KBM Acquires Predictys, Expands Data-Based Marketing

Expanding its global footprint, KBM Group, Young & Rubicam Group’s database marketing agency, has agreed to acquire France-based Predictys. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

With its database, including information from 140 million opted-in consumers from among more than 25 co-op partners, Predictys serves various clients from Snapfish, a Web-based photo-sharing and printing service owned by Hewlett-Packard, to insurance provider Swiss Life.

With vast amounts of data being generated by consumers online, socially and via mobile devices, brands are trying to leverage "big data" to target specific consumer demographics.

“Marketing that is customer-intelligent delights consumers and so enables companies to stay competitive," according to Gary Laben, CEO of KBM Group. “By adding Predictys' data resources to our own, we can better offer our global clients a way to harness data to forge customer engagements.”

Working closely with its parent company's Wunderman unit, KBM Group positions itself as a “data engine."

Founded in 2007, Predictys' database powers its digital automated marketing services for customer acquisition via proprietary automated systems for managing and optimizing email marketing campaigns.

According to a Forrester report, the demand is growing for customer intelligence to support next-generation marketing, which is focused on appealing to customers through relevancy, rather than campaign selling, focused on continuous customer engagement and dialogue.

The report explored how the shifting marketing environment has impacted organizational needs for different kinds of services from their marketing partners, specifically from marketing service providers, direct agencies and digital agencies. The shift is from a narrow focus on data and managing data to a more strategic, analytically driven focus on understanding customers and insightful customer intelligence.

KBM Group and Wunderman were recognized for conforming closely to the study's model of “customer engagement agency” in the digital space.

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