Danish MR software company iMotions has obtained another two million dollars in bridge funding and CEO Peter Hartzbech gets qualified help in managing the rapid expansion from a new COO.

Press release from iMotions:

iMotions announced today that Peter Schmidt will take over as Director of the Copenhagen office and COO of European Operations. Simultaneously, iMotions' CEO and Co-Founder Peter Hartzbech, has joined the Board of Directors.

"It's very difficult to find just the right person. Peter Schmidt will fit very well into our team and bring immense value to iMotions," says Peter Hartzbech. "He knows how to run fast paced businesses and manage high growth while continue building a greate team spirit. His background is in advertising and software development, which is the perfect combination for iMotions," continues Peter Hartzbech.

Peter Schmidt, who is 42, holds an MBA and a Masters degree in Computer Science. He comes from the position of CEO in SoftwarePeople, an offshore software development company with production in Bangladesh. His extensive experience as COO in the advertising industry includes growing a business from 5 to 250 employees in less than 3 years at web bureau Framfab, and growing AdPeople from 20 to 120 employees.

"I know how to establish and handle a well functioning ‘back-office,' and I have always teamed up with marvelous, high energetic ‘front-office' people to take care of sales, client relations and marketing, which is why I am looking forward to working with the iMotions team," says Peter Schmidt, who  starts his new position at iMotions in mid-August.

Bridge Funding
In addition to announcing that Peter Schmidt is joining the management team, iMotions announced that it has raised US$ 2 million (DKK 9.5 million) in bridge funding to enable the company to accelerate sales before the next round of funding. The company's software Emotion Tool® 2.0 is currently being used in 12 countries, including major installations in the United States.

"iMotions is uniquely positioned to expand its sales efforts," according to CEO Peter Hartzbech. "We have a new software release that is not only unique in measuring emotional response, but is the best in eye-tracking as well. We are focusing on bringing Emotion Tool 2.0 to large end clients and Market Research companies during the forth quarter of 2008."

iMotions software product, Emotion Tool 2.0, not only measures emotional response to print ads, marketing materials, and product shelf placement, it is also the most technologically advanced and user friendly software for standard eye-tracking.

About iMotions
iMotions - Emotion Technology A/S is the developer of Emotion Tool®, the world's first objective, non-intrusive, reliable software to measure human emotional response to visual stimuli such as print ads, Direct Marketing material, and brochures. The software, which also measures visual attention, uses data from a standard eye tracking monitor. Emotion Tool version 2.0 is marketed to the Advertising & Marketing Research industry and is now present in 12 countries - USA, Canada, Mexico, Germany, The Netherlands, England, Scotland, Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Turkey and Australia.

Founded in 2005 by CEO Peter Hartzbech and CTO Jakob de Lemos, iMotions is headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark. The company currently employs 55 people in their offices in Denmark, India and USA.

They didn't make it to SMRN:s top ten of the Innovate conference, but they got what is even better: the chance to win ESOMAR:s most prestigous price for excellence. This is no contradiction and no sign of bad judgement on either side: the ESOMAR jury reads the papers, we don't.

Peter Hartzbech, CEO of innovative and fast growing Danish research software company iMotions, found time in his tight schedule to sit on the program committee for the newly ended ESOMAR Innovate conference in Copenhagen. In this short web-TV interview with SMRN, he explains why he enjoyed being on the committee and why ESOMAR is an organisation we should all support.

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The Nielsen Company has signed a global agreement with The Coca-Cola Company, enabling Nielsen to provide integrated services to Coca-Cola in more than 70 countries.

Research Live had a chat with Kim Dedeker, head of consumer and market knowledge at consumer goods P&G, and chair for ARFs council for online research quality, regarding her views on quality control. She believes that the industry needs to do more to address “systemic” quality issues, and that researchers need to be more accountable for their methods – and their results.

One of the coming men in Danish MR has left the company that discovered him. Claus Andersen finished his university studies only a few years ago, but has already made a couple of appearances as speaker on international conferences and held a leading position at qualitative expert Gads. Then came the offer he couldn't refuse!

Den 12 juni 2008 lanserades tidningsräckvidderna från ORVESTO Konsument 2008:1. Insamlingsperioden för enkäterna har i denna omgång varit 1 januari – 30 april. Antalet personer som har deltagit är 15 381 stycken i åldrarna 15-79 år. 

Konsulten Per Olof Sundqvist från BDO har återigen lämnat sina kommentarer om revision av nätet. Denna gång är det till Dagens Media. Lasse Näsström på Kia Index har svarat att det är på gång, i alla fall inom ett år. Som vanligt är det webbplatserna som ska betala för kakan, och som vanligt är det ett konsultföretag som ser sin chans att få monopol på marknaden. Lasse Näsström är dock noga med att påpeka att så inte kommer att ske. Idag finns det öppna och transparanta lösningar som tagits fram av individer som Fulton Yancy. Han har utvecklat en programvara som klarar av revision. Nu är det bara att avvakta och invänta öppningen av de politiska spelen i frågan.

Metro har flest förmögna läsare i Europa. Det visar The European Media & Marketing Survey 2008 från analysföretag Synovate.

Noa (Newspapers Online Analytics) system collects traffic data to online newspapers and provides figures for the overall traffic by month, by day of the week and by time of day. On top of this it also removes duplicate visits to provide monthly de-duplicated data. 

Nu har FDIM som är danska intresseorganisationen för webbplatsägare i Danmark (dvs motsvarigheten till Kommittén för Internet Annonsering, KIA) slagit till igen. Nu har FDIM lanserat rapportering av danska trafiktalen i 'real-tid'. Nu kan du följa de största webbplatsernas besökartal per timme, dygnet runt.

When Research Now is looking for a new Vice Presient for Client Development in the USA, they use the virtual online network LinkedIn. Surely good value for money - if it works. Read on if you feel like working long hours for a great pay on the other side of the Atlantic.

Tidigare ACNielsen chefen Terilyn Reber har etablerat ett internationellt nätverk av datainsamlare som erbjuder allt från CATI/CAWI och onlineundersökningar till globala klienter.

Ipsos has launched a FaceBook application geared at their American panel members.

Med version 8.5 vill WebTrends nå de stora multinationella företagen med sitt erbjudande om effektivare analys, smidigare hantering samt globala rapporteringsmöjligheter.

WPPs CEO says to media that GfK is stalling the process of buying TNS and thereby misleads the market. He says it is about time to close the deal or leave the table.

Enligt en ny undersökning av InsightExpress har våra attityder gentemot Cookies (filer som lagras på din dator) vänt till det positiva. Fler än någonsin tycker att det är bra med Cookies i datorn då det gynnar internetupplevelsen.

Johan Grassman har börjat på Folksam som Webbanalytiker. Han kommer tidigare från Tradedoubler och Cloude Nine.

Den nye arbejdsgruppe skal bestå af personer, der har indsigt i markedet for netmedierne og de udfordringer, der ligger nu og i fremtiden. Det kan eksempelvis være markedschefer, onlinechefer og lignende.

Att internet skulle vara en farlig plats för ungdomar har det pratats en hel del om, och diskussionen verkar inte vara helt obefogad. Habbo, en av Sveriges största ungdomscommunities för 13 till 18-åringar, genomförde nyligen undersökningen ”Känner du sig säker på internet?”, där 2411 svenska ungdomar svarade på frågor kring sina erfarenheter av internet. Det kom fram att 59% av svenska ungdomar någon gång har upplevt något riktigt obehagligt på nätet. Samtidigt så känner sig 79% av tonåringarna säkra när de surfar.

En opinionsundersökning från företaget Sentio har under dagen skapat stor förvirring hos TT och nyhetsbyråns kunder.

Google har nu lanserat Google Insights for Search. Verktyget ger dig möjlighet att studera söktrender. Verktyget är en uppföljning till Google Trends.

Svenskarna ogillar att tvingas lyssna på privata mobilsamtal. Enligt en undersökning som Tele 2 har gjort är det intima detaljer och relationsproblem som retar upp flest.

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TNS Infratest in Germany has joined a campaign where the business community in Munich is searching for 850 new talents to employ. The Bavaria region in general and its capital Munich in particular, is one of the hottest business regions in Germany, with plenty of high-tech industries and high-end consultancy firms.

The German market research associations ADM, BVM, DGOF and ASI have formed a joint work group, "Initiative Markt- und Sozialforschung", to better promote the various forms of market and social research. Christoph Naucke, former communications director at the insurance company KarstadtQuelle, will lead the group.

Compared to the UK, or even London alone, the Scandinavian market research arena is ridiculously small. You would have to work hard to find 4000 persons working full-time professionally with market research in any way (not counting interviewers, but secretaries, assistants etc). Still, we are masters in the art of setting up numerous organisations, dividing and weakening the industry, instead of speaking with the one strong voice we are all in such dire need of. And most surprising of all – no one knows why we behave like this!

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Last years merger with Pulse Train seems to have done Confirmit very well. Expansion continued in the second quarter of 2008 and so did profits.

This was supposed to be an article about the wonderful global world we live in. I wanted to make an article about how market researchers all other the world can understand each other and cooperate, no matter how far apart we live. In particular, this should be an article about what it is like running a market research company and being an ESOMAR member on the Canary Islands.

Engelska myndigheter tar problemet med "silent calls" från call centers på stort allvar. Inte nog med att de har tydliga regler - de utfärdar kännbara böter för den som bryter mot dem.