NEWS AND EVENTS

DDW completes Newman-Stein acquisition

Lauren Bell

April 10, 2008 

Data Development Worldwide (DDW) has completed its acquisition of Newman Stein, adding to its market research capabilities. 

DDW's purchase of Newman Stein began in the final quarter of 2007. Both companies provide research and actionable insights to marketers, but Newman Stein adds depth to the company's product testing offerings.

"While they operate in the same space, which is primary market research, they brought back to us a capacity that we didn't have much of anymore," explained Chip Lister, president of DDW. "They are top-shelf in the world of product testing, so it really added a breadth to our capacity. The other side is that, having known the company for quite a while, I knew it was an easy fit."

Newman-Stein has been fully integrated with DDW, moving New York employees into DDW offices there. The two companies also combined offices in San Francisco. For a year-long interim period, Newman-Stein will be known as "Newman-Stein, a division of DDW," but soon the company will function completely within DDW.

DDW took on all of Newman-Stein's clients, with no attrition.

There were no layoffs as the result of the acquisition, though Newman-Stein principle Larry Newman will follow through with his retirement plans, announced earlier. William Stein, also a Newman-Stein principle, is now a DDW director.

Lister said that more growth was on the horizon for DDW. The company is looking at other acquisition targets and is also interested in establishing offices outside the US.

"At this stage in the game, I don't think we would go too far afield from our core equities," Lister said, when asked about growth areas. "What Newman-Stein did was round out our core equity, but I don't think I would buy a company completely outside our core equity. Anything we do at this point is going to be linear to who and what we are and adding manpower."

Judy Harrigan, an industry veteran with more 30 years experience in qualitative and quantitative marketing research and strategic planning, has joined DDW as Vice President of Qualitative Research. Ms. Harrigan has had a multi-faceted career, ranging from high level executive positions with research suppliers and ad agencies to positions at the corporate level.

Prior to joining DDW, Ms. Harrigan was President of Harrigan-Bodick, Inc. a firm concentrating in qualitative research. She has a Ph.D. in experimental psychology from the University at Albany and an undergraduate degree in child psychology from Cornell University. She was the initial chair of the ARF Youth Council, and is currently a member of the Ad Council Research Committee, an editorial reviewer for The Journal of Advertising Research and an Ogilvy Awards Judge.

Senior Vice President Ann Tarantino, a valued employee of DDW for over twenty-five years, has assumed leadership of our Florida office. Ann has directed a wide range of projects for clients specializing in new product/service evaluation, customer satisfaction, segmentation research, advertising tracking, market studies and international research.

Ms. Tarantino holds a B.A. in Marketing from Adelphi University in New York.

DDW is pleased to announce the opening of our new office in the Philadelphia area. The office, our eighth location in the U.S., will be headed by Joe Jennings as Vice President.

In addition to a client base centered along the New York to Washington, D.C. corridor, Joe brings considerable expertise in the design and execution of custom research projects. Located in the Philadelphia suburb of Berwyn, the new office will offer clients a thoughtful, hands-on approach to addressing research issues backed by the extensive resources of the entire DDW organization.