Kantar Launches New Big Data Practice

Kantar has launched a new practice, Dx Analytics, focused on the analysis of unstructured data to provide clients with deeper insight, and help them measure and boost their digital marketing performance.

Dx will analyse large datasets such as search engine results, social media conversations and online reviews, complementing its survey offering and strengthening its solutions in search and social research. The group says it has been working for the last year to scale up the boutique model developed by Mavens of London, a digital marketing and analytics consultancy it acquired in March 2020 - its first buy since the 2019 takeover by private equity firm Bain Capital.

Kantar says the launch reflects a fundamental shift in the importance of digital engagement since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, and that three 'broad questions' relating to this will form the pillars of the new practice:

• Future Proofing: how to use digital data to identify, evaluate, rank and predict trends for any given category
• Brand Blueprint - how to better understand consumer behaviour, identify audiences, and make the most of them in the online space, and
• Digital Mastery - how to measure digital marketing effectiveness and improve the performance of online assets.

Daniel Singer, former CEO of Mavens and now MD, Analytics UK&I at Kantar, said: 'If we ever wanted to demonstrate why a digital engagement strategy is so important, the pandemic gives us an immediate and first-hand example. By combining Mavens' deep digital expertise and Kantar's robust understanding of brands and people, we can access a range of new insights that will help our clients steer their way through this fast-changing landscape'.

Web site: www.kantar.com .