Kantar Group

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The Kantar Group, based in London, was founded in 1993 as the Market Research, Information and Consultancy Division of WPP Group plc, a London-based public company. It is a network of more than 20 specialist companies, with around 26,500 employees working in 80 countries across various research and consultancy disciplines. Eric Salama is the current Chief Executive Officer.^[1]

The group claims its services are used by over half of the Fortune Top 500 companies.

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 qualitative, quantitative and consulting services with respect to brands, marketing communications, media and marketing effectiveness. Millward Brown works across a 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.

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. 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. Among its custom approaches and techniques 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).

RI is currently to be integrated into WPP's recently acquired TNS.

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 Custom:

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

• All Global:

Provides access to a panel of healthcare professionals 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 8 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:

Collects disease-specific, self-reported consumer data. Its 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:

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

Lightspeed Research

Lightspeed Research (LSR) was founded in 2000 and is headquartered 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 quality and representative sampling standards. Specialty panels 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 2007, Lightspeed Research conducted over 20 million online surveys for clients.

Its network of proprietary panels and accredited panel partners LSR can provide access to more than 5.5 million panel members across 34 countries in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific. Consumer panels are available in the USA, Canada, United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Austria, Belgium, Ireland, Japan, China, Korea and Australia – providing access to adults, teenagers, kids and other specialty audiences.

The Mattson Jack Group

MattsonJack 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 Paris, France, and an associate in Japan. MattsonJack is a healthcare-focused consultancy serving the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, providing business analytics (market research, modeling and forecasting, and 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 its multiclient, syndicated research.

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 services 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]

References

External links

• Added Value
• AMRB
• BMRB
• BPRI
• Cannondale Associates
• Center Partners
• Glendinning
• IMRB International
• Japan Kantar Research
• Kantar Group
• Kantar Media Research
• Kantar Operations
• Lightspeed Research
• Mattson Jack Group
• Millward Brown
• MVI
• Research International
• The Futures Company
• TNS
• Ziment Group