MRx News

Walmart chooses to use Nielsen's Brandbank, a content management tool, to be apart of their own Connected Content Partner Program. The program will launch at the beginning of 2019 with the goal of strengthening the brand's online presence.

Nielsen releases its official 2018 - 2019 DMA ranker. The New York DMA is number one by nearly 2 million TV homes over LA. Get it together Hollywood.

MaritzCX has released the industry's first comprehensive powersports customer study. This includes buyer behavior around motorcycles, ATVs, and UTVs.

Havas Media and Sprinklr, a social media company, partner to integrate a paid and organic media all-in-one planning and content management platform.

Mintel expands to India with their intelligence platform to offer research and reports on the consumer market there.

Ceuta Group has acquired Click Consult, a digital research marketing business. Laszlo Csibi, formerly of dunhumby, takes on the role of VP of Sales at Inovretail, a retail intelligence company.

New leadership is in store for community panel insight company, Verve. Richard Preedy and Tim Martin have been promoted to executive director roles, among others joining the executive board.

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IRI is continuing to partner with Google through a new solution that measures ad impact on YouTube.

Similarly, DoubleVerify is partnering with Twitter to provide third-party ad measurement of video ads on the platform.

ThinkNow has expanded its Spanish language offerings to Argentina and Columbia. Their goal is to become a one-stop shop for Latin American markets.

Market Track and InfoScount combine under a single new name: Numerator as they launch a new panel system. The rebrand is intended to continue to integrate their marketplace.

The IAB releases PrivacyChain which allows companies to view consumers' privacy consents. The goal is to give companies the information they need to handle users' personal data appropriately.

Crimson Hexagon and Brandwatch merge under the Brandwatch name. A good decision given Crimson Hexagon's recent investigations (though given the all clear) surrounding a breach Facebook user data.

Brian James takes on the role of Chief Client Officer and President of Consumer Goods at Maru/Matchbox.

Jerry Sokol Jr. is the new CEO of Catalina.

Jeff Driskill joins Analytic Partners as CFO.

Jonathan Asher will be EVP at Explorer Research.

Michel Jones takes on the role of General Manager and People Leader at OvationMR.

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New WPP CEO, Mark Read, has made his first round of executive appointments. Andrew Scott has been fully installed as COO. Lindsay Pattison will switch from Chief Transformation Officer to Chief Client Officer. And Stephan Pretorius has been promoted to Chief Technology Officer.

Wood Mackenzie releases their new platform, Lens. It brings together a fresh design with cloud technology and open source solutions.

ICF has acquired We are Vista, a communications agency, to improve its marketing offerings.

Cloudera and Hortonworks merge to create an end-to-end big data management product.

The Synnex Corporation, a leading business process company, announces that the acquisition of Convergys is expected to close tomorrow.

Philip Jones is now the CFO of Maru Group.

Dana Kress joins Maru/Matchbox as VP of Qualitative Insights.

Jon Carbone takes on the role of VP of VideoCX at Voxpopme.

Jill Bonnett, formerly of Toluna, will be the Global Panel Recruitment Director for InnovateMR

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Nielsen and Rakuten Intelligence partner to combine Nielsen's online purchase data with Rakuten's consumer panel to create a solution with a complete view of online and offline shopper behavior.

YouGov publishes new research regarding how consumers feel about brands taking on social issues. For the most part, consumers feel brands should be allowed to take a social position and feel positively about brands that get involved in social issues.

Realeyes, an emotion measurement tech firm, releases a new AI tool that measures how much attention an ad will attract before it is released. It can also compare ads to help determine which will be more effective.

Research on Mobile officially opens. The agency combines digital and mobile technology to gain consumer understanding with the focus of covering developing countries.

Research Live announces the finalists for their 2018 awards. Congratulations to all who are recognized!

Touchstone Partners acquires Shoppercentric to add to their expertise in shopper understanding.

Westin Grabow joins Firefish as director of US office.

Belinda Beeftink takes on the role of Research Director at The Institute of Practitioners of Advertising.

Decisions Resources Group appoints Michael Weiss as EVP and General Counsel.

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comScore releases PostTrak in the UK, Australia, Mexico, and Germany. PostTrak measures how many people attended movies on first and second weekend as well as gathering data about awareness of and response to the film.

St. Ives changes their name to Kin and Carta. They are relaunching with a new operating model to facilitate collaboration worldwide.

Pureprofile decommissions its digital agency, Cohort. The assets and technology will be absorbed into Pureprofile.

Trajectory, a consumer insight consultancy, releases their new product Signal. Signal is an insight subscription service which provides access to a range of services from consumer sentiment to trends and monthly reports.

Interpublic Group has completed the acquisition of Acxiom's Marketing Solutions and will continue operating the company under the Acxiom name.

Market Research Institute International brings on Jeffrey Henning as Executive Director.

Alex Hunt joins PRS IN VIVO as CRO.

Kevin McNair takes on the role of interim CFO at Ebiquity.

Kate Franzis has been promoted to senior project director at Touchstone Research.

Walnut Unlimited promotes from within. Jenifer Eketone will take on the role of Research Director. Emma Stevens, Andrea Tarasescu and Harriet Woolley have been promoted to Research Managers. Harriet Filby will be a Senior Research Executive. And, Nick Saxby, Lewis Green and Hannah Sturgess have all been promoted to Research Executives.

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Linkfluence, a social media tracker and analytics company, has raised $21 million euros. They have appointed Guillaume Decugis as their new CEO. And finally they have acquired Scoop.it, a software firm. They are so busy I wasn't sure which section of the news to put them under!

Ipsos Healthcare is releasing a syndicated Channel Optimization Study for seven autoimmune disease areas. It will combine prescribing data with media use and engagement data from patients and doctors. This will help pharma identify the best way to communicate to both physicians and patients.

CultureWaves, which focuses on behavior science, and Dstillery, which focuses on data science, have teamed up to launch VOICE which gives insight into consumer motivations.

Placed, a location data specialist, partners with Adobe to measure the impact of linear television ads on store visits.

Rakuten Insight Global is opening an office in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Collin Leo, formerly of Nielsen, will lead their efforts there.

Facts International and Opinion Leader are merging under the Watermelon brand, which itself is being acquired by Chime which already owns a group of creative agencies.

Heather Wendlandt, formerly of GlimpzIt, will take on the role of North American Client Development Manager for FlexMR.

David Baker joins J+D as a business consultant.

Brian DiFeo will be the Senior Director of Influencer Strategy at MWWPR.

And, Jerrod Seaton joins Kantar-owned Lightspeed as an Account Executive. FIND US ONLINE: www.happymr.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pg/happymrxp Twitter: @happymrxp Instagram: @happymrxp LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/happymarketresearch/

Six weeks after quitting WPP, Sir Martin Sorrell became the head of S4 Capital which is intended to acquire marketing firms. It's first acquisition is MediaMonks, a digital production company.

Nielsen launches a new survey called MediaTech Trender will will identify people's perceptions of emerging devices and services, including smart speakers and VR, among others. The survey will be conducted quarterly.

TapClicks has raised $10 million dollars which it will use to build AI and machine learning into its analytics platform.

Mopinion, a customer feedback software company, has created and launched Survey Marketplace which is a library of templated online surveys.

Wunderman, which is owned by WPP, has acquired a majority stake in Emark.

Leger has increased their team. Sandie Sparkman has taken on the role of EVP of Client Solutions as well as five people.

Benoit Tanzer has returned to Ipsos as Global Service Line Leader for Brand Health Tracking.

Adsquare has added three senior leaders to their ranks: Michael Schlueter will be VP of Platform Partnerships & Strategic Projects; David Fieldhouse will be the UK Managing Director; and, Candice McDonald will be the US Sales Manager.

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SurveyMonkey began trading their shares at $12.00 per share yesterday.

Bluecore, a retail behavior specialist, opens an office in London as part of their efforts of serving the European retail brands.

Shopper Intelligence has launched a new survey about shoppers use of products that are marketed to solve a particular need, such as kids' lunches.

comScore releases the beta version of Campaign Ratings, a cross-platform video ad measurement solution.

CuebIQ launches their own AI platform called Clara. The platform helps bricks and mortar marketers better understand the offline journey of customers, according to CEO, Antonio Tomarchio.

Continuing the trend is Analytic Partners who has released Helio which gives insights around weather and it's correlation to buying, marketing, and supply.

Women In Research named Greenberg Strategy as the best place to work in market research. Congratulations!

Mentha Capital has acquired the majority of InSites Consulting. Cint expands their team. They have promoted Katie Nelson to VP of Partner Success and Supply Operations and added four senior sales team members.

Braden Johnstone, previously of FocusVision, takes on the role of VP of Customer Success at Voxpopme.

Emma McInnes, formerly of Nielsen, joins Boxclever as the Quantitative Research Director. FIND US ONLINE: www.happymr.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pg/happymrxp Twitter: @happymrxp Instagram: @happymrxp LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/happymarketresearch/

AT&T launches a new advertising and analytics division, which they have named Xandr. Xandr will work with several departments already within AT&T to deliver custom advertising to specific audiences.

Nielsen expands its Total Audience product, a cross-screen measurement tool, to include local viewing regions. Their clients will now better understand local media down to the Designated Market Area level.

FreeWheel and Innovid will integrate Nielsen's Digital Ad Ratings to measure digital campaigns.

Critical Mix, which leverages a mobile app to collect attitudes, opinions, location-based information, and passive data, announces that it will offer free mobile insights with the goal of giving businesses the opportunity to access the benefits of mobile-first research.

Tobii Pro, an eye-tracking research firm, launches a new testing tool, Sprint. Sprint allows user experience designers to test for usability problems.

BrandTotal, a marketing intelligence platform, just closed $6 million dollars in funding which will be directed toward its sales, marketing, and data science offerings.

iSpot.tv, a television ad measurement company, raises $30 million in Series C funding, which it will apply to product innovation and sales.

HG Data, a big data firm, has acquired Pivital iQ.

Melynnie Rizvi will lead the newly created SurveyMonkey for Good program, a social responsibility program aimed to make a positive impact.

BritainThinks, a behavior research specialist, adds to their team. Helen Mason-Belshaw joins as a Management Accountant. Alice Haywood and Carla Ingram each take on the role of Team Assistant. FIND US ONLINE: www.happymr.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pg/happymrxp Twitter: @happymrxp Instagram: @happymrxp LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/happymarketresearch/

Nielsen Audio, an audio diary, announces that they will be reporting monthly instead of two to four times per year. This will enable customers to make faster decisions.

In the UK, BARB, a television audience measurement body is launching the first part of it's multiple-screen audience reporting, which will include data not only for TVs but also tablets, computers, and phones.

Gemma Langston, formerly of Perspective Research Services, has launched her own company called Central Fieldwork. The firm will offer specialized qualitative recruitment services for research and user experience agencies.

Toluna has expanded its mobile panel access to China through the WeChat app. I know. I know. This is the third day in a row that I got to plug our partner podcast, The Happy Market Research Podcast, but honestly they have the best guests. Today, I get to tell you that next Friday the interview with Toluna's CEO, Frederic Petit, is going live.

Continuing with the theme of 4th quarter releases, GfK launches their Consumer Journey module, which gives a complete view of online and offline - you guessed it - consumer journeys.

Likewise, FUNLOCKA releases an employee engagement app, which companies can use to reward employees in a custom way. The app learns each person's motivations and hobbies to engage them with experiences tailored to their passions.

Flipkart, an eCommerce marketplace based in India, has acquired Upstream Commerce, a retail intelligence provider.

Susan Hogan takes on the role of SVP of Research and Measurement at the Interactive Advertising Bureau. FIND US ONLINE: www.happymr.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pg/happymrxp Twitter: @happymrxp Instagram: @happymrxp LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/happymarketresearch/