News notes
Nashville, Tenn., company 20|20 Research has been awarded the U.S. Patent 9,990,418 for establishing a system and method for creating an opinion and behavioral data economy. Using blockchain technology to create a consumer-led exchange for market research, the platform provides a method for creating an anonymous and public marketplace for trading and monetizing behavioral and opinion data. The approach decentralizes the current market research survey value chain and redistributes the balance of power and control back to the consumers and the brands.
Marketing insights firm Phoenix Marketing International, Rhinebeck, N.Y., has attained the ISO/IEC 27001:2013 certification, the international standard for information security management.
Acquisitions/transactions
Customer data science company dunnhumby, London, has acquired Aptaris Software, a marketing and promotions management company, for an undisclosed amount.
Calif.-based Hero Digital has acquired MaassMedia, a Philadelphia-based analytics firm. Financial details were not disclosed but Hero Digital CEO David Kilimnik said all 15 staffers from MaassMedia, along with its leadership team, will remain in place.
CX platform InMoment announced an expansion into Australia and New Zealand with the acquisition of boutique customer experience agency brandXP and appointment of a local CX team. The company has chosen Melbourne as its fifth international base and will also have a New Zealand office as part of this expansion. With the acquisition of brandXP, InMoment will now have direct points of sales, marketing, services and support. InMoment’s efforts in Asia-Pacific will be led by Claire Fastier, VP of APAC.
New York-based research and analytics firm M Science has acquired data mapping company TickerTags Inc. TickerTags maps and monitors tangible and intangible business drivers that influence companies and markets and converts real-time conversation activity into data for investment analysis. TickerTags will be available as a standalone product and its data will be incorporated into M Science’s research offering M Analysis. M Science analyst Mark Bachman will serve as head of TickerTags.
Canada-based research firm Leger has acquired the yconic panel, a panel of 1 million Millennial and Generation Z respondents from the yconic firm in Toronto. The panel will be integrated into Legerweb, Leger’s Web panel division. Separately, Leger has acquired the Relative Happiness Index (RHI) and the Workplace Happiness Index (WHI), founded and created by Pierre Côté. The indexes allow citizens in Canada and France to measure happiness in their lives and at work. Leger aims to pursue the development of the acquisitions and promote them in the United States. Côté will join Leger as research director and remains an RHI and WHI partner.
San Francisco-based online survey software firm QuestionPro has acquired workforce technology and analytics firm WorkXO.
Westport, Conn., research company Critical Mix has acquired UBMobile, a consumer insights technology and services company. The acquisition will augment Critical Mix’s collaborative insights solutions by leveraging UBMobile’s proprietary technologies and methodologies.
Toronto-based data services firm Maru/Blue has acquired Tú Cuentas, a Hispanic research panel targeting Spanish-speaking communities in the U.S.
Alliances/strategic partnerships
Alpharetta, Ga., sampling solutions firm P2Sample and New Orleans-based data technology company Lucid have enhanced their partnership to include real-time tacking of P2Sample’s survey respondent experience. The newly-developed feature allows Lucid to see the conversion rate, financial performance, response count and overall health of studies, providing an improved respondent experience and a streamlined business relationship between the two firms.
Minneapolis-based marketing technology firm Equals 3 has formed a partnership with New York-based marketing insights firm GBH Insights. The partnership will expand on the data sources that can be integrated into Equals 3’s cognitive assistant, Lucy. Agencies and marketers using Lucy can integrate data from their proprietary GBH custom surveys and data analytics initiatives with other Lucy-accessible data such as research from partners like eMarketer, Dow Jones and the AMA.
Research Now SSI has formed a partnership with Catalist, a voter data company. Catalist’s behavioral and modeled variables, paired with Research Now SSI’s first-party data and multi-mode survey capabilities, enhances voter segments and enables pollsters, PACs, public opinion groups and nonprofits to conduct political polling of panel members across modes via online and CATI.
In Tokyo, IT and network technologies firm NEC Corporation and research company Macromill have launched a data utilization collaboration that uses artificial intelligence to help companies execute marketing activities. The companies began jointly developing marketing solutions in April and are aiming to launch services in 2019. So far, the companies have developed demonstration experiments that focus on expanding consumer data and analyzing consumer preferences.
Oslo, Norway, research technology firm Confirmit has formed a partnership with fraud protection company Imperium to help prevent duplicate entries or fraudulent survey participants to protect data integrity. Imperium’s technology, used with Confirmit’s solutions, will allow companies to improve survey response rates, prevent automated participants or bots from completing surveys and reduce the effort spent on data cleaning.
Chicago-based researcher IRI has formed partnerships with SPINS, PlaceIQ and Geoscape to develop and deploy new audience solutions for IRI Verified Audiences. The partnerships combine IRI’s purchase-based audiences with SPINS’ health-attribute data, PlaceIQ’s location data and Geoscape’s multicultural demographic data. Three new IRI Verified Audiences solutions have been enabled through the partnerships: IRI and SPINS Health and Wellness Verified Audiences; IRI Location-Based Verified Audiences; and IRI ProScores and Geoscape Acculturation Audiences and IRI Verified and Geoscape Acculturation Audiences.
Association/organization news
Amy Charles, senior vice president of Ipsos Loyalty in Canada, has been elected board chair of The Marketing Research and Intelligence Association, a two-year role.
The IAB Technology Laboratory, a non-profit research and development consortium for the global digital media industry, has released its Data Transparency Framework 1.0 for public comment. It outlines sourcing disclosures for those collecting data used to target, personalize and measure digital advertising. The proposal will introduce ID-level transparency into a largely opaque marketplace where data segment composition is difficult to evaluate and collection and usage practices are increasingly scrutinized via legislation such as the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation. The Framework includes: a new set of minimum disclosure requirements for data sellers; an open API to structure and communicate information among supply-chain participants and ease implementation requirements; and supporting compliance programs.
The Marketing Research and Intelligence Association (MRIA), Toronto, has amended its Member Code of Conduct with new requirements and penalties for members and their firms who release results into the public domain. While the change is intended to bring more transparency for results released by members on any subject matter, it will especially apply to those who issue opinion polls during election periods. The new rules will apply to all survey research firms and the MRIA is launching a new Web page that features compliant member firms that regularly release results with a click-through to their sites.
Representatives from the Insights Association and other industry associations are updating the Certification Institute for Research Quality’s (CIRQ) ISO standards. The CIRQ is an ISO audit and certification body and subsidiary of the Insights Association. The associations are finalizing an update of ISO 20252 (Market, Opinion and Social Research), combining it with ISO 26362 (Access Panel Standard) and ISO 19731 (Digital Analytics and Web Analyses) into a more comprehensive global standard. The newly-revised ISO 20252 standard is expected to launch officially later this year. The CIRQ has also appointed the following to its board of directors: Craig Overpeck, CEO, Bioinformatics Inc. as chair; Michael Brereton, executive in residence for the Department of Marketing at Michigan State University – The Eli Broad College of Business; and Kevin Kish, senior associate at Schellman & Company LLC. Juliana Wood, who has been managing CIRQ as director of certifications and training at the Insights Association, will now also serve as managing director of CIRQ.
The Insights Association and the A to Z Communications Coalition have jointly filed comments with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) following a recent DC Circuit Court decision rejecting the FCC’s 2015 Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) rules. The commenters say the FCC should adopt an autodialer definition “that adheres to the language and intended purpose of the TCPA.” They also support the creation of a database of reassigned cell phone numbers and an examination of what information is reported to the database to reduce false negatives and false positives.
Nonprofit organization Women in Research (WIRe), Los Angeles, is accepting donations to fund its third scholarship through its Global Scholarship Fund, in partnership with the ESOMAR Foundation. The scholarship, this year in Guatemala, supports female students pursuing degrees in research-related fields around the world. All funds raised are matched dollar-for-dollar by Unilever.
Awards/rankings
The Cincinnati Enquirer has recognized research company Ipsos as one of Cincinnati’s Best Workplaces in 2018. The ranking is based on surveys about the workplace completed by each company’s employees.
This year’s winners of the Ginny Valentine Badge of Courage Awards have been named. The award recognizes those who show determination to produce great market research. The winners include: Anije Lambert, PDC Research, for her research in Guyana; Kristof Varga, Bakamo Social, for switching from politics to research to make a difference; Baileigh Allen, Zigzag Research USA, for challenging views on autism; and Poli Paterson (Limbpower) and Francis Cowen (DSA) for making the voices of disabled people heard.
New accounts/projects
In addition to technology platform Delvinia offering Voxpopme video insights in the Canadian market through its AskingCanadians panel, Delvinia will also offer Voxpopme video insights in North America through its Methodify research automation platform.
Baltic-region airline airBaltic has selected Dublin-based CX software firm Boxever to support its efforts to connect customer and operational data to deliver predictive offers on every channel.
Research company MRSS India has announced that a 40-day survey team training under the Longitudinal Ageing Study in India for the states of Meghalaya and Sikkim was inaugurated in Shillong, India, on May 23. The study is being conducted in the two Northeast states by MRSS and will be conducted over the next 25 years. MRSS will pursue coverage of the remaining Northeast markets in the coming years. The company has opened a regional office in Shillong to cater to the research needs of the Northeast region.
Independent schools group Cognita has implemented a dedicated voice of the student program across its 69 schools using the Confirmit Horizons platform by Oslo, Norway, research solutions company Confirmit. The program has been implemented across all Cognita schools in Europe, Latin America and Southeast Asia. Using Confirmit Horizons to run the program, Cognita can gather feedback about how safe and secure students feel in each environment. Confirmit Active Dashboards is used to share insight with head teachers, safeguarding advisors and education directors.
New companies/new divisions/relocations/expansions
SIS International Research has renovated its New York City focus group facility, enhancing its qualitative and product testing capabilities. The facility received new floors, furniture, IT upgrades, client observation room upgrades and has a kitchen for food testing. The company also announced growth in its consumer and B2B recruitment databases in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
Tokyo-based research and online panel company Rakuten AIP has opened an office in Taiwan.
Directions Research, Cincinnati, announced a strategic reorganization and has formed a dedicated technology solutions group that will manage all aspects of data flow. The new group will be co-led by Phillip Thrash, senior vice president, head of technology; Jim Linz, vice president, business intelligence and technology; and Mike Herrel, director of development.
GenZee Media, an agency associated with e-commerce retailer OCM.com, has launched. GenZee Media aims to help marketers reach the Generation Z demographic at the point in their consumer journey where they are leaving home and entering college. Andrew McDade, current president of OCM, will serve as head of the new agency.
The Cross-Tab Group has restructured two of its three companies – Blueocean Market Intelligence and Cross-Tab – and merged them to form a new entity, Course5. Cross-Tab Group’s third company, Borderless Access, has been demerged and will operate as an independent entity. Course5 will release a new suite of solutions and services for companies with AI-driven analytics and market research, including Course5 Discovery, which allows decision makers to get answers and insights through a personalized voice and chat assistant available on their smartphones and tablets.
Roswell, Ga., company MMR Research Associates has launched its new division, experience strategy group MMR LIVE. The division will be located in Roswell in the same building as its parent company and will have a core offering that includes strategic partnerships with several technology companies that provide research solutions.
Germany-based agricultural research firm Kleffmann Group has opened a new office in India.
Communications services company WPP has opened its latest office co-location in New York and has begun moving the first 4,000 of its New York-based people from GroupM and Kantar to the new building.
Chicago-based sports data and intelligence firm STATS has opened a new office in Limerick, Ireland. Gráinne Barry will run the new office as European, Middle Eastern and African regional operations director. The office aims to employ more than 150 full- and part-time staff by 2020.
Frankfurt, Germany, research and consulting agency insight europe has rebranded as Insight Culture to reflect its growth beyond Europe.
New York-based research company Nielsen has launched a Neuro Lab in Singapore in partnership with the Singapore Economic Development Board. The lab will use EEG, facial coding and eye-tracking tools to capture consumer emotion, attention and memory activation. The lab will also offer a self-reporting tool for clients to capture the voice of the individual.
Toronto-based data services firm Maru/Blue has launched its new qualitative community. Members of the community have been pre-screened and are immediately accessible for qualitative research exercises. Access to community is available now in the U.S. and Canada.
Research technology firm response:now, Dallas, has rebranded as response:AI.
Eileen Campbell, former global CEO of Millward Brown, and siblings Andrew Reid (founder of Vision Critical) and Jennifer Reid have partnered to create Reid Campbell Group, a new holding company. The newly formed group has launched its first two companies: insight technology company Rival Technologies and full-service research agency Reach3 Insights. Andrew Reid will lead Rival Technologies, while former Ipsos and Vision Critical executive Matt Kleinschmit will lead Reach3 Insights.
Research company Kantar has launched the Kantar Brand Growth Lab in Singapore. The research and development lab, which will focus on advanced analytics, is part of Kantar’s three-year collaboration with the Singapore Economic Development Board and will include hiring data scientists and business designers to boost Singapore’s workforce.
Research company earnings/financial news
Cannabis market research firm BDS Analytics, Boulder, Colo., has raised $3.5 million in Series B funding led by CanopyVentures and Altitude Investment Management.
Auburn Hills, Mich., research firm Gongos Inc. reports over 200 percent projected growth in its CX practice over the past year.
India-based researcher MRSS India has reported a consolidated net profit of INR 136.1 million for the year ended March 31, 2018.
U.K. research agency System1 has reported an 18 percent revenue decline for the year (ended March 31) to £26.94 million, compared to £32.80 million reported last year.
DJS Research, based in the U.K., has recorded an annual turnover of £5.2 million, up from £4.7 million recorded last year.