MxMIndia

Tag: Eric Salama

  • Investment by Bain Capital Private Equity values Kantar at $4.0bn; WPP leverage target to be met a year ahead of plan; £1.0bn shareholder return planned

    WPP sells 60 per cent stake in Kantar to Bain Capital

    By A Correspondent

     

    WPP has entered into an agreement to sell 60 per cent of Kantar, its global data, research, consulting and analytics business, to private equity major Bain Capital. The proposed transaction values the whole of Kantar at a headline enterprise value of $4.0bn.

     

    The WPP Board believes that the proposed transaction will allow Kantar to strengthen its industry-leading position through the combined expertise and resources of Bain Capital and WPP. It also crystallises significant value for WPP’s shareholders, while giving them continued exposure to an attractive business with the potential for further value realisation in the future.

     

    The transaction values 100 per cent of Kantar at $4bn. The equity value after expected completion adjustments is $3.7bn. After transaction costs, tax and WPP’s continuing investment of $0.4bn to own 40 per cent of the equity in Kantar, net cash proceeds to WPP are expected to be $3.1bn. The consideration is payable in cash. WPP may receive additional consideration over the next three years in respect of certain contingent liabilities, in the event that such liabilities are lower than estimated. Additionally, WPP may receive certain other payments during the life of its partnership with Bain Capital.

     

    Said Mark Read, Chief Executive Officer, WPP: “Kantar is a great business and we look forward to working with Bain Capital to unlock its full potential. As a strategic partner and shareholder in Kantar, WPP will continue to benefit from its future growth while our clients continue to benefit from its services and capabilities. I would like to thank Eric Salama, his team and everyone at Kantar for their tremendous contribution to WPP – a contribution that will continue as we develop the business together. This transaction creates value for WPP shareholders and further simplifies our company. With a much stronger balance sheet and a return of approximately 8 per cent of our current market value to shareholders planned, we are making good progress with our transformation.”

     

    Added Luca Bassi, a Managing Director at Bain Capital Private Equity: “Kantar is a market leader in many areas and we are excited to be partnering with its management team and WPP to build on this remarkable platform for growth. We see many opportunities for expansion and will invest in technology to expand the company’s capabilities and reinforce its global leading position.”

     

    Said Eric Salama, CEO, Kantar: “Our new ownership structure presents a great opportunity for Kantar, our employees and our clients. In Bain Capital we have a partner who shares our ambition, brings relevant expertise and – with WPP – can help us accelerate our growth and impact for clients. We are focused on delivering ‘human understanding at scale and speed’ and the ‘best of Kantar’ more consistently. We will do so by investing more in talent and by becoming a more technology-driven solutions provider.”

     

     

  • The predictions report outlines 12 key trends that will transform the next year in media

    AI & Voice will transform media landscape: Kantar study

    By A Correspondent

     

    Kantar has released its perspective of the major trends that will shape the media landscape for brand owners, agencies and media platforms in 2019. The predictions report outlines 12 key trends that will transform the next year in media. Exploring advances from augmented reality, through gender portrayal to vertical video the 12 predictions are:

    – Advanced Analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) will resolve the integrated online/offline return on marketing investment dilemma.

    – Voice technology will breakthrough in creative planning and the marketing mix.

    – Chinese leadership in social media and social media analytics will be ‘fast-followed’ by the West.

    – The emergence of the ‘branded experience network’ will transform media management in to ‘internet of everything’ management.

    – Brands will start to take the portrayal of women in advertising seriously.

    – Amazon will emerge from the advertising world ‘shadows’ to make the duopoly an triopoly.

    – Vertical video will lead the way in creativity.

    – The big screen will make a comeback, bigger and better than before.

    – Attitudinal insights combined with predictive modelling will make programmatic buying more agile and accurate.

    – Influencer marketing strategies will pivot to prioritise credibility ahead of reach.

    – GDPR compliance will drive more sophistication in brand data strategies.

    – Augmented Reality (AR) will start to shape both the consumer journey and customer experience.

     

    Said Eric Salama, CEO, Kantar: “Constant innovation and change in the media landscape continues, but I think the speed of adoption of technologies like artificial intelligence will be surprising. Connected intelligence in all its forms will start to dominate the narrative, as well as new opportunities like voice. How we measure media and its effectiveness is evolving quickly, and the industry needs to work together so our clients can understand the impact of their investments. There has never been a more exciting time in marketing.”

     

     

  • Integrating analytical capabilities from across the company, Kantar Analytics Practice will combine the ​an understanding of consumers with a​n ​analytics toolkit

    Kantar​ ​& GroupM combine analytics teams to launch Kantar Analytics Practice

    By A Correspondent​

     

    Kantar, WPP’s data investment management division, ​has announced the launch of a new global analytics practice that unlocks deeper insights to fuel business growth.​ ​Integrating analytical capabilities from across the company, Kantar Analytics Practice will combine the ​an understanding of consumers with a​n ​analytics toolkit. In India, WPP has combined the Analytics teams from Kantar and GroupM to form one combined practice.

     

    Kantar Analytics Practice ​will ​offer capabilities across five areas of expertise:

    :: Brand and Media ROI: Maximising value creation from brand and media investments, by balancing short-term sales performance with long-term brand valuation and profitability.

     

    :: Customer Analytics: Making the right operational and strategic investment decisions in customer experience and loyalty marketing, to maximise the value of each and every customer relationship.

     

    :: Segmentation and Activation: Targeting your highest potential customers and prospects with personalised content, to drive profitable growth with maximum efficiency.

     

    :: Innovation Analytics: Optimising your customer-led innovation lifecycle for long-term growth, from spotting new trends before your competitors, to optimising the profitability of your product launches.

     

    :: Retail and Shopper Analytics: Maximising the commercial return from your investments in sales, retail and e-commerce via optimising decision-making in channel choice, assortment, promotions and pricing.

     

    Discussing the launch, Eric Salama, CEO Kantar, ​said:​ ​“Less than half (44%) of advertisers believe they have the right, actionable data. Clients feel data rich but insights poor and impact short. Kantar is unique in having the most complete view of consumers across the entire demand cycle: the way they live, feel, shop, watch and post. Combining our insights with data from across any client’s organisation can unlock deeper insights that fuel growth. “

     

    ​Added CVL Srinivas, Country Manager WPP India & CEO GroupM South Asia​: “The new practice addresses the clients’ ask for data driven transformation for better ROI from marketing investments in the digital era. GroupM and Kantar have been working closely together in India, co-creating services for our clients. The launch of the Kantar Analytics practice is another step in this direction and demonstrates the ability of our group to come together to provide enhanced value for clients”.

     

    ​Said ​Preeti Reddy, CEO Kantar South Asia​: ​The practice formalises the connected journey with GroupM in bringing data driven products to the markets like Campaign Watch (for during campaign ROI management) and consulting services on TV audience measurement data. Proprietary assets like SAAS platform ‘Athena’(built in India) will offer marketers a predictive and near real time opportunity to add up to 20% improvement in ROI from marketing investments including those in e-commerce.And, in Sunder Muthuraman, who will take over as CEO APAC & Global Chief Client Officer, we have a great leader for the practice’.

     

     

  • Millward Brown, IMRB, and TNS will now become Kantar Millward Brown, Kantar IMRB, and Kantar TNS respectively

    Kantar unveils new corporate identity & management structure

    By A Correspondent

     

    WPP-owned data, insights and consultancy network Kantar has announced the launch of a new corporate identity- for the parent brand and its 12-strong family of operating brands- designed to create a unified look-and-feel across the whole business. Operating brands not previously Kantar-branded will now take a Kantar prefix and a new, common typeface.  For example: Millward Brown, IMRB, and TNS will now become Kantar Millward Brown, Kantar IMRB, and Kantar TNS.

     

    Kantar’s new identity reflects and externalises an on-going change programme that started in January. The programme includes greater collaboration between operating brands and the creation of a new insights group through much closer alignment of the company’s custom brands. In addition, global operations capabilities have been brought together into a single entity and the company is moving towards more aligned shared services in HR, finance and IT. The company will shortly be adding to the portfolio of expert brands with the launch of Kantar Public, uniting its global expertise in governmental and public policy work; and Kantar Consulting, which will draw expertise from several of our brands to provide a full and broader range of marketing and sales consulting solutions and capabilities to our clients.

     

    Commented Kantar CEO Eric Salama: “The rebranding is a tangible, visible expression of our desire to present clients with more easily-navigable and connected solutions that bring together the best of Kantar’s expertise,” adding: “We believe our clients and partners have started to experience the benefit of this approach – in more rounded, detailed and holistic research and recommendations. And it is helpful that for the first time we really look like a single family of brands serving a common purpose.”

     

    Along with the rebranding, Kantar is introducing a new tagline, “Inspiration for an extraordinary world”, drawn from its new corporate purpose statement, “To inspire our clients, our people and society to create and flourish in an extraordinary world.”

     

    Said Preeti Reddy, CEO, South Asia – Insights, on the rebranding: “Clients have consistently asked us to be more collaborative in the way we work with them; faster and more agile at a local and global level. They want the ‘best of Kantar’ on a consistent basis, not just on occasions. Earlier this year, we put in place a whole new way of working to remove siloed thinking and barriers between the Kantar companies to collaboration for client benefits. In South Asia, we will be able to bring together the thought leadership of three powerful brands and harness the power for our clients. This combination brings with it an ability to converge thoughts when required to solve a problem as well as an ability to diverge solutions when clients need choice. That is a unique mix and in, my view, will make Kantar an even more dominant force in South Asia.

     

    The new identity, developed by WPP branding firm The Partners, will be rolled out across all external and internal communications channels in the coming months.

  • The solution will enable GroupM agencies to more efficiently develop precise and targeted media plans so that advertisers can more effectively reach their audiences, measure outcomes and seize competitive advantage

    GroupM launches ‘Live Panel’ for targeted media plans

    By A Correspondent

    Media services conglomerate Group M has announced the launch of Live Panel, a new consumer and media insight solution enabling its agencies to more efficiently develop precise and targeted media plans so advertisers can more effectively reach their audiences, measure outcomes and seize competitive advantage.

    With seamless access to a global panel of more than 5.5 million consumers in 30 markets, the solution will offer actionable insights needed to inform media decisions for both global and local campaigns. The new platform connects with multiple data sources across WPP group firm Kantar Media’s data and research assets and integrates with the planning tools of GroupM’s media agencies (Mindshare, MEC, MediaCom, Maxus and Motivator) to accelerate insights to planning to implementation. In India, Live Panel is spearheaded by Tushar Vyas, Chief Strategy Office, GroupM South Asia.

    “In an era of continually evolving consumer behaviours and media preferences across a wider array of channels, marketers who have the most intelligenceare at a distinct advantage, and our unique knowledge of audiences worldwide sets us apart in the industry,” said Irwin Gotlieb, Chairman, GroupM Global. “Leveraging WPP’s data and analytics investments, we know more about media use and consumption behaviors than anyone else. Live Panel operationalises this knowledge to turn consumers into audiences and audiences into customers more nimbly and efficiently for our clients’ advantage.”

    “GroupM’s use of our global Lightspeed consumer panels and the integration of a number of our unique data sources – BrandZ, TGI, Connected Life and Kantar Worldpanel ComTech – into Love Panel fully realises the power of Kantar’s insights capabilities by embedding them into agencies’ media investment management tools,” said Eric Salama, CEO of Kantar.  “This continues Kantar’s strategy of combining survey, panel and census data for the benefit of marketers by connecting us to the client rosters of the world’s largest media investment group.” Kantar incidentally also runs IMRB in India as well as a jv with Nielsen in TAM.

    Live Panel is launching with an extensive global hub survey generating media knowledge on 30 media and 40 touchpoints including consumers in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States.

     

  • As the IMRB International President retires today, industry majors on how the values of IMRB are the values of Thomas

    Thomas Pulliyel, Mr IMRB

     

    Thomas Pulliyel, long-time President of IMRB International, retires today (August 31). The IIM Calcutta graduate began his career with the Operations Research Group and first joined IMRB in 1981 as Manager for Overseas Projects, and a decade later, became Senior Vice President. In 1992, he moved out to Research International India as Country Manger, but was back at IMRB in September 2000 for a second stint. Friends, colleagues and even business rivals fondly remember the ‘strong and silent’ Pulliyel, and how he took the organisation to new heights.

     

    Dorab Sopariwala

    The Al-Futtaim group had asked IMRB to set up a market research unit for them. Thomas spent a year there and I spent the first and the last month. So that’s how I came to know Thomas; you needed to get to know him a bit, before he would open up to you. We were trying to see how we would run this company, and it was only through extensive discussions, that we could work. He would come back in the evening and work till eight pm. I don’t know how we managed for food and such. — Dorab Sopariwala, Consultant and Advisor to NDTV

     

     

    Sunil Karve

    I could trust Thomas very much. He is very straight and there are no lies or false claims with him. He helps you along even if you make mistakes, and is always there to support you. When he started Research International in 1992, nobody knew about it. It was a tough and challenging task for him at the time because there was IMRB and MARG, which were the biggies out there, along with MRS and others. I think that he built up an extremely good team, and the work ethics and output were the main reasons for the success of RI. — Sunil Karve, Partner at Autumn Leaves, Innovation and LLP, Varenyam Consulting

     

    Partha Rakshit

    I still remember the first Board meeting I had with Thomas. Everybody says that he is a man of few words. I found that this was, indeed, his way, but he could also be very firm. I can tell you that if Thomas has got something into his head, you cannot convince him to change his mind. It’s quite difficult to do that. But I think he was a great partner to work with. I think we got on pretty well, and I think of the time when even though we were fierce competitors on the outside, we had a fantastic relationship. — Partha Rakshit, Proprietor, Partha Rakshit Associates, and former MD for South Asia, The Nielsen Company

     

    Colvyn Harris

    I think the values of IMRB are the values of Thomas. When you think of Thomas, he is a strong, silent type of person. The leadership values of IMRB and the way Thomas conducted himself for the IMRB company, is what has kept the company where it currently is. — Colvyn Harris, Executive Director of Global Growth and Client Development at J Walter Thompson Company??

     

     

     

     

    Eric Salama

    Thomas has given all the freedom to his people to make their own decisions and even guided some of them over the years. He was always incredibly protective of IMRB – the company, the brand and the people within. He had a paternal instinct towards people and is incredibly patient. Incredibly also, he took both failure and success in his stride. I knew Thomas when he was at Research International, and he has been the heart of an industry that has grown [around him]. I can think of so many clients, so many competitors and so many colleagues who have worked for IMRB at one stage or another. As a talent magnet and a talent machine, IMRB has produced some of the most special people in the industry. Not just one or two people, but at scale, and Thomas has been at the heart of all that. — Eric Salama, CEO of Kantar Media

     

    Preeti Reddy

    It is always easier to take over a company which is not making money; where everybody hates the boss and hate each other. Fortunately, we are a growing company where everybody loves Thomas and he is a legend, so you can understand how much harder Thomas has made it [to hate the boss]. I would say that it is a huge legacy. Thomas has nurtured it for 15 years, but it is a 45-year legacy. IMRB has defined the industry and you have heard everybody talk about that. In a sense, it is actually giving the industry credibility. So it is a privilege to carry that legacy forward. I think that he epitomises the values of IMRB and, again, many people have said that. I think IMRB is what Thomas is, and he has been a mentor to not just me, but so many people. I’m hoping he will continue to be somebody whom we can turn to, in good times and bad, in the years to come. — Preeti Reddy, SVP & President-designate, IMRB International

     

    This story first appeared in dna of brands dated August 31

     

  • BARC India and TAM India will form a meter management company to supply raw data to BARC India

    Flashed yesterday: BARC to turn sole TV aud measurement co with TAM meters in tow

     

    By A Correspondent

    BARC India, the joint industry body formed by broadcasters, advertisers and advertising agencies will acquire the Peoplemeter boxes of TAM India, the television audience measurement joint venture between Kantar Media and Nielsen Kantar. This was announced with the formation of a new meter management company which will run the meter operations and will supply raw data to BARC India. Thus the BARC data will be the sole audience measurement currency in India.

    It may be noted that MxMIndia was the first report that BARC was in discussions for the buying out of TAM. Well, the tie-up is not exactly the same, but we will wait to see what happens.

    Commenting on the development, Punit Goenka, Chairman of BARC India said, “This partnership is a big step forward and in this era of cooperation, we welcome this move forward as a joint industry body. The technology and methodological prowess of BARC, combined with the extra meters and the field force will definitely help the industry progress.”

    “This new venture represents our organization’s commitment to providing precise and stable data around the world, and draws strengths from both BARC India and TAM India,” commented Steve Hasker, Global President, Nielsen. “We look forward to the great coverage and representation this new partnership will deliver.”

    Eric Salama, CEO of Kantar said: “We are happy to cooperate with BARC India to be able to provide clarity and a large single sample for the industry and to keep India as a key market for us.”

    The meter company will have the meter assets and panel management operations of the present BARC Indiaand TAM India panels,which will be jointly owned by BARC India, Nielsen and Kantar with management control resting with BARC India.  To start with, the company will have 34,000 meterscovering all of India,and will supply raw data to BARC, which will use its own statistical processes and sampling design.The details of the formation and roll out of this new company will be shared in the coming weeks.

    TAM India will continue to provide its non-TV ratings services to the market, notably AdEx – Advertising Expenditure for TV, Print, Radio, RAM – Radio Audience Measurement, Eikona – PR Audit, TAM Sports Measurement and S-Group Consulting.

     

  • Kantar Media CEO Eric Salama tweeted us saying that we are being used by vested interests or our sources are ill-informed. MxMIndia stands by the story put out yesterday saying that BARC and TAM were in talks for a possible buy-out of TAM

    Eric Salama slams MxM report. Says no selling TAM to BARC. MxMIndia stands by story

    By A Correspondent

     

    Kantar Media CEO Eric Salama tweeted us back Thursday evening saying: “Whoever/wherever your sources, they are ill-informed or using you to pursue another agenda. There are no discussions to sell TAM to BARC.”

     

    This followed an earlier tweet where he said: “Happy to cooperate with BARC to improve ratings but no discussions for us to sell TAM to BARC.”

     

    This was reacting to our tweeting the link to the story to Mr Salama and other industrypersons.  We responded to this tweet by saying: “No discussions on selling TAM to BARC? That’s not what some WPP folks here are saying. In fact I’ve heard you are the stumbling block.”

     

    We are normally not so direct or rude, but in this case, we’ve heard from more than one source – on the WPP and the industry side – that the counter-offer made by the Kantar CEO was unacceptable and hence a potential deal-breaker. In fact, some industry sources even told MxMIndia in confidence, that it was because of some statements made by someone senior at WPP (suggesting Mr Salama, but not confirming it) that the talks with Kantar fell through in the early days of the BARC contract finalisation.

     

    One senior industryperson associated with BARC was even told that BARC will not be able to run its business without the intervention of Kantar. In fact the senior industryperson feared the future of his career because the offensive was pretty strong, he told us.

     

    Meanwhile, MxMIndia strongly stands by the story it published yesterday. The fact of the matter that a deal is being looked at. This could also mean that TAM will publish its ratings every week and hand over the data to BARC which will then use it for its purpose or club it with its panel size and present to its consumers.