Warren, NJ – September 7, 2011 – Following the acquisition by its parent company, WPP-owned Kantar, of the stock of Global Market Insite, Inc. (“GMI”), Lightspeed Research announced today it will be aligned with GMI to create one of the world’s largest online panel and sample providers. David Day, Lightspeed Research’s President and Global CEO, has been named President and Global CEO of the combined business.
Founded in 1999, GMI employs 230 people and is based in Bellevue, WA, with additional offices in Los Angeles, Boston, Vancouver, London, Paris, Den Bosch (the Netherlands), Munich, Sydney, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Shanghai, and Singapore. GMI offers technology-enabled survey solutions, global panels and innovative survey methodologies that provide an integrated way for market researchers to tap into targeted consumer groups around the world, delivering highly accurate, reliable and repeatable results.
The acquisition of GMI adds panels in 13 countries, bringing Lightspeed Research’s global reach to over four million online panelists across proprietary panels in 38 countries. Notable additions to the Lightspeed Research footprint include Brazil, Mexico and India along with numerous Asian markets. Panel capacity in the U.S., Canada and the European ‘Big 5’ will grow significantly as a result of the acquisition.
“Uniting the assets of these two global leaders in the online panel market research industry strengthens our offer to clients through the size and reach of our panels. Our combined technology and market research expertise will put us in a strong position to address the significant growth and rapid change in our industry around the world,” said Day.
The combined company will continue to operate as both Lightspeed Research and GMI, conducting client business as usual through 2011. Lightspeed Research and GMI have begun planning the integration of the two company’s products, customers, and employees. Client service and support will remain consistent through the acquisition and integration process.
“Our clients will be working with the largest global online sample provider that can deliver the most reliable, efficient and high-quality service available,” said Michael Brochu, CEO and President of GMI. “This move will allow the combined company to meet our clients’ needs not only today, but well into the future. Together, we will look to apply technology in new and innovative ways. The businesses are highly complementary, and GMI brings a great deal of scale to the table, especially given our broad, global footprint across thousands of customers. Both GMI and Lightspeed Research share similar philosophies with respect to service excellence and execution, online data quality and technology-enabled innovation as the means to deliver best-in-class service.”
Lightspeed Research is part of Kantar, the insight and consultancy group of WPP, a FTSE 100 and NASDAQ listed company.
About Lightspeed Research
Lightspeed Research (www.lightspeedresearch.com) is the market researcher’s choice for digitally accessing and deriving insight from consumer opinions and behaviors whenever, wherever and in whatever segments needed. The industry’s most thorough panelist pre-screening process and large global pool delivers business-ready results quickly and cost-effectively. From proprietary online access panels to specialty panels, custom panels and innovative mobile surveys, Lightspeed Research offers the industry’s highest-quality and most complete combination of qualitative and quantitative online research. This is backed by an expert client operations team that provides a range of data collection services, from sample management and survey design to programming and reporting. Lightspeed Research serves clients and cultivates online panelists across the Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific. Lightspeed Research is a unit of Kantar, which is part of WPP.
About Kantar
Kantar is one of the world’s largest insight, information and consultancy groups. By uniting the diverse talents of its 13 specialist companies, the group aims to become the pre-eminent provider of compelling and inspirational insights for the global business community. Kantar works across 100 countries and across the whole spectrum of research and consultancy disciplines, enabling the group to offer clients business insights at each and every point of the consumer cycle. The group’s services are employed by over half of the Fortune Top 500 companies.
For further information, please visit us at www.kantar.com
Contacts
Seth Ruoss
EVP, GLOBAL MARKETING AND BUSINESS STRATEGY / LIGHTSPEED RESEARCH
+1 (302) 230-1512
sruoss@lightspeedresearch.com