Johannesburg based Impact has a staff of 30 and billings in excess of Rand 12 million. The company will change its name to Millward Brown Impact with immediate effect.

According to Erik du Plessis, MD of Millward Brown Impact, "This is a perfect fit for us. We currently work with a number of Millward Brown’s major multi-national clients, and now we’ll be able to bring them Millward Brown’s world class proprietary techniques and in turn contribute to Millward Brown’s understanding of research in the African market."

Bob Meyers, CEO of the Millward Brown Group, added "More and more of our clients view South Africa as critical to completing their global network. As they organise themselves to reflect this, we need to respond by giving them access to our services locally. We are particularly pleased to welcome Impact and Erik du Plessis to the team, as for many years they have been one of South Africa’s leading advertising, brand and media research agency."

Impact Information has been supplying research to the South African market for the past 17 years. While it is best known for its pioneering Adtrack and Commap advertising testing systems, half the company’s revenue is generated via adhoc research.