WPP's Kantar combines founding properties into single consultancy
Kantar, WPP’s data investment management arm, has announced the launch of Kantar Consulting, a specialist sales and marketing consultancy designed to "switch on growth" for brand owners and retailers.
Kantar announced the launch of Kantar Consulting, run by Kantar Retail's Phil Smiley, to rival rise of business consultancies / Kantar
The new consultancy, set to rival the likes of Accenture, combined Kantar’s four founding brands to create this entity. The combined assets of these Kantar brands - Kantar Added Value, which covered brand positioning and cultural understanding; Kantar Retail, Kantar’s retail and e-commerce discipline; Kantar Vermeer, which focused on marketing ROI; and Kantar Futures, focused on consumer foresight - have formed a silo-free consultancy that they said “is able both to develop strategies, execute against them right up to shelf-edge, and embed capabilities within client organisations.”
The entity picked Kantar Retail global chief executive Phil Smiley and has launched with about 1,000 analysts, thought leaders, software developers and expert consultants. At launch, Kantar Consulting’s clientele includes major multinational brands such as Unilever, Pepsi, Tata, Bayer, Amazon, Walmart and major regional clients such as JBS, Pladis, Alibaba and RBS. Its market leading assets include PoweRanking, RetaiI IQ, RichMix, XTEL, VR Infinity, GrowthFinder, Global Monitor and the ‘Marketing, Insights and Purpose 2020’ series.
Smiley commented: “We live in a new era of consumption. Growth can no longer be assumed, yet there are more, not fewer, opportunities to build breakout brands and new lines of business. Future growth exists, but beyond the comfort zone of most organisations; it is more granular, less siloed and more opportunistic.”
Smiley continued: “We will rewrite the rules of demand and the conventions of marketing and sales. Our Whole Demand philosophy will help clients go beyond strategy to generate and convert demand and create long-lasting, sustainable growth.”
Eric Salama, chief executive of parent company Kantar, added: “We are creating Kantar Consulting to fulfill our ambition of bringing a deeper, more rounded consulting offer to our clients. Alone and in combination with other capabilities, Kantar Consulting will be a core part of Kantar and WPP’s success in the future.”
WPP has long been dismissive of the ambitions of Deloitte and Accenture, and the launch of Kantar Consulting may halt the momentum of the business firms' advertising goals.