Kantar Group

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Kantar Group Ltd.

Type	Private limited company
Industry	Market research
Founded	1992 (as the Market Research, Insight and Consultancy division of WPP)
Headquarters	London, England, UK
Key people	Alexis Nasard (CEO)
Products	Market research Data investment management consultancy
Owner	Bain Capital (60%) WPP Group (40%)
Website	www.kantar.com

Kantar Group is a data analytics and brand consulting company, based in London, England. It was founded in 1992, and has approximately 30,000 employees in 100 countries working in various research disciplines, including social media monitoring, advertising effectiveness, consumer and shopper behavior, and public opinion. It has been majority owned by Bain Capital Private Equity since 2019, and was previously part of WPP.^[1] Major competitors include GfK, Nielsen, Ipsos and Accenture.

In April 2019, Kantar unified all its legacy brands,^[2] such as Kantar TNS, Kantar Millward Brown, Kantar Media and Kantar Worldpanel, into Kantar. Work conducted with clients in governments, the public sector, NGOs and NFPs, is led by Kantar Public, Kantar's specialist division which advises on the delivery of public policy, programmes, services and communications to the public. In July 2019, owner WPP sold a 60% stake of Kantar to Bain Capital Private Equity.^{[citation needed]} Kantar's valuation was about $4.0bn.

History[]

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.^[3] The subsidiarie TGI – Target Group Index of BMRB which was established in 1969 was split and merged into the Kantar Media brand in 2009.^[4]

On 24 October 2018 it was announced that the WPP board approved plans to sell Kantar Group.^[5]

In 2020, Ian Griffiths (former CFO and COO at ITV) was named Chief Financial Officer^[6] of Kantar, while Adam Crozier was appointed Chairman.^[7] In October 2020, Kantar announced the appointment of Alexis Nasard as Chief Executive Officer, effective 30 December 2020.

In July 2021, Chris Jansen was appointed to replace Alexis Nasard as CEO, effective 1 November 2021.^[8]

Office locations[]

Kantar has offices in 90 markets, including the UK & Ireland,^[9] North America,^[10] India, Spain,^[11] France, Italy, China and Brazil. Its global HQ is in London.

Former brands[]

Kantar Consulting[]

Kantar Consulting was formerly^[12] Kantar Vermeer, Kantar Added Value, Kantar Retail and Kantar Futures, and was a marketing and sales consultancy.

Kantar Added Value[]

In October 2004, three Kantar companies – Added Value, Icon Brand Navigation and Diagnostic Research – combined under the "Added Value" name.^[13] Kantar Added Value focused on brand marketing, consumer insight, innovation and communications optimisation.

Kantar Retail[]

Kantar Retail was headquartered in London and has over 400 employees and offices in 15 markets around the globe.

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.^[14]

Kantar Health[]

Kantar Health (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.^[15]

Kantar IMRB[]

Kantar IMRB (formerly "IMRB International" and "Indian Market Research Bureau") is a multi-country market research, 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 system and the first radio panel in the country.^{[citation needed]} IMRB International's specialised areas are consumer markets, industrial marketing, business-to-business marketing, social marketing and rural marketing.

Kantar Media[]

Kantar Media (now Kantar's Media division) offers a range of media insights and audience measurement services through the analysis of print, radio, TV, internet, cinema, mobile, social and outdoor media worldwide. Kantar Media was formed from WPP Group's acquisition of TNS Media and KMR Group in 2010. Kantar Media became Kantar's rebranded insight, media evaluation and audience measurement company.^[16] In 2014, Kantar Media acquired a majority stake in the issued share capital of Precise Media Group Holdings Limited ("Precise") in a £70m deal.^[17] In the same year, Kantar Media acquired IBOPE Media, the main TV audience and ad investment measurement company in Brazil.^[18] Kantar Media has within it organizational subsidiaries, such as Kantar Media North America, which are legal corporate entities in their own right.^[19]

Kantar Millward Brown[]

Kantar Millward Brown was founded in Warwick, England in 1973 and acquired by WPP Group in 1990. 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.^[20]

Kantar Worldpanel[]

Kantar Worldpanel runs continuous consumer panels and specializes in shopper behaviour.^{[21][citation needed]}

Lightspeed[]

Lightspeed was founded in 2000 and is headquartered in Warren, New Jersey, United States. The company operates in North America, Europe and Asia. It provides 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. Lightspeed also provides custom panels to address specific client needs. In 2007, it conducted over 20 million online surveys for clients.^{[citation needed]}

References[]