data investment management division of WPP, has acquired Benenson Strategy Group, a New York research company. Benenson Strategy Group will continue to be run by its co-founders and senior leadership team.
Yahoo!, Sunnyvale, Calif., has acquired Ztelic, a Beijing social network data startup. Eight Ztelic developers and engineers will join Yahoo!’s research and development team in Beijing.
San Francisco research company MarketTools Inc. has acquired RawData, a Salt Lake City research company. RawData will be fully integrated into MarketTools.
IRI, a Chicago research company, has acquired FreshLook Marketing Group LLC, a Hoffman Estates, Ill., research company. Employees of FreshLook will join IRI and all assets will transfer.
Alliances/strategic partnerships
NatCen Social Research, London, has partnered with not-for-profit research institute RTI International, Research Triangle Park, N.C., under a three-year agreement.
Reston, Va., research software company Clarabridge Inc. and Brandwatch, a New York research company, have formed a strategic partnership to offer an integrated solution to analyze the structured and unstructured customer data within social media. Clarabridge has integrated Brandwatch into its Clarabridge Social platform.
Research companies MyOpinions, Sydney, Australia, and AIP, Tokyo, have partnered to offer clients combined sample and related research services across Asia-Pacific.
New York research companies Thumb Inc. and Ypulse Inc. have merged and will focus on research among those under the age of 35. Ypulse will use Thumb’s mobile social network and feedback platform.
Singapore-based media company AdzCentral has partnered with San Francisco research company Krux to offer Krux’s cloud-based data management platform to online marketers and publishers across Asia-Pacific.
Vancouver, B.C., research company Vision Critical has partnered with Nox4Think, a Sao Paolo, Brazil, research company, to resell Vision Critical Insight Communities to clients and prospects throughout Brazil.
Association/organization news
Blueocean Market Intelligence, Seattle, has joined the Digital Analytics Association, Wakefield, Mass.
Awards/rankings
The American Marketing Association, Chicago, has announced the recipients of its annual 4 Under 40 Award, which honors individuals who are under 40 years old and who have consistently demonstrated a commitment to their industry and the advancement of marketing: Elea Feit of Wharton Customer Analytics Initiative, University of Pennsylvania; Dan Foreman, Lumi Mobile; Claudia Perlich, Media6Degrees; and Natasha Stevens, GfK Custom Research North America.
Research companies The MSR Group, Omaha, Neb.; DataSong, San Francisco; and Decipher Inc., Fresno, Calif.; have been named to the Inc. 500|5000, a list of the fastest-growing U.S. companies, ranked according to percentage revenue growth from 2009 to 2012.
John Hauser of Applied Marketing Science Inc., a Waltham, Mass., research company, has received the Buck Weaver Award for Marketing at the INFORMS Society of Marketing Science Conference in Istanbul, Turkey. The award honors individuals who have made important achievements to the field of marketing science.
The Marketing Research Association (MRA), Washington, D.C., announced the recipients of its annual awards at the MRA Insights and Strategies Conference in Orlando, Fla., in June. Scott Baker of Adept Consumer Testing and Dave Koch of ADAPT Inc. received the Volunteer of the Year Award, which recognizes individuals who have brought excellence in service to the MRA. The MRA’s Impact Award was given to Kristin Luck of Decipher Inc., which recognizes an individual who has demonstrated tremendous vision, leadership and innovation within the past year that has led to a positive impact on the marketing research profession. Carlos Garcia of GfK Custom Research North American received MRA’s Meritorious Service to Marketing Research Award, which recognizes an individual who, over the span of their career, has demonstrated tremendous leadership, dedication and commitment to the profession. MRA’s Honorary Lifetime Membership Award recognizes a member for a lifetime commitment to outstanding individual service to MRA and the profession and was awarded to Merrill Shugoll of Shugoll Research. MRA’s Chapter of the Year Award was presented to the Great Lakes Chapter.
The Sound Research, Vancouver, B.C., was chosen as the 2012 Marketing Supplier of the Year by MillerCoors, Chicago. This marks the first time a research company has received the honor.
New York research company GfK, in collaboration with the Advertising Research Foundation, New York, has launched its third-annual Next Generation Competition for undergraduate market researchers. The contest invites undergraduate students from across the U.S. to devise market research projects that shed light on showrooming and other mobile shopping behaviors; using social media for product innovation and development (e.g., crowdsourcing); or financial services choices of today’s young adults (Gen Y). GfK will also accept proposals on marketing-related topics of the students’ own choosing.
GfK will bring members of the winning team to New York to attend and present at the annual ARF Re:think conference in March 2014. In addition, the chosen team will receive a $1,000 prize. Entries are due October 25.
New York research company Ipsos Loyalty’s presentation, “Perceptions Are Relative: An Examination of the Relationship Between Relative Satisfaction Metrics and Share of Wallet,” received the Best Practitioner Presentation Award at the Frontiers in Service Conference in Taipei, Taiwan, in July. Winning presentations are selected for their innovative and engaging approaches while maintaining practical and managerial applications.
John G. Rodman of the Preservation Society of Newport County, R.I., received the 2013 Nonprofit Marketer of the Year Award from the American Marketing Association and the American Marketing Association Foundation, Chicago, for extraordinary leadership and achievement in the field of nonprofit marketing.
Mark Dengler of Research and Marketing Strategies Inc., Baldwinsville, N.Y., was named the Greater Baldwinsville Chamber of Commerce’s Business Person of the Year.
New accounts/projects
Empowered Partners, a Las Vegas travel club, has adopted a data visualization solution from TrackResults Software, a Salt Lake City research software company.
Malaysian Digital Association (MDA), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, has named Reston, Va., research company comScore Inc. the official Internet audience measurement currency for Malaysia. The MDA and comScore will work together to establish an agreed measurement currency for the advertising market to promote the development of digital business in Malaysia.
Separately, comScore has been selected by LiveIntent, a New York e-mail advertising network, to measure and report on LiveIntent’s audience.
The Media Rating Council (MRC), New York, has accredited Arbitron’s Portable People Meter (PPM) radio ratings service in eight additional markets: Cleveland; Dallas-Ft. Worth; Denver-Boulder; Detroit; Miami-Ft. Lauderdale-Hollywood; Pittsburgh; Portland, Ore; and Nassau/Suffolk, New York.
The MRC also voted to continue accreditation in 18 markets and not to grant accreditation to the remaining 22 PPM markets.
Separately, Entercom Communications Corp., Bala Cynwyd, Pa., has signed multi-year, multi-market renewals for Arbitron’s PPM and diary radio ratings services.
FreeWheel, a San Mateo, Calif., content management company, will integrate New York researcher The Nielsen Company’s Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings into its video ad management platform.
Fresno, Calif., research company Decipher Inc.’s Beacon survey programming and reporting software platform has been adopted by Lightspeed Research, Warren, N.J.
Selangor, Malaysia, research company SurveyMy has chosen Oslo, Norway, research software company Confirmit’s mobile research solutions to build profiles of consumer life in Asia-Pacific.
Additionally, JTN Research, Sofia, Bulgaria, has adopted the Confirmit Horizons platform to broaden its mobile survey coverage.
FashionPlaytes Inc., a Beverly, Mass., firm that maintains an online community for 5-to-12-year-old girls, has partnered with Wilton, Conn., research company Toluna to study tween girls.
Thomson Reuters, New York, has been named the exclusive, sole distributor of the Ipsos Monthly Global Primary Consumer Sentiment Index (PCSI) from Ipsos, a Paris research company. The Thomson Reuters Ipsos PCSI aims to help financial institutions, private business and government bodies measure 11 conditions as perceived by primary consumers in 24 countries.
Study Hall Research, Tampa, Fla., has been retained by HSN, Clearwater, Fla., to conduct product evaluation research for a range of kitchen products.
Customer First Solutions (CFS), a South Africa supplier of point-of-sale terminals for capturing customer feedback, has chosen U.K.-based research company Feedback Ferret to take all the data from all the terminals, translate any feedback made in Afrikaans, analyze it and make it available to CFS clients.
IdeaScale, San Francisco provider of idea management and suggestion box software, has been selected to provide a cloud-based crowdsourcing platform for the U.S. Navy’s initiative aimed at reducing administrative inefficiencies, dubbed Reducing Administrative Distractions.
New companies/new divisions/relocations/expansions
Framingham, Mass., research company Kadence International has opened Kadence Vietnam, headquartered in Ho Chi Minh City with a regional office in Hanoi.
New York consulting firm Accenture and the Skolkovo Innovation Center, Moscow, have agreed to open a center for the development of predictive analytics. During its first year, the center plans to develop solutions for the energy and oil and gas sectors.
Paul Blunden has launched Usability247, a U.K. research company that will provide multiplatform user experience research and usability testing services around the clock. The company is online at www.usability247.com.
Jason Pampell has launched HireInfluence Inc., a Houston research company that offers a social media platform designed to help companies identify, analyze and verify an individual’s influence and networking value. The company is online at www.hireinfluence.com.
Copernicus and the Advanced Analytics Group, the research arms of media companies Aegis Dentsu and Carat North America, respectively, have become a single unit under the Copernicus organization.
The Pulse Group PLC, a Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, research company, has launched Pulsate, a big data analytics firm, in Cyberjaya, Malaysia, with additional offices planned for Hong Kong and Singapore.
Datacratic, a Montreal research software company, has opened a New York office.
Rotterdam, Netherlands, research company SKIM has opened offices in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and San José, Costa Rica.
Tokyo research company AIP has opened an office in Jakarta, Indonesia, and invested in Pixel Research, Jakarta, to supplement AIP’s local office.
Perception Research Services (PRS), Teaneck, N.J., has opened the PRS Retail Lab, a facility designed to help marketers develop, assess and improve their packaging and shopper marketing efforts.
Survey Analytics, Seattle, has opened an office in Asia-Pacific to service New Zealand and Australia.
Northern Sky Research, Wilmington, Del., has opened a European headquarter office in London and relocated its U.S. corporate headquarters to 1000 N. West St., Suite 1200, Wilmington.
Arlington, Texas, research company Decision Analyst has created Nuance, a division designed to work with research firms and corporate clients to code patterns and trends in the data gathered from various feedback systems.
San Francisco research software company IdeaScale has opened a permanent office in Washington, D.C.
New York research company Millward Brown has combined two of its digital insights providers, Dynamic Logic and Compete, as Millward Brown Digital.
Focus Plus Inc., a New York research company, has opened a new facility at 462 7th Ave. at 35th St. in Manhattan.
SIS International Research, New York, has opened a West Coast office in Los Angeles.
L.A. Research Inc., Northridge, Calif., has relocated its offices to 9400 Topanga Canyon Blvd., No. 100, Chatsworth, Calif. Phone numbers will remain the same.
Richard Vanderveer has launched rbV3, a Gwynedd Valley, Pa., research consultancy focused on the health care industry.
Netquest, a Spain-based research company, has opened an office in New York.
London research company Incite has opened two offices in New York and Singapore.
Socratic Technologies, a San Francisco research company, has added a dedicated practice devoted to the measurement of advertising throughout its entire life cycle. Paul Shellenberg will lead the new division.
Research company earnings/financial news
Arbitron Inc., Columbia, Md., announced results for the second quarter and six months ended June 30, 2013. Net income for second-quarter 2013 was $7.1 million, compared with $10 million for second-quarter 2012. Revenue was $107.4 million, an increase of $3 million over the prior-year period.
For the six months ended June 30, 2013, net income was $23.3 million, compared with $27.8 million in 2012. Revenue was $219.2 million, an increase of $8.4 million over the same period in 2012.
The Nielsen Company, New York, announced results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2013. Revenues increased 3 percent to $1,386 million and net income grew 306 percent to $426 million. Adjusted net income rose 25 percent to $187 million.
Additionally, Nielsen has been added to the S&P 500.
B2B International, London, reported a 70 percent increase in revenue for the six months ended June 30, 2013, compared to the same period in 2012.
National Research Corporation, Lincoln, Neb., announced results for second-quarter 2013. Revenue rose 8 percent to $22.4 million and operating income rose 6 percent to $5.5 million.
Ipsos, Paris, reported revenue of 803.7 million euros for the first half of 2013.
The GfK Group, Nuremberg, Germany, achieved a 1.7 percent increase in the first half of 2013 and posted sales totaling 728.6 million euros. The second quarter was particularly profitable, with adjusted operating income up by 15.7 percent.
Harris Interactive Inc., Rochester, N.Y., announced its fourth-quarter and full-year fiscal 2013 financial results. For the three months ended June 30, 2013, revenue was $36.7 million and operating income was $1.5 million. For the full fiscal year, revenue was $140.3 million and operating income was $7.5 million.
ComScore Inc., Reston, Va., achieved record quarterly revenue of $69.9 million for second-quarter 2013, an increase of 21 percent over second-quarter 2012.
USamp, Encino, Calif., has closed a new Series D round of financing for $15 million from OpenView Venture Partners and DuPont Capital Management. The financing will be used to develop its Instant.ly research platform.