Market Research Consolidation in 2019

I recently wrote a LinkedIn post about the recent consolidation of the marketing research industry. I know many don’t follow the news every day, so I thought I would write a quick summary of some of the bigger news this year.  

In the online sample space, Dynata has been driving most of the news.  In January they announced the rebranding of SSI and Research Now to form Dynata. (Read the article here)

Also in January, they announced the acquisition of Reimagine Holdings, which includes Critical Mix (adding their panels to the Dynata assets) and PopResearch, an automated brand and communications platform.  This acquisition closed in February. (Read the article here)

In June, Dynata announced that they are adding all of their panel assets onto one integrated DIY platform called Dynata Marketplace.  The various assets under Dynata including SSI, Research Now, Samplify, and Critical Mix are now all available on one platform. (Read the article here)

Additionally, it was recently announced that Dynata is up for sale for over $3 billion. (Read the article here)

The biggest overall industry news has been the sale of Kantar, which had been on the market for nearly a year.  Bain Capital announced in July the acquisition of 60% of Kantar for ~$3 billion after a lengthy bidding process.  In the past year, WPP has now sold off 16 companies and raised quite a bit of capital. It also completed mergers between Wunderman and J Walter Thompson and VML and Young & Rubicam. (Read the article here)

In May, Prodege announced the acquisition of CotterWeb, adding InBoxDollars to its membership base – beyond 100 million overall. (Read the article here)

While the first half of the year has been eventful, look for even more, perhaps even bigger news in the second half of the year as Nielsen is up for sale; potentially for up to $10 billion (read about it here), the possible Dynata sale, possible Kantar acquisitions with its new cash, and other possible counter-moves from Ipsos, GfK and others along with expected further sample consolidation.

What’s the impact of this? There seems to be more investment now than ever before and marketing research has gone through these types of consolidations forever it seems and this is just the next round.  I have many thoughts from the sample side and its impact on data that I’ll write separately. Stay tuned.

(Updated 8/1) It was announced that Cint acquired P2Sample, one of the largest and most innovative global sample providers. From the article linked below “Cint says the buy gives it the benefit of P2Sample’s more than 200 supplier relationships; while integrating the technologies will give it programmatic access to sample demand and supply, over 100 API integrations, and advanced AI-based fraud detection capabilities.” You can read the full story here.