MRx News

According to comScore, there's a new top digital video platform for sports and it's SendtoNews, which ranks above ESPN, CBS Sports, Yahoo and Fox. It uses STN Smart Match, an AI powered video player that reads the content of the page you're currently browsing with the most relevant video in the STN library.

Nielsen has released a VR tool called Smartstore which allows stores to test layouts and map shopper journeys.

Nielsen has also been chosen to provide digital measurement across virtual MVPD Sling TV and data segments for both Dish TV and Sling TV advertising.

Tamr, a data unification firm, has closed $10 million in new capital, which brings its total investment to almost $28 million.

Lexalytics launches a data extraction software using natural language processing to gain insights, greatly decreasing work and cost.

E-Tabs and Askia have partnered to release a dashboard platform called Iris. E-Tabs specializes in data visualization, while Askia leverages their analysis.

Acxiom has sold their Marketing Solutions business to the Interpublic Group. The sale was for 2.3 billion dollars. That's also a lot of money.

Adobe, who is slated to be on our partner podcast, The Happy Market Research Podcast in the coming weeks, buys Marketo for 4.75 billion dollars. That's really a lot of money. FIND US ONLINE: www.happymr.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pg/happymrxp Twitter: @happymrxp Instagram: @happymrxp LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/happymarketresearch/

GfK and Dixons Carphone are partnering to share sales information. Dixons will now become part of GfK's point of sale tracking solutions. The goal will be to strengthen the POS sales data in tech.

Kantar Millward Brand released their BrandZ data. The biggest takeaway? Brands which are perceived as innovative, grew their brand value 25% more than their competitors.

Talkwalker, a social media analytics platform, has launched an AI engine to automate the analytics process.

In the US, The Media Rating Council published a supplement to its ad verification guidelines. It outlines new requirements related to brand safety.

Singular, a marketing analytics intelligence platform, closed 30 million dollars in Series B funding which they will use in product development.

Georama, who was one of our first guests on the Happy Market Research Podcast, has rebanded to QualSights. You can find that episode in the backlog of the Happy Market Research Podcast on iTunes and everywhere else you listen to podcasts.

Sharon Hodgson joins Trinity McQueen as Client Services Director.

Robert Bakewell takes on the role of Senior Director of Real-Time Trackers for Kynetec, an animal health and agricultural data and insights company.

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Barbara Murrer becomes the first female chairperson to hold a position on the board for the Advertising Research Foundation. Welcome to the 21st century.

Kantar partners with Qualtrics to provide employee experience insights. Kantar will provide the consulting and expertise as they leverage the Employee Experience solution from Qualtrics.

Cello Health reports no expansion or contraction in the past two quarters compared to 2017, while they did note that within that same margin, their consulting and insight grew by more than 10%.

dunhumby partners with Virtual Store Trials. VST uses virtual environments to test retail layouts, replacing the need for in-store tests.

Samsung-owned Cheil Europe is relaunching its agency model for customer experience. Maru acquires Lissted. That's with two S's. Lissted is a social media listening software.

David Zotter, formerly of GfK and SSI, joins Ipsos as their CTO. Sreyoshi Meitra takes on the role of Designated Executive Director for Ipsos in Delhi.

Hanna Assouline joins Schlesinger as Facility 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/

GfK MRI releases Visual Reporter, which a graphics analytics tool for the firm's database. The tool is intended to provide researchers with the resources to quickly understand the data so they can develop meaningful insights more quickly.

On Device Research, a mobile research and sample company, launches their cross-media attribution solution which passively measures ad exposure and impact.

JDA Software announces two new tools leveraging artificial intelligence. JDA Luminate Replenishment provides demand forecasts so customers can ensure their products are available to meet that demand. JDA Luminate Pricing sets optimal prices through learning the interactions between price and demand for each store.

NPD has released a new dashboard called the Registry Snapshot that studies trends in gift registries. The dashboard not only provides data about registries but includes attitudinal and behavioral insights.

Domain, an online property advertising company based in Australia, adds Data and Insights to its Content and Audience division. The new team will provide customers with insights into their advertising efforts.

BVA has acquired 30% of BABEL, a communications agency.

Opinium hires Rhys Jones as Research Director.

Katie Clark takes on the role of COO for Portland Marketing Analytics.

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Amazon opens an investigation of reports of employees leaking data. Reportedly confidential data was leaked and reviews were deleted in exchange for bribes.

Amplfi and Spotify have partnered to launch The Audio Stack, an audio planning tool. The tool allows customers to reach target audiences and will be first available in Asia Pacific.

JPA Communications launches Gretel, which provides insights, engages audiences, and identifies trends in the healthcare market. They have partnered with Graphika for their analytic tools.

Today is clearly the day when everyone decided to launch their new products! Radius launches their new platform, Unify, which offers real time B2B customer data.

In the UK, the non-profit Market Research Benevolent Association now offers a program that provides financial help for those taking the MRS Advanced Certificate in Market and Social Research Practice. That is a ridiculously long title. The goal is to create more opportunities for people of different backgrounds to enter the field.

Kyle Davies joins Maru/Matchbox as their SVP of Retail and Technology.

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Scott Kauffman will step down from his role as Chairman and CEO of Marcom. He began his role in 2015 and after this transition, will continue as a member of the Board of Directors. A successor has not yet been named.

Nielsen adopts the advanced audience standards as developed by the Advanced Target Standards Group, a group of 12 major network programmers. The principles are aimed at bringing consensus to audience measurement.

New marketing research firm, Measure Protocol, is offering a blockchain based marketplace for data. They claim individuals are paid fairly and data usage is secure and transparent. Consumers get paid to complete surveys and connect data sources from their mobile and online devices. Researchers can then target specific populations with that data.

Sisense, a business analytics platform, secures $80 million in investment, led by Insight Venture Partners.

Ipsos announces that they have successfully completed the merger with GfKs 4 global divisions.

Catherine Gibbon joins Delineate as the CMO.

Tracy De Groose has been appointed to Executive Chair of Newsworks.

Arif Mumtaz takes on the role of Director of Data Analytics for Asia Pacific at Omnicom.

Maria Popova joins Delvinia as Director of Client Development. They are looking for 20 other members to join her in the effort to roll out Methodify, their automated MR platform.

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Netflix viewership rises 45%. Wow! We all need to get a life. TouchPoints released data that found that the amount of time on the site has increased as well. https://www.thedrum.com/news/2018/09/12/netflix-continues-grow-british-audience-live-tv-viewing-habits-decline

Market Research Society had their Operations Awards. Best Data Solution went to Walnut Unlimited and Best Support Service went to Liveminds. Congratulations to everyone who was recognized.

GfK MRI released 29 digital political segments. Advertisers can now target people by voting behavior, party affiliation, stance on social issues, and the like.

ADP Global Research, which collects feedback through their Voice 360 platform, partners with Feefo. Feefo partners with Google, Yahoo and Bing to collate review information and translate it into their own scoring system. Now ADP clients will be able to standardize their data into the Feefo rating system.

DRG releases their Oncology Clinical Trial Monitor which gives insight into clinical trials and opportunities within oncology.

Vision Critical adds text analytics and sentiment analysis to their Sparq insight platform. They have also launched an application and integration center which provides access to data from third parties.

Mike Billingsley takes on the role of global chief executive at OnePulse.

Interactive Advertising Bureau has promoted Michael Texidor to Vice President, Learning and Development and hires Breda O'Reilly to be the VP of Investment and Relations.

Nicole Matthews joins MiQ as VP of Marketing for North America.

MFour adds three new team members: Kanad Basu joins as a Data Scientist, Prince Mabandla as a Senior Software Engineer, and Kyung Lee as Controller.

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Nielsen has updated its Social Content Ratings to enable measurement of TV network content that is posted on social networks. The new Owned Content Performance will measure the impact across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Ask Your Target Market, or AYTM, is joining the advisory board of Massachusetts University's masters program in Marketing Research. The partnership will provide sophisticated research and automation tools to their students.

Research Now SSI has integrated the data of the two recently merged firms and has made it available through an API. Since their merger last year, the company has been reconciling their millions of data points to accomplish this integration.

Haystack, a multisensory research firm based in Belgium, expands to a Manhattan office. Baileigh Allen will lead the new office as they expand into North America.

YouGov acquires Inconvo. Inconvo is an audience conversation platform that builds audiences around shared passions and encourages them to share their opinions. The goal of the acquisition is to increase YouGov's ability to engage with audiences on a mass scale.

Shapiro+Raj, a research consultancy, has bought Wygant & Co. Wygant & Co combines consumer insight, consulting, and creative execution for brands.

Tim Hannington has been promoted to the CRO at Confirmit.

Richard Foan has decided to step down from his position as Executive Chairman of UK's Joint Industry Committee for Web Standards, which defines the standards and best practices for online ad trading.

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Nielsen stated that they are considering JPMorgan, as well as law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen, & Katz as they continue to explore the option of selling. They have been under pressure from Elliot Management Corp to do so.

The European Viewability Initiative brings on three new firms to their program which is designed to verify data in viewability measures of any company providing metrics. The firms are ABC, CESP, and GWT-TUD.

Nielsen released data showing that attention on Facebook has declined 7% compared to last year. Contrariwise, users are spending more time with Instagram, but not enough to make up the gap. The report also stated that, no surprise, they are significantly losing the teen demographic.

comScore is working with Adobe to leverage their Advertising Cloud with the goal of delivering hyper-personalized messages. The technology uses artificial intelligence to learn the core content of web pages, allowing marketers to then target their messages accordingly.

YouGov and RealityMine are partnering as well. This collaboration will be to integrate RealityMine's behavioural data into YouGov's products. Branch Metrics, a cross platform measurement company, has purchased TUNE's Attribution Analytics platform. The platform's mobile measurement will create a unified experience in measuring the digital marketing ecosystem.

RealPage, a real estate data company, has acquired LeaseLabs, a family housing analytics company for $103 million.

Liz Berks takes on the role of Managing Director in Singapore for ABN. Neil Feakins will now be the Customer Insights and Data Director at wilko. 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 and Spotify partner again. Spotify adds Nielsen's Brand Effect to its third party verification suite in order to confirm that advertisement on the platform really does drive sales. Spotify has already incorporated Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings also to satisfy advertiser's needs to analyze their results.

Borderless Access, an emerging panel specialist, adds the Middle East and Africa to their panels. Their goal is to provide access to hard-to-reach segments. MarketCast, which you may recall from the recently merged Insight Strategy Group and Fizziology, buys Turnkey Intelligence. Turnkey specializes in sports data such as fan experience, sponsorship, and ticketing strategy.

Deloitte, a global consulting firm, has acquired Magnetic Media Online, an artificial intelligence platform in order to make Deloitte's platform smarter and faster. Survata promotes Dyna Boen to be their first President of Market Research. We recently had the privilege of interviewing Dyna at Survata for the Happy Market Research Podcast. Look out for that episode dropping in the coming weeks.

GreenBook hires Matt Gershner as CRO and promotes Dan Stanley to COO.

Kimberly Magnus joins NPD as the US Toys Division President.

Jeremy Pee takes on the role of Chief Digital & Data Officer for Marks & Spencer.

Maru/Matchbox promotes Michelle Walkey to Managing Director, Retail and Technology and hires Allan Dykstra to be the VP Business Development. FIND US ONLINE: www.happymr.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pg/happymrxp Twitter: @happymrxp Instagram: @happymrxp LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/happymarketresearch/