Kantar Group

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Kantar Group
Type
Founded 1993 (As the Information and Consultancy Division of WPP Group)
Headquarters London, Fairfield, Connecticut
Key people Eric Salama (Chairman and CEO)
Chris Robinson (Human Resources Director)
Howard Paster
Angus Porter (CEO of Added Value)
Anne Hedde (President and Group CEO of Lightspeed Research)
Bob Meyers (CEO of Research International)
Industry Market Research
Products Marketing Research
Media planning and buying
Consultancy
Consumer research
Revenue $1,237.2 million (2005)
Employees 10,000 (2005)
Parent WPP Group
Subsidiaries Research International
Millward Brown
The Ziment Group
Lightspeed Research
Mattson Jack Group
Website www.kantargroup.com

The Kantar Group (TKG), based in Fairfield, Connecticut, and London, was founded in 1993 as the Information and Consultancy Division of WPP Group plc, a London-based public company. Eric Salama is the current chairman and Chief Executive Officer of TKG. He earned a (MSc) at the Birkbeck, University of London. Research-only revenue in the United States for 2005 was estimated at $439.2 million, up 6.7 percent from 2004. In 2005, 64.5 percent of total research-only revenue, or $798.0 million, was estimated from outside the United States. The growth rate includes 2004 and 2005 revenue from acquisitions of Marketing and Planning Systems in July 2004, DaVinci Healthcare Partners in August 2004, Consumer Health Sciences in March 2005 and Dynamic Logic in June 2005.

The Kantar Groups’s research business in the United States, with an estimated 2,300 full-time employees, includes Millward Brown Group, Research International, The Ziment Group, Lightspeed Research, Kantar Operations and Mattson Jack Group.

Contents

[edit] Millward Brown Group

Millward Brown Group (MBG); based in Naperville, Illinois, was founded in Warwick, England in 1973 and acquired by WPP Group in 1989. Millward Brown provides a range of qualitative, quantitative and consulting services with respect to brands, marketing communications, media and marketing effectiveness. Millward Brown works across a wide range of industries and categories, including brand strategy and experience, creative development and campaign evaluation, consumer needs and values, media planning and strategy, return on investment (ROI) and forecasting, and investment management, brand valuation and analytics through its MB Optimor unit headed by Joanna Seddon.

[edit] Research International

Research International (RI) was founded in 1973, and has been part of the WPP Group since 1989. Bob Meyers is the current CEO for Research International. It has offices in 57 countries, and its global headquarters are in London. RI Qualitatif is the group’s qualitative research arm. RI provides marketing knowledge created in response to individual clients needs with answers to specific business problems, and generates insights into consumers and markets. It has experience in most major sectors, particularly consumer packaged goods, retail, new media, financial services, energy and utilities, technology and telecommunications.

RI’s services are structured around six main practice areas: consumer understanding; branding and communication; innovation, channel management; new media; and customer relationships and service measurement. In each area, the services offered draws on the firm’s worldwide knowledge bases and include both custom approaches and is own techniques. Among the latter are Equity Engine (brand equity management), MicroTest (new product development and sales forecasting), BrandSight Gallery (an internationally validated visual system for exploring brand personality), Locator (brand positioning optimization) and Loyalty Driver (evaluating and managing customer loyalty).

[edit] The Ziment Group

The Ziment Group (TZG), based in New York, was founded in 1976 by Larry Ziment, succeeded by Howard Ziment starting in 1987 and acquired by WPP Group in 2001. The unit comprises four divisions: Ziment Custom and All Global, Imap Research and Consumer Health Sciences.

  • Ziment Group:

Chief Executive Officer, Ziment Group: Lynnette Cooke

Vice President, Technology & Innovation: Jonathan Spiess

Chairman, Ziment Group: Howard Ziment

  • Ziment Custom:

Chief Executive Officer: John Tapper, Ph.D.

Exeecutive VP, Strategic Relationships: Jade Cusick

Managing Director, Europe: Andrew Scott

Worldwide Chief Qualitative Officer: Basya Gale, Ph.D.

Full service, global marketing research company that offers products that address a range of strategic marketing issues.

  • All Global:

President: Jerry Arbittier

Client Services Director: Gabriele Jakubowski

Managing Director of Sales and Marketing: Tony Burke

Provides access to a panel of healthcare professionals dedicated to participating in research through the Internet. All Global’s panel has more than 200,000 physicians and healthcare professionals. Offers survey programming and data collection services. On February 8th 2008, WebSurveyResearch changed its name to All Global. In January 2007, WebSurveyResearch (a New York based online data collection agency) acquired All Global (a London based muti-methodology data collection agency). The two companies continued doing business under their own names for approximately one year until the name change took place unifying them under the single name, “All Global”.

  • CHS - Consumer Health Sciences:

President: Mike Kelly

Chief Operating Officer: Michael Fronstin

Senior Vice President, Project & Systems: Larry Weingarten

Collects disease-specific, self-reported consumer data. It's flagship product is the National Health and Wellness Survey which is conducted annual in USA and Europe since 1998.

  • Imap Research - Integrated Marketing and Promotions:

President: Mike Kelly

Senior Vice President of Project Systems: Larry Weingarten

Chief Operating Officer: Michael Fronstin

Imap, established in December 2004, conducts worldwide syndicated marketing and research studies. Two main products offered by Imap are OnTrak and OnMessage.

[edit] Lightspeed Research

Lightspeed Research (LSR) was founded by TKG in 2000 and is based in Basking Ridge, New Jersey. The company operates in North America, Europe, and Asia. LSR provides global online market research services, specializing in using the Internet as a data collection platform to provide research through building and maintaining panels subject to standards to ensure quality and representative sampling. Web technology and databases provide the foundation to support market research studies and specialty panels that range across industry sectors such as financial services, health care, business-to-business, automotive, family and more. LSR also provides custom panels to address specific client needs. In 2005, Lightspeed Research conducted over 12 million online surveys for clients.[1]

Through its network of proprietary panels and accredited panel partners LSR can provide access to more than 17 million household members across 25 countries in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific. Consumer panels are available in North America, Great Britain, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Japan and Australia – providing access to adults, teenagers, kids and other specialty audiences.

[edit] The Mattson Jack Group

Mattson Jack (MJG) was founded in 1986 and was acquired by the Kantar Group in June 2003. The company is based in St. Louis and has six offices in the United States, one in the United Kingdom and an associate in Japan. MJG is a healthcare-focused consultancy serving the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, with the mission to provide advanced analysis, planning, decision support and implementation. MJG’s core competencies include business analytics (market research, modeling and forecasting, pricing and reimbursement); corporate development services (licensing, market opportunity assessment and strategic planning); brand optimization (promotional response modeling, mix optimization and prescription influence mapping); and oncology market specialization through DaVinci Oncology Specialists.

[edit] Added Value

In October 2004, three Kantar Group companies – Added Value, Icon Brand Navigation and Diagnostic Research – combined under the Added Value (AV) name. Added Value focuses on brand marketing, consumer insight, innovation and communications optimization. Core skills are setting future direction (cultural and trend analysis); identifying market opportunities (market segmentation and mindset mapping, brand portfolio management); strengthening brand equity (brand evaluation, diagnosis and strategy creation); innovation (ethnography, ideas generation and development); evaluating ideas (marketing mix optimization, concept evaluation); optimizing communications (decoding and planning, copy testing); and communications performance optimization (planning, tracking, and spending optimization).

DR Added Value conducts consumer and business-to-business research across a number of product and industry categories. Major services offered are copy-testing, brand and advertising tracking, consumer and market segmentation, product design and customer satisfaction. IconAddedValue provides market research and consulting services, including brand communications, product research, brand tracking and customer satisfaction studies, with offices in four countries. In addition, the firm offers support for advertising agency selection; coaching in brand management, communications development and agency management; and tailored seminars and workshops for defining brand identity. Its research activities are built around a brand value management structure with four brand components; analytics, strategy, implementation and monitoring.[2]

[edit] Financial Performance

[edit] Top 10 of the Market Research Sector 2006

Rank Company Sales in 2006
(million USD)
Growth in %
1 Nielsen Company 3,696.0 2.6
2 IMS Health Inc. 1,958.6 8.9
3 Taylor Nelson Sofres 1,851.1 2.5
4 Kantar Group 1,401.4 4.1
5 GfK AG 1,397.3 5.4
6 Ipsos 1,077.0 6.5
7 Synovate 739.6 9.5
8 IRI 665.0 6.6
9 Westat 425.8 0.8
10 Arbitron 329.3 5.9

[edit] Other Kantar Companies

  • AMRB
  • Cannondale Associates
  • Center Partners
  • Fusion 5
  • Glendinning
  • Kantar Operations
  • RMS Instore Ltd

[edit] External links

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ WPP Group Annual Report and Accounts 2005
  2. ^ Honomichl Top 50, June 16, 2005
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