News from last week

PR and web could benefit from economic downturn
"Public relations agencies could benefit from the economic downturn as more businesses look at increasing their spend on the web and publicity. A survey undertaken by research agency Shape the Future says that nearly half of the respondents planned to increase spending on PR over the next year." Brand Republic

WPP and Nielsen to swap assets
"WPP has signed an agreement with the Nielsen Company to swap its 50% share of AGB Nielsen Media Research for three of Nielsen's assets." Brand Republic

Research ROI Unmeasurable, Say Pharma Firms
"Pharma companies are moving away from the idea of hard ROI measurement for their market research, according to a study by US-based Cutting Edge Information. 74% of surveyed companies do not attempt to calculate ROI for MR. The report, Improve Market Research Impact, says these firms are concentrating instead on levels of satisfaction of internal clients for research. Of the 74%, 39% do not conduct any sort of performance measurement." MrWeb Daily Research News

Nielsen and IMMI Shut Down OOH Service
"The Nielsen Company and partner IMMI have mothballed their recently launched out-of-home (OOH) television viewing measurement service with immediate effect. The companies blamed difficult economic times, which had led to ‘limited economic support’ for the service." MrWeb Daily Research News

TNS Compete Launches Online Behavior Practice
"In the US, web analytics unit TNS Compete, now part of Kantar, has launched a Retail and Consumer Products practice to provide retailers with insights into shoppers’ online activities across rival sites, portals, search engines and aggregators." MrWeb Daily Research News

ARF forms council for research ‘transformation’
"The Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) is bringing together senior industry figures to consider how research can respond to rapidly changing times. The establishment of a ‘super-council’ for research transformation was announced by ARF research director Joel Rubinson. The council will include the Kantar Group's Eric Salama, General Mills’ Gayle Fuguitt and P&G’s Kim Dedeker, Microsoft’s Stephen Kim and Barack Obama’s pollster Joel Benenson." Research Magazine