INSIGHTS WEBINAR

BrandTech: The next frontier for driving growth

Date: Thursday 1 December 2022 | Time: 16:00 CET (10:00 EDT)

Please join our webinar to learn more about the market dynamics outlined below, as well as M&A priorities and investment opportunities in the Insights sector. View page

A changing research landscape

The demand from businesses for customer-focused, fact-based decision-making is exploding worldwide, just when consumer behavior is changing ever more rapidly in response to major market events. And while understanding how to drive and support the brand experience during times of economic uncertainty is key to brand survival, the research landscape is shifting in fundamental ways.

Speakers

Hear these three Insights CEOs share their views about the fast-changing industry:

Kristof De Wulf Ghent, Belgium
Co-Founder and CEO, InSites Consulting

Kristof De Wulf is the co-founder and CEO of InSites Consulting, a new generation agency that is stretching the boundaries of market research, and helping global brands become locally relevant.

Jordi Ferrer Barcelona, Spain
Co-Founder and CEO, Zinklar

Jordi Ferrer is the founder and CEO of Zinklar, a consumer insights platform. Zinklar is a SaaS solution that is revolutionizing market research globally, by making high-quality consumer insights available to all kinds of brands and professionals, more efficiently and more often, in over 80 countries. More than 200 brands have adopted Zinklar to make customer-centric decisions, including Coca-Cola, Reckitt, Bayer, Panasonic, KFC, Hershey’s, Uber and Google. Jordi holds an MBA from IESE and a degree in economics from the UB (Barcelona University), and has studied management education at the London Business School.

Matt Kleinschmit Chicago, USA
Founder and CEO, Reach3 Insights

Matt Kleinschmit is the founder and CEO of Reach3 Insights, a modern research consultancy that develops mobile messaging-based, conversational insight solutions for today’s modern, agile enterprise. With over 25 years of hands-on consultative insight experience across a variety of industry sectors, Matt is a skilled and seasoned research innovator specializing in developing interdisciplinary strategic consulting teams and technology-accelerated insight solutions for global brands that are determined to win in today’s fast-paced marketplace. Prior to founding Reach3, Matt held senior leadership roles at Vision Critical and Ipsos, and was a presidential scholar at the University of Minnesota.

BrandTech

Rather than contracting work out to expensive external agencies, internal brand resources are handling more and more research tasks that support innovation through data-driven decisionmaking. Priority is being given to speed and rough ideas over precision and depth in order to stay within budget.

To support these trends, the insights industry is increasingly reliant upon…

the application of technology-enabled self-serve subscription platforms to support tactical work
listening to existing customer voices (via social media and enterprise feedback) to monitor experience
quick, agile, cost-effective techniques to support innovation and advertising/messaging

So today we see demand surging for high-quality data that can answer the question, “What is happening?”, as well as for strategic and predictive work to answer the question, “How do we compete in this new world?” But because client budgets are static or shrinking, automated self-serve market research platforms that cut the cost of data collection and insight creation have blossomed.

Consequently, market research automation platforms are freeing up budgets for full-service strategic work — the human work of BrandTech — to inform essential brand building and growth.

M&A in the Insights market has never been more active. Research-technology (ResTech) firms have emerged to support the agile, tactical needs of brands, and have received considerable industry investment. But automation’s limits have spawned a new and exciting segment that we call BrandTech, which combines self-serve ResTech with full-serve, insights-enabled consulting for faster, cheaper and highest-quality strategic decision-making for brand building. KEN SONENCLAR, INSIGHTS SPECIALIST, OAKLINS

Moderators

Ken Sonenclar New York, United States
Managing Director, Oaklins DeSilva+Phillips
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Elaine Riddell New York, United States
Managing Director, Oaklins DeSilva+Phillips
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Ken Sonenclar leads Oaklins’ Insights team and is a managing director at Oaklins DeSilva & Phillips in New York. Insights focuses on the massive disruption to business caused by the emergence of the “experience economy.” Insights tracks M&A opportunities among both emerging players and evolving legacy businesses in this US$80 billion global industry. Ken has advised multiple clients in the Insights sector, often through complex cross-border transactions. The firms he has supported include RDA Group on its sale to Ipsos, Vision Critical Research & Consulting on its sale to Maru Group/Primary Capital, MarketTools/TPG on its sale to MetrixLab, and PhoCusWright on its sale to Northstar Travel Media.

Elaine Riddell is a managing director at Oaklins DeSilva+Phillips in New York. She has deep operational expertise in the Insights industries supporting healthcare and, in particular, life sciences as well as consumer-driven sectors, and all on a global basis. Elaine brings an understanding of the disruptive market dynamics shaping these industries and influencing M&A priorities and spending. This highly relevant market knowledge has enabled Oaklins’ Insights team to be invited to pitch for new business, and to win a majority of these pitches.