Kantar, the world’s leading data, insights and consulting company, announces today the acquisition of Mavens of London, the data-led, digital marketing and analytics consultancy. Founded in 2009, Mavens help marketers understand trends, patterns and needs and then optimise the performance of their digital environments, SEO, search and content strategies to address them. The Mavens team complements the offer within Kantar’s Analytics Practice, which combines Kantar’s unique understanding of people with Artificial and Human intelligence to give businesses the confidence to make bold and complex decisions.
Commenting on the acquisition, Kantar’s first since spinning out of WPP, Richard Ingleton, Global CEO of Kantar’s Insights division said, “On becoming independent, we signalled our intent to accelerate our investment strategy. Today’s acquisition of Mavens illustrates that intent and the ambition we have for our business and clients. Our Analytics Practice is a key growth driver for Kantar, as clients turn to us to help them unlock deeper insights about consumers and how they think, feel and act to fuel growth for their business. Mavens’ analytics consulting capabilities in particular are unique in their ability to combine data literacy, marketing strategy, commercial expertise, and technical delivery to offer solutions from strategy through to implementation.”
Discussing the acquisition, Darren Bhattachary, Co-CEO Of Kantar’s Insights division in the UK, said, “Mavens brings a fantastic and differentiated skill set in to Kantar that really complements and strengthens our analytics portfolio. Clients are focused on developing a detailed understanding of which digital investments and content have impact. In particular, the addition of its digital consulting capability and performance content and search analytics offers strengthen our existing analytics portfolio in social and marketing effectiveness. We are now truly unique in providing a holistic view of a brand’s ecosystem and can support clients across digital from strategy to activation.“
Daniel Singer, CEO of Mavens added, “Joining Kantar provides us with an opportunity to have an impact at scale. We know from the work we do with clients like Dove and Philips, that our smart combination of human and artificial intelligence delivers real return on their marketing investments. Kantar offers us the opportunity to integrate our AI and analytics capabilities with its world-class analytics team to build even more powerful tools and extend the impact we have to even more of the world’s leading consumer brands.”
Ciesco, the London-based sector specialist M&A firm with a focus on digital, media, marketing and technology, acted as exclusive advisors to Mavens Limited. Commercial terms have not been disclosed.