Kantar Buys ROI Measurement Firm Blackwood Seven

Kantar has agreed to acquire Copenhagen, Denmark-based marketing measurement and optimisation company Blackwood Seven, for an undisclosed sum.

Blackwood Seven was founded in 2013 by Henrik Hasselbalch Busch, Thomas Bertelsen and former CEO Carl Erik Kjærsgaard. The firm offers scalable and global AI-powered, cookieless unified marketing measurement, helping clients to optimise their investments and predict business outcomes. Its solutions offer sophisticated modelling accounting for synergies between channels, macroeconomic factors and competitor activity, to gauge multiple scenarios and create future media plans down to an individual publisher level.

Kantar says the buy, which should be complete by the end of April and is its sixth since Bain Capital took a majority shareholding two and a half years ago, 'cements it position' as a market-leader in marketing ROI measurement and accelerates its plans to bring its clients a Unified Marketing Measurement solution. Blackwood Seven's team will join Kantar's Analytics Practice, led by Chris Petranto.

Kantar Chief Product Officer Ted Prince comments: 'Clients, including Honda, Suncorp and Telenor already use Blackwood Seven's solution for budget setting, competitor analysis, reducing customer acquisition cost, measuring brand equity and minimising customer churn. The move will give Kantar's global roster of clients access to the more granular analytics it provides, alongside the strategic guidance we are known for'.

Blackwood Seven CEO Busch (pictured) says the firm's new owner is 'uniquely placed to scale its offer and enable more businesses around the world to benefit from its many applications'.

Web sites: www.kantar.com and www.blackwoodseven.com .