CONGRATULATIONS to our new Fellows and Award Winners
Announced at the 2010 Anniversary Conference!

New Fellows of the Association

• Nik Nanos, CMRP, FMRIA
• Barry Watson, PhD, CMRP, FMRIA
• Rob Wong, CMRP, FMRIA

Excellence in Research Award Winners
Sponsored by Research Strategy Group

BEST IN CLASS
Awarded for a research project that serves as a shining example to research practitioners and users: Canadian Tire “Project Darwin” with Dine & Associates, Heads Up

BEST INTEGRATION
Awarded in recognition of a research project that demonstrates successful integration of market research with other information sources: Kraft “Sizzling Salads” with Nielsen BASES, ACCE, New American Dimensions, Hotspex, Ipsos, Fresh Squeezed Ideas, Millward Brown

THE MURRAY PHILP ALTRUISTIC AWARD
Awarded for a market research project done on a pro-bono or reduced profit basis, for a not-for profit organization that has contributed positively to the individuals, groups or communities, within our Canadian Association, that it was meant to help: CorbinPartners and The Conference Board of Canada

PUBLIC POLICY IMPACT AWARD
Awarded for a research project in the broader public sector that has had a demonstrable public policy impact: Environics Research Group for Environics Institute’s “The Urban Aboriginal Peoples Study”

MRIA AWARD OF DISTINCTION
Recognizes younger members of the Association who have brought distinction to themselves and to the marketing, survey and public opinion research and market intelligence industry / profession through leadership and achievement in their professional and personal lives: Tricia Benn

A.B. BLANKENSHIP AWARD
Joe Lee

JOSEPH DOYLE AWARD
Christina Waddy

JOHN F. GRAYDON AWARD
Andreea Dolnicianu

CMRP DESIGNATED IN JANUARY 2010
Christian Bourque, Vice President Research, Léger Marketing – Montreal
Carolyn O’Keefe, General Manager, MarketQuest Research Group Inc. – St. John’s
Stephen Popiel, Senior Vice President, Synovate Motoresearch – Toronto
Amanda Tate, Research Associate, Corporate Research Associates – Halifax

Congratulations to our New Fellows

Nik Nanos began his very successful career in our industry and founded his company in 1987 while he was still an undergraduate student at queen’s university.  Since that time, Nik has grown his firm into one of Canada’s leading and most respected public opinion research organizations.

The results of polls conducted by Nanos Research have appeared in virtually all of Canada’s major media outlets.  They have also been reported in the wall street journal, USA today, the guardian newspaper, and the economist.

Between 1993 and 2003, Nik led the research team assigned to conduct market and consumer research for staples business depot in Canada and, as such, played a critical role in the strategy that underpinned that firm’s successful growth from 40 to over 200 locations across this country.

Nik is among just a handful of practitioners who have had patents awarded in the field of market research.  He has been awarded patents in the u.s., Canada, Germany, the U.K., Ireland, France and Austria for an automated, real-time research process called “ask” (automated survey kiosk) which is deployed to allow clients to have real-time access to customer input during the retail experience.  A patent is also pending on this interactive, multi-lingual wireless research technology with the world intellectual property organization.

Stemming from his research on Canada—U.S. Relations, Nik was in 2008 appointed an associate professor in the Canadian studies program at the State University of New York at Buffalo. 

Nik has been a regular guest lecturer on research methods at Suny, Buffalo; the University of Ottawa; Carleton University; and St. Lawrence College.

Nik has served our industry in a number of volunteer leadership capacities, including as

• A founding board member of MRIA and an officer of the Association;
• Editor of Vue, our monthly magazine; and
• President of the Association in 2006-07.

During his tenure as MRIA president, Nik led the national board and the association in the achievement of several key initiatives, including the creation of the world’s first charter of respondent rights.

Beyond his volunteer work to strengthen and advance mria directly, Nik has earned credibility and respect for our industry as a community volunteer for youth sports, with the Canadian diabetes association, and with the province of Ontario through the constable Joe MacDonald Public Safety Officers’ Survivor Scholarship Fund.

Barry Watson began is career in marketing research in Canada at the Toronto transit commission in 1982, after having worked on pricing research projects for the u.s. department of transportation and on research decision-making models for the transportation research board of the national academy of sciences in Washington, D.C.

Barry joined Environics research group in 1988, and has been president and CEO of that company through a significant period of growth and financial success.

He has been particularly active in finding innovative ways of applying the company’s social values research to market problems both in Canada and abroad.

In board roles within the Environics group of companies, Barry has contributed to the expansion of marketing research interests into new application areas including geodemographics and web content analytics.

Barry has been president and a member of the governing council of IRIS, the largest network of independent research agencies internationally.  This organization, based in the Netherlands, has grown significantly over the past 10 years and by the end of 2010 will include 30 companies with annual revenues in excess of  €140,000,000.

Under Barry’s leadership, Environics teams have developed a number of approaches that have been innovative and award-winning, including several that have been winners of mria excellence in research awards.

Among the innovative features of these projects are techniques for integrating cross cultural data, techniques for integrating data from primary and secondary data sources, and the use of social values as a unifying framework for disparate data.

Barry has also carried out work that has applied social values in innovative ways to provide weighting schemes to control for biases in online panels, some of which has been reported in Vue and at MRIA’s NetGain conference.

Barry taught the PMRS and mria ethics and standards course from 2002 to 2005. 

During that time, he expanded the course to include an overview of the national and international association governance structure particularly as it related to standards and quality.  This met a significant need of the course participants who were usually entry level staff and were perplexed by the array of associations across the industry.  He also expanded the course to include ethical cases as a teaching device.

Barry first became involved in our industry’s associations when he joined the board of the Canadian Association of Marketing Research Organizations in 1996, and took on the role of standards chair.  He also served on the board of the Canadian Survey Research Council (CSRC).

In 1999, Barry became president of CAMRO and worked to develop what is now MRIA’s gold seal certification process using the professional resources of Deloitte & Touche.  This replaced a former, poorly respected volunteer approach.  The professional self-assessment and independent, third party certification review process implemented under Barry’s leadership have become the cornerstones of MRIA’s gold seal certification process.

In 2000, Barry was instrumental in establishing the inter-association dinners among the PMRS, CSRC and CAMRO presidents at which amalgamation was seriously raised for the first time.  In 2003, he was a member of the inter-association task force which ultimately led to the merger of three associations and the formation of MRIA.

In 2007-08, Barry served as president of MRIA and played an instrumental role in consolidating and extending the young association’s initial growth and success.  He has chaired or been a member of numerous MRIA committees and working groups including the Excellence in Research Awards Committee, The Fellowship Review Committee, The Board of Examiners, and The Standards Committee.

Barry has, since 2008, been a member of the board of the marketing research institute international (MRII), which manages and operates the principles of marketing research online training program for students in the marketing research industry around the world.

Barry has also been actively involved in ESOMAR and has participated, as an mria representative, in its “world industry network” sessions where invited leaders collaborate to formulate positions on emerging issues.

Rob Wong has been the co-coordinator of the research analyst program at Georgian College in Barrie, Ontario and a highly regarded teacher in that program for more than 16 years.

He created and designed the current curriculum for the RAP program, which has provided students with a strong practical and theoretical background in marketing and social research.

He has taught courses on survey methods and new technologies in research.  He implemented palm survey technology into the RAP curriculum to allow students to undertake field research and primary research projects more independently.

Rob has coached scores of students through their independent research projects, involving their own research design and execution.  He created a broad range of opportunities for students to work with clients on research projects that would have an impact on key decisions.

Rob has mentored industry practitioners in their teaching skills, so that they could impart current research techniques to students in the classroom.

Equally important to all those impressive contributions, Rob has been a dynamic ambassador for the RAP program, who has built strong connections with the industry and played an instrumental role in its becoming regarded as the leading source of skilled, confident job-ready potential employees. 

Rob developed an internship program so that employers could work directly with individual students to mentor, assess, and potentially hire them after the internship period.

For the past several years, Rob has taught MRIA’s CMRE prep workshop, which has helped the writer success rate on the exam increase to over 85% as compared to 50% three years prior.

Rob’s volunteer leadership contributions to our industry include

• Serving on the board of the Professional Marketing Research Society;
• Being a regular contributor to Vue magazine;
• Serving on the executive and, subsequently, as president of the Travel And Tourism Research Association Of Canada; And
• As chair of MRIA’s very successful 2007 national conference at Blue Mountain resort in Collingwood.