Dig Insights Buys Again

Just two months after buying Ignite 360, tech-enabled consumer researcher Dig Insights has acquired Austin, Texas-based Ebco Trends, a strategic trends and innovation agency, for an undisclosed sum.

Dig seeks to understand consumer decision-making, and recommend actions to clients to drive growth and innovation in their businesses, which span the CPG, QSR, retail, technology, financial services and telecoms sectors. Its offer includes a proprietary innovation insights platform called Upsiide, as well as patented data modelling methods. The firm has more than 250 staff in offices in Toronto, Chicago and London, and in August acquired San Francisco-based quallie Ignite 360.

Ebco, founded nine years ago, provides insights and tracks trends to drive consumer-focused strategy. The firms say their combination will provide clients with 'a seamless solution for the entire innovation lifecycle: from discovering innovation territories, to testing and validating ideas, to building a cohesive strategy, and ultimately driving action'.

Following the buy, Ebco CEO and co-founder Erin Mays (pictured) will become EVP leading Dig's Trends & Innovation division, and says of the deal: 'We wanted to partner with a company that had deep expertise in developing insights and innovation technology to incorporate into our approach as a trends and innovation consultancy. It quickly became apparent that the brainpower and tech exists within Dig already... In traditional innovation programs research, tech and strategic partners are often separate. Tools become one-offs, and strategic innovation partners double-down on creative and concepting without insights to back up their frameworks and ideas. This end-to-end, insights-led approach to innovation will be the go-to solution to solve for the increasingly fragmented innovation process'.

Paul Gaudette, CEO and co-founder of Dig Insights, comments: 'Dig is a company that has nailed how to leverage technology to scale research and deliver insights in a more agile way. Now, we're thinking about how we can accelerate the innovation process - how can we help clients keep up with the pace of change? Leveraging our expertise in tech-enabled insights and marrying it with Ebco's expertise in trends and innovation is why this just makes sense'.

Web sites: www.diginsights.com and www.theebco.com .