Corrections or additions?
This article by Barbara Fox was prepared for the March 12, 2003
edition of U.S. 1 Newspaper. All rights reserved.
New at Windsor Corporate Park: HCI
Top Of PagePERQ/HCI and AC Nielsen/HCI
No other company surveys television viewers like
Nielsen
— the Nielsen television ratings occupy a space of their own.
And a company that started in Princeton, PERQ/HCI, can claim a similar
space in pharmaceutical marketing.
That 20-year-old firm is now owned by a Nielsen firm and is used by
virtually all the pharmaceutical ad agencies to plan and buy media.
One of its services has been spun off as AC Nielsen/HCI.
Until recently both firms have nestled in an office building next
to the Mercer Mall, but they needed more space, and they needed the
space to be prestigious, to reflect the Nielsen name.
On March 1 both companies moved from 12,000 square feet at Lawrence
Commons to 13,930 feet at Windsor Corporate Park at 50 Millstone Road,
the former GE Astro site that is slowly but surely filling up and
is more than 50 percent occupied in its new life. Sab Russo and Matt
Malatich of CB Richard Ellis represented the landlord, and Walter
Schoenberg of Cushman & Wakefield represented the tenant.
The two firms (both owned by the $4 billion conglomerate VNU) have
50 people — 17 for Nielsen and 43 for PERQ/HCI. “The new
building
we are moving into is definitely more upscale,” says Marshall
Paul, founder of both firms. “We not only needed more space but
a better corporate image.”
Paul founded the first company in 1982 as HCI Healthcare
Communications
Inc., and he sold it in 1997 to VNU. When HCI merged with VNU’s PERQ,
Paul became chairman of PERQ/HCI. Last year Paul was asked to spin
off one of the services that he had launched, a tracking service that
monitors the effective advertising in the pharmaceutical industry,
and now he is president of that new firm, AC Nielsen/HCI. George
Carens
(pronounced karns) is general manager of PERQ/HCI.
Paul, the son of a Philadelphia patent attorney, majored
in economics at Dickinson College, Class of 1960. He has three
children
and three grandchildren and lives with his wife in Yardley. He worked
for Merck and then for 16 years at a major pharmaceutical research
firm, IMS, which does prescription audits and documents the sales
of all the companies.
In 1982 Paul and his then-partner acquired a firm that was in
bankruptcy
but owned a jewel, a media (readership) audit.
Now PERQ/HCI’s online audit of pharmaceutical advertising helps ad
agencies to create media schedules. “We do the research on the
physician’s readership habits. That is gold when it comes to where
agencies allocate their advertising dollars,” says Carens.
Carens has dual titles; he is also vice president of product
operations
and marketing of Standard Rates and Data Services (SRDS), the media
information services provider. SRDS publishes ad rates for general
and trade publications and even billboards. “We aggregate
information
from anywhere you can think to advertise,” says Carens, “and
then we publish it. SRDS is the Nielsen of rates and data.” Carens
supervises 210 employees, including those at SRDS headquarters in
Chicago, 43 people in Princeton, and a sales and client service office
in Manhattan.
Carens’ parents had a family business in Chicago. He went to Northern
Illinois University, Class of 1985, where he also earned an MBA, and
he lives near Chicago with his wife and three children.
“PERQ/HCI has an office in the Princeton area because it is a
central location for manufacturers, and agencies and publishing
clients
are in the area. It is close to New York as well,” says Carens.
“When you think of the research as well as back office production,
this is a perfect location for recruiting employees, yet it is central
to our clients in both Princeton and New York.”
Meanwhile Paul is happy to be in the innovation seat once more.
“In
going back into a major company — VNU is a $4 billion operation
— suddenly you are now more involved with the bureaucracy. I
really
enjoyed the independence of a small company, but at this point I am
doing what I love doing — developing new products and marketing
to the pharma industry. Now I am helping the other Nielsen
subsidiaries
develop services and market them to the pharmaceutical industry.”
ACNielsen/HCI measures response to overall campaigns, including
detailing
(sales rep calls on doctors) and non-journal media. Of the top 50
pharmaceutical companies, 33 are clients. “Our niche is to help
them to understand how successful their promotions are to physicians
and consumers,” says Paul. “We use a direct mail
questionnaire.
We photograph the ad campaigns to physicians, mask out the names of
the products, and find out the degree to which the physician can
remember
the campaign and identify the drug. We have an audit that tells us
how much money was actually spent on each campaign so we can develop
awareness recall norms based on spending levels.”
If you are spending $10,000 on a campaign with 30 percent recognition
is that better or worse than $10 million and 40 percent? You are
better
off with the less expensive campaign, says Paul. “We have curves
that show what the norm should be, and it is more like 60 percent.
We are able to show how successful the campaigns are relative to the
money spent. We then get involved with the degree to which the
messages
are imparted to the target audience.”
“The next part of the service is where we match up the respondents
to the actual prescribing activity. Then we determine return on
investment,
showing sales response to advertising.”
Paul notes that the key factor is to marry the quantitative with the
qualitative and that competitors don’t match prescription records
with the promotions. “This is the direction in which the industry
is going,” says Paul. “Ad campaigns live and die on our
readership
study.”
— Barbara Fox
ACNielsen/HCI (VNU), 50 Millstone Road, Building100, Suite 300, Box 5273, Princeton 08543. C. Marshall Paul,president.609-630-6450; fax, 609-630-6456. Www.acnielsenhci.comPERQ/HCI Research (VNU), 50 Millstone Road,Building100, Suite 300, Box 5273, Princeton 08543. George Carens, generalmanager. 609-630-6440; fax, 609-630-6456. Www.PERQ-hci.comTop Of PageAlso New: CBIZ KA ConsultingCBIZ KA Consulting Services, a healthcare consultingfirm, moved from 2540 Route 130 in Cranbury to 13,200 square feetat Windsor Corporate Park. CBIZ is a middle market national benefitsand accounting firm that merged with KA, a Cleveland-based nationalfirm, in 1999. Another of its divisions, CBIZ Valuation Group, isat 989 Lenox Drive.This office works with 100 hospitals in the tri-state area to providereimbursement and finance advice — to ensure accurate and timelybilling. “The hospital’s chief financial officer is our client.We help collect the information for patient services, set the charges,negotiate the contracts with the HMOs and how the charges will bepaid,” says Sam Donio, president. “Then we help them interpretand follow the government regulations for payment for Medicare andMedicaid. We make sure the payments are made according to thecontractsand the regulations. We even help compile the information if thehospitalis short of medical records staff.”Donio grew up in New Jersey’s Pine Barrens, in Hammonton, where hisfather was an attorney. He went to St. Joseph’s, Class of 1980, andhas an MBA from Monmouth University, and he and his wife have twochildren. He worked at a hospital for a year before joining theconsultingfirm.Donio sees no end to the need for his service. “People havepredictedour demise for 20 years,” he says. “But the federal governmentspends $300 billion for year on healthcare. And there is nothing thatthe federal government spends that much money on that does not havered tape.” Red tape can also be profitable for the insurancecompanies,he notes. The longer the delay in processing claims, the longerinsurancecompanies can hang on to their money.CBIZ KA Consulting Services (CBIZ), 50 MillstoneRoad, Windsor Corporate Park, Building 200, Suite 230, East Windsor08520. Sam Donio, president. 609-918-0990; fax, 609-918-0930.Www.kaconsults.comTop Of PageOther TenantsWindsor Corporate Park, the former home of GE Astro,has 287,000 square feet of space for tenant use and is 56 percentoccupied. Tenants include four insurance companies, four firmsconnectedto the publishing business, a software company, and an engineeringfirm.Utica National Insurance, Building 200, Suite 240.Gary LaRouche, district claims manager. 609-308-4500; fax,609-308-4599.Regional claims office.Maximus, Building 300, Suite 200. 609-918-2800.Health education and enrollment into government-sponsored HMOprograms.Commonwealth Business Media, Building 400, Suite200, Alan Glass, chairman, president, CEO. 609-371-7700; fax,609-371-7879.Www.cbizmedia.com. Business-to-business database information,directory and trade publications.Liberty Communications Network, Suite 110. GlennKapuscienski, general manager. 609-918-9400; fax, 609-918-9411.Www.medicalcrossfire.comBranded medical education company is owned by Cardinal Health.Infragistics/ProtoView Development, Building 200,Suite 150. Dean Guida, president. 609-448-2000; fax, 609-448-2017.Www.infragistics.com. Software developer and seller.ExpertPlan, Building 400, Suite 100. Tim O’Brien,CEO. 609-918-2500; fax, 609-918-1328. Www.expertplan.com.Web-based application service provider for retirement planningservices.Bala Consulting Engineers, Building 300, Suite100, Gregory J. DeMarco PE, executive vice president. 609-490-8950;fax, 609-490-8955. Www.bala.com. Multi-discipline consultingand engineering firm, commercial office space for the highereducation,pharmaceutical and healthcare industries.OSI Collection Services Inc., Building 100,Frank Boni, director of operations. 609-426-4165. Www.osi.com.Collections company.Westby, Holman & Cameron Esqs., Building 300, Suite140. John Westpy, interim manager. 609-371-1533; fax, 609-371-9107.Staff counsel for Hartford Insurance.Next StoryCorrections or additions?This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
