Kantar Group Ltd. is an international market research company based in London, England. It was founded in 1992, and has approximately 30,000 employees across over 90 countries working in various research disciplines, including brand guidance,
brand strategy
In marketing, brand management refers to the process of controlling how a brand is perceived in the market. Tangible elements of brand management include the look, price, and packaging of the product itself; intangible elements are the experience ...
,
social media
Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the Content creation, creation, information exchange, sharing and news aggregator, aggregation of Content (media), content (such as ideas, interests, and other forms of expression) amongs ...
monitoring,
advertising
Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a Product (business), product or Service (economics), service. Advertising aims to present a product or service in terms of utility, advantages, and qualities of int ...
effectiveness, consumer and shopper behaviour,design strategy and public opinion.
Kantar's majority is owned by Bain Capital Private Equity since July 2019, when WPP sold a 60% stake of the company for $3.1 billion, at a valuation of $4.0 billion.
History
Leadership
On 24 October 2018 it was announced that the WPP board approved the plans to sell Kantar Group.
In Dec 2019, Eric Salama stepped down as the CEO of Kantar Group. Eric Salama had been with Kantar since it was bought by WPP in 1988.
In January 2020, Ian Griffiths (former CFO and COO at ITV) was named Chief Financial Officer of Kantar, while
Adam Crozier
Adam Alexander Crozier (born 26 January 1964) is a Scottish businessman who was formerly the chief executive officer of media company ITV plc, operator of the ITV television network covering most of the United Kingdom.
After a career at Saatc ...
was appointed chairman.
In October 2020, Kantar announced the appointment of Alexis Nasard as chief executive officer, effective 30 December 2020. Nasard subsequently stepped down as CEO of Kantar on 27 April 2021.
In July 2021, Chris Jansen was appointed to replace Alexis Nasard as CEO, effective 1 November 2021.
Operations
Kantar has offices in 90 markets, including the UK & Ireland, North America, India, Spain, France, Italy, China and Brazil. Their global headquarters are in
London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
. In April 2019, Kantar unified all its legacy brands, such as Kantar TNS, Kantar Millward Brown, Kantar Media and Kantar Worldpanel.
Kantar Insights
By 2019, Kantar merged the operations of IMRB, Millward Brown and TNS, and Kantar's parent company WPP merged its media and advertising subsidiary GroupM with Kantar to form a global Insights division. Following similar exercises across the globe, Kantar reduced the sub brands from 18 to 9 by 2019.
Kantar Media
Kantar Media (now Kantar's Media division) analyses of print, radio, TV, internet, cinema, mobile, social and outdoor media. Kantar Media was formed from WPP Group's acquisition of TNS Media and KMR Group in 2010. In 2014, Kantar Media acquired a majority stake in the issued share capital of Precise Media Group in a £70 Million deal. In the same year, Kantar Media acquired IBOPE Media, the main TV audience and ad investment measurement company in Brazil. Kantar Media has within it organizational subsidiaries, such as Kantar Media North America, which are legal corporate entities in their own right.
In January 2022,
Symphony Technology Group
STG Partners, LLC (STG) is an American private equity firm and based in Menlo Park, California. Its predecessor, Symphony Technology Group ("Symphony") was founded in 2002Dorbian, Iris (July 1, 2024) STG Rising: Hailing the Newcomer on the 100. ...
acquired Kantar Reputation Intelligence, a media monitoring and analysis subsidiary of Kantar. The deal was finalized on Dec 31, 2021 and the merged company will operate under the name Onclusive.
In October 2022, Kantar reorganized to create a combined Creative & Media Solutions and appointed Steven Silvers to lead the newly created division.
In June 2023, Kantar sold its Media Healthcare Research (KMHR) to M3 Global Research.
Kantar Worldpanel
Kantar Worldpanel
Kantar Worldpanel (formerly TNS Worldpanel) is an international company dealing in consumer knowledge and insights based on continuous consumer panels. Kantar Worldpanel is a part of the London headquartered market research company Kantar Group.
...
(formerly TNS Worldpanel) runs continuous consumer panels and specializes in shopper behavior. The Worldpanel division measures and advises on consumer and shopper behaviour, offering insight-based consulting on clients' marketing and business strategies.
Kantar Profiles
Kantar Profiles (formerly Lightspeed) was founded in 2000 and is headquartered in
Warren, New Jersey
Warren Township is a township in Somerset County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The township is a bedroom suburb of New York City in the much larger New York metropolitan area, located within the Raritan Valley region. As of the 2020 Unite ...
, United States. It provides online
market research
Market research is an organized effort to gather information about target markets and customers. It involves understanding who they are and what they need. It is an important component of business strategy and a major factor in maintaining com ...
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
Finance refers to monetary resources and to the study and Academic discipline, discipline of money, currency, assets and Liability (financial accounting), liabilities. As a subject of study, is a field of Business administration, Business Admin ...
services,
health care
Health care, or healthcare, is the improvement or maintenance of health via the preventive healthcare, prevention, diagnosis, therapy, treatment, wikt:amelioration, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other disability, physic ...
,
business-to-business
Business-to-business (B2B or, in some countries, BtoB) refers to trade and commercial activity where a business sees other businesses as its customer base. This typically occurs when:
* A business sources materials for its production process for ...
, automotive, family and more. Kantar Profiles also provides custom panels to address specific client needs. In 2007, it conducted over 20 million online surveys for clients.
In 2019, Kantar brought its global panels and sample offer together into a new respondent network, Kantar Profiles Network. In 2023 as a part of its Health assets sale to M3 Global Research, Kantar also sold Kantar Profiles –Health division.
Former Brands
Kantar IMRB
Kantar IMRB (formerly "IMRB International" and "Indian Market Research Bureau") is a multi-country
market research
Market research is an organized effort to gather information about target markets and customers. It involves understanding who they are and what they need. It is an important component of business strategy and a major factor in maintaining com ...
, survey and business consultancy firm established in 1970 that offers a range of syndicated data and customized research services. With over 1200 employees, IMRB is one of the largest providers of market research in India in an industry estimated to be worth a minimum of $187 million. As the oldest extant market research company in India, IMRB has been responsible for establishing the first and only household panel, the first television
audience measurement
Audience measurement calculates how many people are in an audience, usually in relation to radio listenership and television viewership, but also in relation to newspaper and magazine readership and, increasingly, web traffic. The term is someti ...
system and the first radio panel in the country. IMRB International's specialized areas are consumer markets, industrial marketing, business-to-
business marketing
Business marketing is a marketing practice of individuals or organizations (including commercial businesses, governments, and institutions). It allows them to sell products or services to other companies or organizations, who either resell them, ...
,
social marketing
Social marketing is a marketing approach which focuses on influencing behavior with the primary goal of achieving the "common good". It utilizes the elements of commercial marketing and applies them to social concepts. However, to see social ...
and rural marketing.
Kantar Millward Brown
Millward Brown was founded in Leamington Spa, England in 1973 and acquired by WPP Group in 1990. In 2004, WPP backed Millward Brown acquired strategic marketing research and consulting firm, MaPS - Marketing and Planning Systems based at Boston In 2015, the experts from MaPS were moved to Millward Brown Analytics. Kantar Millward Brown, now part of Kantar's Insights Division, is a global research agency specialising in advertising, marketing communications, media and brand equity research. Kantar Millward Brown works across a range of industries and categories, and has a number of specialist practices.
Kantar TNS
In 2008, Kantar TNS (Taylor Nelson Sofres) was acquired by WPP and included in Kantar. In February 2009, Kantar merged TNS and
Research International
Research International was a British-based international marketing research company, created in 1962 as a daughter company of Unilever and originally known as Research Bureau Limited, RBL.
Kantar Added Value
In October 2004, three Kantar companies – Added Value, Icon Brand Navigation and Diagnostic Research – combined under the "Added Value" name. Kantar Added Value focused on brand marketing, consumer insight, innovation and communications optimisation.
Kantar Futures
Kantar Futures offered subscription services and consulting regarding future trends. Formerly known as The Futures Company, Kantar Futures was formed through the integration of The Henley Centre, HeadlightVision, Yankelovich and TRU.
Kantar Vermeer
In 2014, Millward Brown acquired EffectiveBrands Holding B.V., a marketing strategy consulting firm headquartered in Amsterdam. Millward Brown merged EffectiveBrands with Millward Brown Optimor, its strategy consulting unit, to form Millward Brown Vermeer.
Kantar Health
Kantar Health
Cerner Enviza is an American healthcare company that provides data, analytics, and research to the life sciences industry, with a particular focus on oncology and rare diseases.
Kantar Health was acquired by Bain Capital in 2019, which sold it ...
(now Kantar's Health Division) provides data, analytics, and research to the life sciences industry. As of December 2020, Cerner announced that it will acquire Kantar Health, acquisition is expected to close in the first half of 2021. On 1 April 2021 Cerner completed the acquisition of Kantar's Health Division and has re-branded to Cerner Enviza.
Kantar Public
Kantar Public conducts research and evaluations and advises governments, the public sector,
NGOs
A non-governmental organization (NGO) is an independent, typically nonprofit organization that operates outside government control, though it may get a significant percentage of its funding from government or corporate sources. NGOs often focus ...
and NFPs on the delivery of public policy, programmes, services and communications to the public. In May 2022, Kantar announced the sale of Kantar Public businesses to private equity firm Trilantic Europe. From 9 November 2023, Kantar Public became known as
Verian
Trilantic Capital Partners is a global private equity firm focused on control and significant minority investments across a range of industries in North America and Europe managed by Trilantic North America and Trilantic Europe. The firm special ...
.
Acquisitions
British Market Research Bureau Limited – BMRB, which was established in 1933, London, were acquired by the group in 2009 and merged into Kantar Public in 2016. The subsidiary TGI – Target Group Index of BMRB, which was established in 1969, was split and merged into the Kantar Media brand in 2009.
In December 2019, the Kantar Group acquired the market research company Colmar Brunton Australia as part of its acquisition of WPPAUNZ's Data Investment Management division. In February 2020, Colmar Brunton in Australia was fully integrated into Kantar, with the Colmar Brunton brand being retired in Australia. The following year, Kantar acquired Colmar Brunton's New Zealand parent company.
In July 2021, Kantar completed the acquisition of its U.S. based rival Numerator (valued at $1.5 Billion) from
Vista Equity Partners
Vista Equity Partners Management, LLC is an American private equity firm that invests in software, data, and technology-enabled businesses. It is one of the largest private equity firms in the world, managing over $100 billion in assets. Vista Eq ...
, aiming to strengthen its Worldpanel and Advertising Intelligence divisions with US and Canada in focus. The terms of deal were not disclosed.
In January 2022, Kantar announced it had acquired MindIT, a spin-out from the
University of Bologna
The University of Bologna (, abbreviated Unibo) is a Public university, public research university in Bologna, Italy. Teaching began around 1088, with the university becoming organised as guilds of students () by the late 12th century. It is the ...
that specializes in machine-learning algorithms and AI.
In April 2022, Kantar announced it had acquired the
Copenhagen
Copenhagen ( ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a population of 1.4 million in the Urban area of Copenhagen, urban area. The city is situated on the islands of Zealand and Amager, separated from Malmö, Sweden, by the ...
-based marketing measurement and optimization company, Blackwood Seven.
In May 2022, Kantar announced it had acquired Qmee. In August 2022, Kantar announced the acquisition of StepUp RGM to strengthen its existing XTEL division, revenue management solutions provider.
In Jan 2023, Kantar announced the acquisition of Kauza to augment its Worldpanel in the Nordics.
Subsidiaries
Vivvix
In Jan 2023, Kantar Group announced the creation of a new group company, Vivvix by unifying the advertising intelligence businesses of Kantar and Numerator. The independent company was led by former Nielsen CRO Andrew Feigenson as CEO.
In Nov 2023, Vivvix was acquired by ad sales intelligence firm MediaRadar led by CEO Todd Krizelman.