News notes

George Washington University, Washington, D.C., will offer a Master of Science in Business Analytics (MSBA) degree as the result of collaboration between the GWU Department of Decision Sciences, School of Business and businesses.

Portland, Ore., researcher Rentrak was granted a patent by the U.S. Patent Office for the method and system supporting its return path TVs, also known as set-top boxes. The patented system identifies when the TV is off but the set-top box is on.

Census Data Group Limited, a Surrey, U.K., staffing firm, has begun employing inmates from HMP High Down Prison in Surrey, U.K., to staff a call center located in the prison. The calls are made externally and then transferred to the prisoners, who do not have actual telephone numbers or any information about the participants. The prisoners earn about £9.80 a week for their work.

An Illinois judge approved the proposed $14 million settlement of Reston, Va., research company comScore in a 2011 class action lawsuit which alleged that the company’s software was intrusive and took personal information from online panelists’ computers.

New York researcher Nielsen reported in October that the previous seven months of its U.S. broadcast television ratings were inaccurate due to a technical error. The error benefited ABC, where ratings rose, and had a negative effect on all other networks. Nielsen said it fixed the software and would re-analyze all affected data.

Facebook, Menlo Park,　Calif., announced that it has reviewed its research guidelines following the negative fallout from its manipulation of users’ news feeds and has introduced a new set of guidelines, a research review panel, research training and a Web site which will summarize results of all research tests.

The Russian government has notified Google, Facebook and　Twitter that they are required to register as “organizers ofinformation distribution,” which would require them to keep information about their Russian users on servers inside the country. The State Duma has set a deadline of the end of the year for the registration to be completed. Failure to register could lead to the program being blocked from access by Russian Web users.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), New York, plans to launch a non-profit research and development consortium, the IAB Technical Laboratories, in an effort to simplify the digital advertising and marketing supply chain. It will be geared toward developing technical standards, creating a code library to assist in implementation of IAB standards and establishing test software to enable companies to evaluate the compatibility of their technology with IAB standards. The consortium will be governed by an independent board of directors and executive committee. Current members of the IAB will automatically be given membership in the IAB Tech Lab.

Acquisitions/transactions

Research firm EasyInsites Ltd. has been acquired by Tribes Research Ltd. The EasyInsites staff will join the Tribe personnel in one central Guildford, U.K., office under the Tribes name.

Portland, Ore., researcher Rentrak has agreed to purchase the U.S. television measurement business of Paris-based Kantar Media. Rentrak will integrate its national and local TV measurement with Kantar’s U.S. services which focus on digital media, advertising expenditure and purchase data. The acquisition price was $98 million in Rentrak common stock and WPP will also purchase shares directly from the company for $56 million in cash, giving WPP a final ownership stake of 16.7 percent of Rentrak. The completion date of the transaction is anticipated to be at the end of 2014.

In Paris, Kantar Media has agreed to purchase the audio watermarking unit of Netherlands technology firm Civolution, acquiring products which track media content and audiences. Financial details were not disclosed. The deal is expected to be complete by the end of the year.

n CX Act, Rosslyn, Va., has acquired New York technology firm Shopalytic.

Leicester, U.K., marketing firm GI Insight has purchased a majority stake in London Internet firm Cognesia, formerly known as Intellitracker. Cognesia will operate as a division of GI Insight, maintaining its London office, and Simon Roberts, head of insights, and Mark Wilding, head of technology and product, will retain their positions.　

Stockholm software company Cision has acquired London PR firm Gorkana Group. Terms of the deal were not revealed.

Relevention Marketing, British Columbia, has acquired Industrial Quality Management (IQM), also in British Columbia. IQM provides marketing, strategic planning and market research to firms in the industrial services sector. Its co-founder Nick Bideshi has joined Relevention as business development director.

Plano, Texas, marketing firm Alliance Data will acquire Conversant, a Westlake, Calif., Internet company, in a cash and stock deal worth up to $2.3 billion.

Apptentive, a Seattle software firm,　has raised $5.3 million in funding, which includes an investment from SurveyMonkey. As a result, Damon Cronkey of SurveyMonkey is joining the Apptentive board.

Arlington, Va., researcher BioInformatics LLC has acquired Strategic Directions International (SDi), a Los Angeles marketing intelligence specialist. SDi will continue publishing its customer purchasing behavior reports and industry newsletter, Instrument Business Outlook, and will retain its offices and current staff.

Capital One, a Washington, D.C., financial services company, has acquired San Francisco-based user experience design firm Adaptive Path. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Germany-based　GfK Group has acquired Cogenta, a Windsor, U.K., research company which collects data on more than 8 million products across a number of countries. It will be fully integrated into GfK.

PeriscopeIQ, a technology company headquartered in Allentown,　Pa., has acquired Opinionmeter International, a San Francisco researcher, for an undisclosed sum.

Mystery Researchers, Atlanta, has acquired Beyond Hello, a Madison, Wis., mystery shopping firm.

San Francisco-based Internet firm Quantcast has acquired London marketing company Struq for an undisclosed sum.

CoreLogic, an Irvine, Calif., analytics firm, has sold its Collateral Solutions and Field Services business units to allow greater focus on its data analytics and data-enabled offerings.　

HRA, the Parsippany,　N.J., research division of Michael J. Hennessy Associates, has acquired CURE Media Group, publisher of CURE, a free magazine distributed to cancer patients, centers and advocacy groups.

India-based health care researcher Krea has spun off its CAN DO initiative as a separate division. The CAN DO program provides training and employment in panel recruitment, data collection and desk research to people with disabilities.

Alliances/strategic partnerships

The Nielsen Company, New York, and Adobe, San Jose, Calif., have announced their partnership in creating a cross-platform measurement system, the Nielsen’s Digital Content Ratings, powered by Adobe. Combining Nielsen’s digital audience measurement tools with Adobe Analytics and Adobe Primetime, the system is designed to measure online TV, video, games, audio and text and to provide comparable metrics on audiences across all major IP devices, including desktops, smartphones, tablets and game consoles. It will be supported by Adobe Analytics census data and will be available in the Adobe Marketing Cloud. Both companies will market the system.

Stockholm software firm Cint and Borderless Access Panels, headquartered in Bangalore, India, will combine the Cint OpinionHub software with the DOI panel assets of Borderless Access.

Counter Intelligence Retail, a York, U.K. researcher, has contracted with Oslo, Norway, software company Confirmit to provide customized software designed to conduct checks on data as it is collected and allow for the creation of complex questionnaires.

Buzzback, a New York research firm, is partnering with Boston translation services company Lionbridge to provide a global linguistic check on the names proposed by Buzzback. The additional review is designed to ensure worldwide acceptance of the selected names for products, brands or companies.

Little Rock, Ark., researcher Acxiom will share its data with Chicago advertising firm Starcom Mediavest Group (SMG), in a move designed to allow SMG to develop more targeted branding, retention and acquisition strategies. SMG will also use the Acxiom AbiliTec software to connect its campaigns across channels and platforms.

Mumbai, India, researcher Majestic MRSS and Shenzhen, China, foreign investment firm Dezan Shira Associates have agreed to a mutual referral agreement.

San Francisco Internet company SurveyMonkey and NBC, New York, have announced a partnership aimed at developing in-depth assessments of public opinion data and exploring new approaches to survey research. Their first study on public opinion of the U.S. response to the Ebola virus polled 1,010 U.S. adult members of the Survey Monkey online panel using a NBC News questionnaire.

Portland, Ore., researcher Rentrak will expand its contract with the Fox Networks Group to include linear TV ratings measurement and single source consumer data reporting.

Dutch audience survey firm NLO has extended its current contract with Nuremberg, Germany, research company　GfK for tracking radio audiences. NLO is also studying the use of smartphone apps to report radio audiences from minute-to-minute. The current diary methodology asks respondents to indicate their radio listing behavior every 15 minutes.

Association/organization news

ESOMAR has elected Laurent Flores, SLPV Analytics, Paris, as its new president and David Smith, DVL Smith, London, for the January 2015 to December 2016 term. Additionally, the following eight candidates were elected to the ESOMAR Council for the remaining seats for 2015/2016 term (listed alphabetically by last name): David Bakken (USA), Joaquim Bretcha (Spain), Anne-Sophie Damelincourt (France), Kristin Luck (USA), Pervin Olgun (Turkey), BV Pradeep (Singapore), Niels Schillewaert (USA), Pieter Paul Verheggen (Netherlands).

The Qualitative Research Consultants Association (QRCA) has elected its officers and directors for 2014-15. The QRCA officers include Mark Sumpter, president, Consumer Link Moderating & Research Consulting, Inc., Chicago; Monica Zinchiak, vice president, Z. Research Services, San Diego; Manny Schrager, treasurer, Consumer Centers of New York and New Jersey, Montclair, N.J., and Jay Zaltzman, secretary, Bureau West Research Group, Palm Springs, Calif. The QRCA directors are Shaili Bhatt, C+R Research, Chicago; Corette Haf, Corporate Research Consultancy, Malmesbury, South Africa; Marc-AndrŽ Leduc, M. Leduc & Co., Montreal, and Susan Sweet, Sweet Insight Group, Lafayette, Colo.

Awards/rankings

Des Moines, Iowa, researcher Quester received the 2014 EXPLOR Award at the Market Research Event in Boca Raton, Fla. The award recognizes a case study which included innovation in technology or new methodology.

CASRO has named Morpace, a Detroit researcher, as its Research Organization of the Year. The award honors a member company demonstrating leadership, consistency and excellence in the planning and execution of research services.

Localz, a Melbourne, Australia, technology firm, was named winner of the JLAB, the technology business incubator of London retailer John Lewis. Localz designed a platform which uses Apple’s iBeacon technology, WiFi, GPS, QAR codes and near-field communication to calculate a shopper’s precise location. This information can then be used to send ads and coupons to the shopper’s phone. The technology is also geared toward tracking items which may be time or temperature-sensitive and to complete mobile payments. As winner, Localz received £100,000 in investment funds and the opportunity to test its platform with John Lewis locations.

DJS Research Ltd, Stockport, U.K., was recognized as the 2014 Stockport Business of the year, with Alasdair Gleed, research director, being named Business Person of the Year.

New accounts/projects

IAB Australia, the online ad association headquartered in Sydney, has chosen New York researcher Nielsen as the supplier of digital audience measurement services in the country. The three-year contract will begin in January 2015. Smartphone and tablet ratings are due to be added in early 2015, with cross-digital ratings for desktops, smartphones and tablets to be added in July 2015 and daily ratings for digital content, including video added in early 2016.　

General Mills, Minneapolis, is shifting its shopper marketing efforts to five WPP Group companies: Geometry, Bogota, Colombia; Rockfish, Rogers, Ark.; Kantar Retail, Surrey, U.K.; Barrows, Durban, South Africa; and Bravo, Valby, Denmark.　Account revenue was not disclosed.

Washington, D.C., researcher ORI has been awarded three task orders by the U.S. Department of Labor which expand its data collection responsibilities to include monthly collection of current employment statistics at four centers and a survey of job openings and labor turnover. The orders have a total value of approximately $22 million and will involve more than 400 full and part-time ORI employees at six sites.

Fairfax Media, Sydney, Australia, will resume publishing its political polls through a partnership with Paris research company Ipsos after New-York based researcher Nielsen cancelled its contract to run the monthly Fairfax Nielsen Poll last June. The Fairfax Ipsos Poll will be telephone based and utilize a sample size of 1,400. It will provide 10 federal polls annually with state-based surveys on demand.

Portland, Ore., researcher Rentrak has secured a contract with Zenith Media for Rentrak’s local TV measurement for advertising purchases.

New companies/new divisions/relocations/expansions

London-based communications agency PrettyGreen has launched Pretty Black&White, a division geared toward market research, brand positioning and insight planning.

KeyQuest Health, a market research company headquartered at Richmond-upon-Thames, U.K., has opened a New Jersey office, headed by Miina Rafinski.

Boston-based software firm Crimson Hexagon has opened its European headquarters on London’s South Bank.

Research Panel Asia (RPA), Tokyo, has opened an office in New York to serve as its East Coast base of operations. This is the seventh global office and second U.S. office for RPA.

Kieran Snyder and　Jensen Harris have launched Textio, a Seattle-based software firm.

Simon-Kucher, a management consulting firm in Bonn, Germany, is opening an office in Barcelona.

New Orleans researcher Federated Sample has spun off its Fulcrum sample management and exchange division, allowing it to operate as a stand-alone division. It will led by Michael McCrary as president, with Andy Ellis assuming the role of president at Federated Sample.

Newzoo, an Amsterdam researcher, has opened an office in Shanghai, its first international office. It also plans to launch new research combining consumer research, transactional data and financial analysis for customers in Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and the Philippines.

Research company earnings/financial news

Paris researcher Ipsos reported third quarter revenue of EUR 412.7 million, an increase from the second quarter. Ipsos carried out 35 percent of its business in emerging countries, where its business increased by 5.2 percent. Business (at constant exchange rates) in developed countries declined 2.6 percent.

New York researcher Nielsen reported its third quarter results, with revenues increasing 13.3 percent to $1,572 million, or 14.4 percent on a constant currency basis. If the Arbitron and Harris acquisitions are excluded, revenues had increased 2.5 percent, or 3.4 percent on a constant currency basis. Adjusted net income for the third quarter increased 32.6 percent to $256 million, compared to the third quarter of 2013. On a constant currency basis, the third quarter income was up 36.9 percent.

San Francisco technology firm Radius has raised $54.7 million in Series C funding.

Provo, Utah, researcher Qualtrics has closed a $150 million Series B financing round.

Tile, a location-tracking device company in San Mateo, Calif., has raised $9.5 million in a Series A round.

Insightpool, an Atlanta social media engagement startup, has raised $4 million in a Series A round.

San Francisco-based software company GoodData has completed a $25.7 million Series E round of funding.

Zoomdata, a Reston, Va., software firm, has raised $17 million in series B funding.

Analytics software firm Alteryx Inc., Irvine, Calif., announced a $60 million investment round.

Map-D, a San Francisco-based data analytics visualization startup, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding. Its platform is designed to analyze and visualize billions of data points to support graphics-intense maps and charts.