Acquisitions/transactions
Belgium-based research agency Kynetec b2 has acquired JTL, a Belgium-based CATI call center, along with JTL’s team of around 30 interviewers. The JTL unit will support interviewing for specialist B2C audiences as well as providing additional interviewing capacity for the Kynetec Group’s agriculture and animal health markets. The call center will remain an independent unit and will continue to provide CATI services to other market research agencies.
Shelton, Conn., firm TABS Analytics has acquired Decision Insight, a Kansas City, Mo., shopper marketing research and analytics firm. TABS will enhance its current service offerings with the integration of the Decision Insight SimuShop virtual shopping platform, providing research across food and beverage, pet needs, household goods, durables, toys and gaming, pharmaceutical, alcoholic beverage and restaurant categories.
Stephen Bairfelt and Trevor Wilkinson, owners of London-based research company Purple MR, have taken a majority stake in data collection company Prevision Research. Bob Qureshi, co-owner and managing partner of i-View London, Leeds and Warsaw and a director of the Research Club, will join the board.
Consumer credit reporting agency TransUnion has acquired marketing technology company TruSignal Inc., which uses an audience-building platform to provide predictive scoring powered by artificial intelligence, making big data available and actionable for one-to-one addressable marketing.
Pivoton Capital, a private investment firm, has completed a transaction to recapitalize and provide growth equity capital to Voxco Survey Software. Sumit Aneja, managing partner of Pivoton Capital, assumes the role of CEO at Voxco. Founder Raymond Cyr remains in the interim as an advisor to assist with the transition.
Reston, Va.-based Comscore Inc. has entered into a definitive agreement with an institutional investor that secures an initial investment in Comscore’s common stock of approximately $20 million, with the potential to increase to approximately $50 million within 12 months in certain circumstances. The transaction is anticipated to close on or about June 26, subject to customary closing conditions.
Insight agency InSites Consulting announced its acquisition of online insight community firm Join the Dots. Former Join the Dots leadership team members will join as shareholders and also take leadership roles. Quentin Ashby, Join the Dots CEO, joins the board of directors and the executive committee. Graeme Lawrence, chief client officer at Join the Dots, joins InSites Consulting’s group of global account management. Join the Dots divisional director Andy Cumming becomes managing director of the Manchester office. Andy Buckley, innovation director at Join the Dots, will supervise the global client solutions portfolio. Pauline Reeves, CFO at Join the Dots, will take on the responsibility of global head of finance and accounting.
Marketing services firm LRW Group has acquired Greenberg Strategy, a Bay Area research and strategy consultancy. Greenberg joins LRW Group under the name LRWGreenberg.
WPP agreed to sell 60% of Kantar to Bain Capital. The proposed transaction values the whole of Kantar at a headline enterprise value of $4 billion and is expected to be completed before the end of the first quarter of 2020.
Dentsu Aegis Network, a marketing communications company, has acquired a majority stake in India-based analytics company Ugam. Ugam will join Merkle, a marketing agency and part of Dentsu Aegis Network.
London researcher Savanta has acquired ComRes, a London-based research consultancy.
Technology provider Cint announced its acquisition of 100% of P2Sample, a U.S.-based market researcher. P2Sample’s CEO Mathijs de Jong and COO Janna de Bruijne will remain in the company in senior leadership roles in the combined entity.
Alliances/strategic partnerships
Plano, Texas, data services firm Dynata has formed a strategic partnership with audience technology platform Eyeota to offer global B2B and consumer audiences at scale. The Dynata audiences can be accessed through the Eyeota Audience Marketplace and are initially available throughout the U.S., U.K. and Australia. The data sets include B2B decision makers and a variety of consumer demographics.
Philadelphia-based media and entertainment company Entercom and Nielsen, New York, have announced a multi-year strategic agreement for a suite of measurement tools aimed at enhancing Entercom’s data-driven capabilities for advertisers. As part of the agreement, Entercom will enhance its portfolio of Nielsen tools with new products.
Consumer science company Nepa and consumer engagement firm Touch-A-Prize have formed a partnership to provide data and analytics to enhance the customer experience for Touch-A-Prize sports team, venue and retail clients. The agreement includes team and venue events where the two companies will capture insights into customers and the customer experience.
Miami Beach, Fla.-based company eCGlobal Research Solutions, in partnership with audience measurement firm Immetrica, has launched Alldience, a solution that uses a mobile application to measure multi-platform content consumption.
Sun Broadcast Group has expanded its relationship to license Nielsen Media Impact powered by Nielsen’s Total Media Fusion.
Technology platform Qualtrics has announced a new experience management integration with Adobe Experience Platform Launch. The integration expands on Qualtrics existing relationship with Adobe, which includes an Adobe Analytics Experience Management Integration built on the Qualtrics Developer Platform.
Chicago researchers IRI and Label Insight are joining forces to provide CPG manufacturers and retailers insight into product performance based on nutrition and ingredient label data. Through this new relationship, IRI adds new attributes to its IRI Liquid Data technology platform. The new attributes allow IRI to track and measure product sales performance and shopper behavior across ingredient and product labeling attributes, such as “gluten-free” and “clean label.”
Researcher Comscore and California Oregon Broadcasting Inc., an independent broadcast group, announced a long-term agreement for Comscore to exclusively provide measurement services to the group’s television stations KOBI+ (NBC) and KOBI2 (ThisTV) in Medford, Ore., and KSLR (FOX) and KEVU (MyNet) in Eugene, Ore.
Costa Mesa, Calif., research company J.D. Power has partnered with survey software company SurveyMonkey, San Mateo, Calif., to expand its customer experience data collection. J.D. Power will leverage SurveyMonkey Audience and SurveyMonkey’s digital platform.
Nielsen announced that iHeartMedia Inc. will support Nielsen Media Impact and Continuous Diary Measurement in Nielsen Audio’s four book markets.
Cello Health Insight in partnership with Janssen Pharmaceuticals has won EphMRA’s 2019 Market Research Excellence Award for “Business Impact through Innovation.”
Research firms RealityMine and MFour Mobile Research have partnered to launch Connected Consumer Data. The solution leverages MFour’s all-mobile consumer panel and RealityMine’s RealityMeter to provide clients with a single-source continuous data set that marries observed digital and location behavior with validated surveys, allowing researchers to draw insights about consumer actions, preferences and drivers.
4C, a data science and marketing technology company, and researcher IRI announced an expanded relationship under which advertisers can now target their cross-channel video planning and buying by leveraging IRI purchase-based data via the Audience Hub within Scope by 4C.
Reston, Va., researcher Comscore and MediaScience, a media and advertising measurement firm, are partnering to produce research that addresses how and why cross-platform advertising works and provide measurement of audience size, behavior, engagement and effect.
Berlin-based Market Logic has been selected by Toyota Motor North America as the supplier of its new consumer insights knowledge management system. The car maker will drive its insights system with natural language processing for search, collaboration features, video transcription and data integration.
Researcher Kantar announced its partnership with Special Olympics. Over the course of the next four years, the partnership will focus on Special Olympics’ Global Youth Leadership work, which brings together youth leaders with and without intellectual disabilities.
Australian data intelligence company Potentiate has partnered with Veriluma Software, an Australian artificial intelligence company.
Strategic brand consultancy Hall & Partners has signed up with analytics and insights firm Course5 Intelligence to enable AI-driven research operations using Course5’s proprietary platform, Optimizer Suite. The use of Optimizer Suite is expected to reduce turnaround time and operational costs of market research and build additional efficiencies over time due to the program’s self-learning algorithms.
DEG: The Digital Entertainment Group and GfK Entertainment are extending their partnership to compile digital video data in the U.S. and Canada.
Technology provider Cint announced its partnership with data platform company Syno International. The partnership will enable clients of both companies to reach a larger audience for surveys.
Technology and data collection firm Delvinia has partnered with Research For Good (RFG). Through this alliance, RFG will provide automation and data collection technologies that will be integrated into Delvinia’s market research platform Methodify.
Insights solutions company Toluna announced a partnership with NeoCurrency, a digital rewards company. NeoCurrency will reward users in bitcoins for sharing their opinion on brands, products and services.
Analytics company Comscore announced a long-term agreement to provide Block Communications Inc. with measurement services for its television stations in Louisville, Ky.; Decatur, Ill.; and Lima, Ohio, with the stations in Decatur and Lima using Comscore exclusively. Block will also use Comscore’s automotive audience data as currency as a part of this agreement.
Marketing research company Schlesinger Group has partnered with Gauge Capital, a private equity firm headquartered in Texas. The company’s brand, leadership and employees will remain in place, and Gauge Capital will provide financial support and strategic guidance.
Nestlé USA has partnered with information technology firm Enterra Solutions. The companies will deploy an analytics and insights platform with Enterra’s AI capabilities. Additionally, Enterra will build and staff a Center for Advanced Analytics at Nestlé’s U.S. headquarters in Arlington, Va.
Analytics software firm Tellius is partnering with Snowflake Inc., a cloud-based data warehouse. The partnership allows the Tellius search and AI-powered analytics platform to natively connect to the Snowflake data warehouse.
Market researcher Jumpshot has partnered with information company Ascential to provide marketers with a deeper understanding of online customer behavior. In connection with the partnership, Ascential receives a 35% equity stake in Jumpshot, valued at $60.76 million.
Nielsen has partnered with marketing technology firm Quotient Technology. With this partnership, clients will have access to Quotient’s purchase and intent data set through Nielsen’s insight and measurement offerings.
New York-headquartered Nielsen and Max Media have reached an agreement for Nielsen audio measurement. The agreement includes a range of audience measurement and analytical services such as local buying behavior data from Nielsen Scarborough and Nielsen Rhiza.
London-headquartered Parrot Analytics has partnered with Spanish research company GECA to gauge content demand and trends, with a particular focus on Asian markets. Parrot Analytics will work with GECA to track the versatility of the company’s Spanish content to uncover sales opportunities in new markets.
Media measurement and analytics firm Comscore announced that ListenFirst, a social media analytics firm headquartered in New York, will provide measurement for Comscore’s Branded Content service.
Aginity, an analytics company based in Evanston, Ill., has partnered with Microsoft to help enterprises discover, manage, share and reuse analytic code for Microsoft Azure SQL Data Warehouse.
Nielsen and Lockard & Wechsler, a marketing agency specializing in media planning, buying and analytics, announced that they have reached a multi-year agreement with Nielsen as the latter’s service of choice for local TV measurement in all markets.
Analyst Hub, an independent research infrastructure platform company, has partnered with gaming, lodging and travel analyst Brian McGill to launch Morning Line Research, a new research boutique that will offer research on both public and private companies in the gaming, lodging and travel space and the industry as a whole.
Comscore, Reston, Va., and Xandr, AT&T’s advertising and analytics company, announced that Comscore will be the measurement and currency provider for Xandr’s Addressable offering, inclusive of DIRECTV, Altice USA and Frontier. The partnership is designed to give advertisers third-party measurement across the national live linear addressable footprint.
Aha!, a market research technology company, has integrated Zoom Video Communications’ video-first unified communications platform into its market research platform for consumer and B2B research studies. This integration of Zoom’s cloud-based platform lets users conduct live webcam conversations with their customers.
Association/organization news
David W. Almy will be leave the Insights Association (IA), Washington, D.C., after more than nine years as CEO of IA and the Marketing Research Association. IA will recognize Almy’s contributions at its Corporate Researchers Conference in October.
The Insights Association announced a new tagline: “Creating Competitive Advantage.” The association will initiate a campaign intent on illuminating insights as a leadership force, active change agent and “absolute imperative for any organization intending to compete through customer centricity, innovation and growth,” a press release stated.
The Marketing Research Education Foundation has awarded the Maywood Fine Arts Association (MFAA) a $5,000 grant to provide scholarships for its out-of-school arts and fitness programs. MFAA’s mission is to provide affordable quality arts and fitness education to children and families in Maywood, Ill., and surrounding communities and currently serves 4,500 children.
The board of directors of the Insights Association has approved an updated Code of Standards and Ethics for Marketing Research and Data Analytics. The code was unanimously approved by Insights Association members in 2018.
The Global Research Business Network (GRBN) will launch the second edition of the Invest in Insights Handbook. Version 2.0 of the handbook will include new examples of insights ROI measurement as well as new advice on how insights leaders can implement their own ROI measurement program. Additionally, the scope will be expanded to include new research and guidance on how leaders can build the business impact of the insights function.
The Association of Market and Social Research Organisations (AMSRO) has announced that it will conduct a review of political polling methods in Australia to determine why all of the election polls incorrectly called the outcome of the Federal election and how methods can be improved in the future. AMSRO will seek the involvement of media organizations and other clients who commission political polling to participate in the review as well as companies that do their own polling.
CAIP Canada, a new non-profit and certification body that will offer the Certified Analytics and Insights Professional designation to individual research practitioners in Canada, has been formed. The initiative is being led by Robert Wong, RMCG Inc., who advanced the designation that was offered by the former Canadian marketing research association. Wong is supported by John Tabone, interim chief administrative officer of the Canadian Research Insights Council (CRIC), who led the development of the designation that was offered by the former Canadian marketing research association in 2002. CAIP Canada is also fully endorsed by CRIC and ESOMAR as the Canadian professional designation of choice. CAIP Canada has begun registration of members of the former Canadian marketing research association, the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association, following its closure. Individuals holding the former Canadian marketing research designation can now receive the Certified Analytics and Insights Professional designation, which has been recognized by CRIC
Separately, the CRIC has released of the CRIC Accredited Agency Seal, which recognizes agency members who have made the “highest commitment to follow best practices and adhere to world-leading standards and ethics in market research, analytics and insights.” Use of the seal requires firms to undergo an independent review of key practices with a focus on the collection, use and storage of data. Firms applying to join CRIC as an accredited agency will be permitted to use the CRIC Accredited Agency Seal after completing an accreditation process.
Awards/rankings
MFour Mobile Research, Irvine, Calif., received a Gold Stevie Award for Innovation of the Year for its Path-2-Purchase platform.
Quirk’s Media will host the Marketing Research and Insight Excellence Awards, which highlight researchers, vendors and products and services that add value and impact to the research industry. The award ceremony will be held on Nov. 18 at the Edison Ballroom in New York City. Awards will be judged by client- and supplier-side researchers and Quirk’s editorial staff.
Pharmaceutical marketing publication PM360 has awarded Fabio Gratton, co-founder and CEO of research firm inVibe, its ELITE 2019 Data Miner Award. The PM360 ELITE Awards recognize individuals who have made a “significant impact to the health care industry throughout their careers.”
Alice Sylvester, partner, Sequent Partners, and Gian Fulgoni, co-founder and former chairman of comScore, have been selected as the 2019 inductees into the Market Research Council Hall of Fame. Sylvester was honored in the Market Research Council’s active practitioner category and Fulgoni in the retired practitioner category at the organization’s 42nd annual ceremony in June in New York. The new inductees will also be acknowledged at the Marketing Research and Insight Excellence Awards – Powered by Quirk’s on November 18 in New York City.
The Milwaukee Business Journal has named The Dieringer Research Group, Brookfield, Wis., as one of Wisconsin’s Fastest Growing Firms for 2019.
Confirmit announced that media company TMC has named its Confirmit B2B Account Health solution as a Customer Experience Innovation Award winner.
Ipsos’ Washington, D.C.-based team received the World Bank’s South Asia Region award for Project of the Year as part of the World Bank’s team working on the Rohingya crisis. Undertaken over a three-week period, this project required multi-source data integration from survey and non-survey origins. Ipsos provided information in a geospatial situational awareness portal for World Bank and partner use. The results of this work and subsequent analysis guided the World Bank’s strategic and operational planning in its Rohingya crisis response.
New York research firm Phoenix Marketing International announced it is No. 2,813 on the annual Inc. 5000 list, a ranking of the nation’s fastest-growing private companies.
Confirmit Horizons, a software platform by information technology company Confirmit, has been recognized as a 2019 Product of the Year Award winner by CUSTOMER magazine. The CUSTOMER Product of the Year Award recognizes customer experience technology solutions relating to the call center, CRM and teleservices industries.
The winners of the 2019 MSPA Americas Shoppers’ Choice Award winners are A Closer Look LLC, BARE International, IntelliShop LLC, Ipsos, Market Force Information Inc. and TrendSource Inc. MSPA Americas, a trade association representing the customer experience industry, recognized the companies at the June ShopperFest.
Inte Q, a loyalty marketing researcher, announced that Forrester Research has given the organization the highest rating for Emotional Loyalty Measurement in the recently released report, The Forrester Wave: Loyalty Service Providers, Q3, 2019.
Quester, a consumer intelligence firm headquartered in Windsor Heights, Iowa, has been selected as the winner of the 2019 Pitch Tank Competition at the Disability:IN conference. The Pitch Tank Competition allows certified suppliers to pitch their company and innovation to the conference judging panel and attendees. Quester’s Pitch Tank presentation focused on its Alexa integration and the possibilities of engaging consumers in multi-term conversations.
Azure Knowledge Corporation, Palo Alto, Calif., announced it is No. 354 on the annual Inc. 5000 list, a ranking of the nation’s fastest-growing private companies.
New accounts/projects
Researcher E-Tabs and software company Askia announced that their online market research dashboard platform, Iris, has been chosen by the Worldwide Independent Network of Market Research and Opinion Poll (WIN) to report its annual worldwide survey (WWS). The WWS explores the outlook, expectations, views and beliefs of over 30,000 people from 40 countries across the world. The Iris platform will display differences and similarities between countries across a wide range of categories.
Measure Protocol, a blockchain-enabled marketplace for individual-based data, unveiled results from a pilot program which put blockchain technology to practical use for marketing research firms. The pilot set out to “demystify the application of blockchain within market research, illustrate the technical workflow, display the transparency provided by the blockchain and understand the user behaviors and attitudes in this environment,” Measure Protocol stated in a press release. The pilot program consisted of eight partners: Nielsen, MMR, Kadence International, Incite Marketing Planning, Delvinia, Kantar Profiles, Hall & Partners and Future Thinking. Consumers participated using the Measure MSR iOS app. The four-week pilot program included more than 6,500 completed data jobs and achieved a 92 percent completion rate. Data jobs included participating in surveys, completing profile requests and enabling passive data sources, such as location and purchase history.
Research firm Empanel Online has conducted a test of two digital fingerprinting tools with regard to their ability to identify duplicate respondents in online surveys and has made a report on the findings – Digital Fingerprinting Product Evaluation: Comparing SurValidate And RelevantID – available in the Downloads section of its Web site.
The Market Research Institute International, in cooperation with the University of Georgia Center for Continuing Education, has launched a new online course to help market researchers develop an understanding of how ethical and legal standards – based on industry codes and guidelines – must be applied to everyday research. The course, “Ethical and Legal Issues in Market Research,” is authored by Real Research’s Adam Phillips.
Life sciences and analytics company IntegriChain has expanded membership of the Revenue Analytics Collaborative (RAC), a networking, collaboration and benchmarking group for life sciences business and financial professionals. IntegriChain has also launched its online community for RAC members, RACollab.org.
Butler University Executive Education launched a data analytics boot camp in partnership with technology education firm Trilogy Education. Geared toward adult learners and working professionals, the Butler Executive Education Data Analytics Boot Camp teaches analytical, technical and teamwork skills.
New companies/new divisions/relocations/expansions
Stockholm-based technology provider Cint has opened its second German office in Munich, led by Oliver Tjarks, senior vice president sales. New additions to the Munich office include Senior Sales Director Patrycja Reinhart and Sales Director Marc Sörgel.
Market Strategies International-Morpace has relaunched as Escalent, a Livonia, Mich., human behavior and analytics firm. Market Strategies International and Morpace were acquired and merged by Palo Alto, Calif.-based private equity firm STG Partners in 2018.
Plano, Texas-based data services firm Dynata has established a new unit, Dynata Solutions. Hugh Davis, former co-founder of Reimagine Holdings Group, which was recently acquired by Dynata, will lead the new unit as president. Additionally, the company has realigned its sales and operational units in the Americas region into a new, integrated structure designed to provide an enhanced customer experience. Keith Price, former co-founder of Reimagine, has been named president, customer experience, Americas.
SurveyMonkey has launched a European data center in Dublin that will allow the company to host data locally for customers located or doing business in the region.
Food Dive reports that as part of a move of its corporate headquarters from Kansas City, Mo., to Kansas City, Kan., Hostess Brands plans to build a consumer research center, located at the same site as the headquarters, which will contain a laboratory, sensory test kitchen and focus group space, the company said. The new facility is scheduled to open during the first half of next year.
Market research company Euromonitor International has opened an office in Dusseldorf, Germany, targeting the DACH region (Germany, Austria and Switzerland).
Language services firm TransPerfect, New York, has expanded its focus on the research industry vertical by making a strategic investment in New York-based G3 Translate. The deal reunites G3 Translate Co-Founder and CEO Nancy Hernon with TransPerfect, where she previously spent five years in a management role. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
German-headquartered research firm respondi has moved its London office to a new larger location in the city. Additionally, it has appointed Olga Yakovleva as account executive and Amar Sudra as project manager.
Information technology firm Questback has restructured its product management. The product management team, formerly housed in research and development under the chief technology officer, will now report directly into Questback CEO Frank Møllerop.
Online research platform methinks announced its entry into the self-serve qualitative research market. The SaaS-based platform was designed by Philip Yun and Wilson Li and has secured $7 million in Series A funding.
Insights platform UserTesting has opened its first international office located in Edinburgh, Scotland. Bruce Hunter joins the new office as regional vice president.
Research firm Savanta is expanding its footprint in the Americas with several new hires along with a new office in New York City.
Research company earnings/financial news
Reston, Va., firm Comscore reported total revenue for the first quarter of 2019 was $102.3 million, down 3.4 percent from $105.9 million in the year-ago quarter.
SVMK Inc., parent company of San Mateo, Calif., company SurveyMonkey, reported first-quarter 2019 revenue of $68.6 million for 17 percent year-over-year growth.
Jersey City, N.J., consumer behavior and location sciences company SITO Mobile reported total revenue of $8.4 million for the first quarter of 2019.
Market research translation service GlobaLexicon announced a 20% growth in revenue as well as the hiring of 15 new team members in the first half of 2019.
Data platform Near has raised $100 million in a new round of funding. The investment comes from London-headquartered private equity firm Greater Pacific Capital. With this newest investment, Near has raised a total of $134 million to date, including from Sequoia Capital and JP Morgan.
Watertown, Mass., research firm InCrowd Inc. announced that an affiliate of SARORAS Private Capital, a private equity investment firm focused on the technology-enabled services industry, has made a majority investment into InCrowd.