TNS MI Buy Brings Social Media Expertise

TNS Media Intelligence (TNS MI) has acquired market influence analytics company Cymfony, giving the research giant access to expertise in tracking and analysing the intersection of traditional and social media, such as blogs and social networks.

The buy reflects the growing influence of social and consumer generated media. Recent research by Compete, Inc. suggests that two-thirds of online consumers visit social networking sites and that social media has a strong influence on consumer purchases, especially in sectors like travel and vehicle purchase. TNS MI will combine Cymfony's information on this new sector with its own extensive suite of advertising intelligence products.

Cymfony, founded in 1996, uses a combination of sophisticated text mining technology and expert human interpretation to monitor, measure and analyse consumer-generated and traditional media. It is based in the greater Boston Area. Cymfony staff will join the TNS Media Intelligence organisation, but remain at their present location. The new unit will be known as TNS Media Intelligence / Cymfony.

TNS MI's US President and CEO Steven Fredericks says the 'dramatic transformation' from analog to digital platforms has created 'a tremendous challenge and opportunity' to provide broad ranging insight. Worldwide President and CEO Jean-Michel Portier says Cymfony's products and expertise have 'the potential to be used in other TNS business units across our network.'

Cymfony CEO Andrew Bernstein says the merger will 'connect the dots between all media' and comments: 'As a part of TNS MI, Cymfony gains tremendous advantages to extend our position as a leader by rapidly growing our client base, expanding our offerings and jointly creating and delivering new products... As marketers increase their activities in the emerging social media channel, they will have an integrated partner to turn to.'

Cymfony's Orchestra product led its category in Forrester Research's 2006 Brand Monitoring report (September 2006). Forrester described it as having 'the strongest overall functionality, a robust user interface, and the most extensive coverage of data sources in the brand monitoring market.'

TNS MI's tracking technologies collect advertising expenditure and occurrence data for more than 2.4 million brands across 20 media in North America. Its US headquarters are in New York City and the division is online at www.tns-mi.com . Cymfony is online at www.cymfony.com .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.

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