Market Research Industry Veteran Embraces New Vision: VizuAnswers Hires Brett Powell to Biz Dev Post

Exec leaves leading market research firm for next generation, online polling network.

San Francisco, CA (PRWeb) April 6, 2007 -- Vizu Corporation, the company democratizing market research, announced today the hiring of Brett Powell as its Executive Vice President of Business Development. The move is particularly notable given that Powell is adopting the Vizu Answers (www.vizuanswers.com) do-it-yourself online market research network after years of marketing and selling traditional market research.

"Time magazine made the point with its Person of the Year," says Powell. "We're living in the time of 'You,' of doing-it-yourself, of localized control and personalized networks. At Vizu, I saw that we have an incredible opportunity to improve upon traditional market research methods while bringing polling to the masses. What YouTube does for broadcasting, what blogs do for content, what eBay does for retail, Vizu Answers does for market research."

Powell came to Vizu from MarketTools, an online market research firm he helped grow from a small startup in 2000 to its present status as one of the top 25 market research companies worldwide with over $70 million in annual revenues.

"In my prior position it was becoming increasingly clear that traditional market research methods can be improved upon in today's fast paced business environment," says Powell. "Even top tier research firms are suffering from serious issues of panel fatigue, identity fraud, professional panelists, improper incentives -- you name it. There are many ways to both innovate and improve upon traditional market research methods, cost and timing while extending these capabilities to others."

Vizu Answers brings "polling to the masses" by combining an easy-to-use polling platform and network of websites to enable any knowledge worker to conduct market research quickly and cost effectively. The service also offers bloggers and web publishers a new way to generate revenue by hosting online polls, which add intriguing, relevant content and another level of interaction to their sites.

"Vizu is excited to have attracted an executive of Brett's caliber from the market research industry, and this further validates our vision of where the industry is headed," says Mack Tilling, Chairman and CEO of Vizu. "Many excellent questions go unanswered because traditional market research and polling is expensive, time-consuming, and complicated. Many current methods use awkward formats, cost thousands of dollars and take too long to complete. We allow entrepreneurs, small business owners or individuals within large corporations to get the market research data they need quickly and cost effectively. Now proprietary answers are available in a matter of hours for as little as a few hundred bucks."

Vizu Answers' clients have included entrepreneurial smaller firms as well as larger consumer-oriented companies like Sephora and Orbitz and financial institutions like Cowen & Co. and WR Hambrecht.

About Vizu

Vizu provides services that make online polling easy, accessible, and affordable to everyone. The company's premiere service, Vizu Answers (www.VizuAnswers.com), combines an innovative market research technology with a vast network of relevant web sites, offering highly targeted audiences to answer a wide variety of questions.

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