• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, June 7, 2012

Visible Technologies has been selected by WPP, one of the world’s largest advertising agency holding companies, as its preferred provider of social listening and analytics. That means Visible will be on tap to provide social intelligence to more than 300 advertising, marketing and media agencies and related businesses owned by WPP.

The Visible social listening and analytics platform has already been used by a number of big WPP-owned companies, including GroupM, Wunderman and Ogilvy, but this is just the tip of the iceberg, according to Visible CEO Richard Pasewark, who said he is looking forward to geographic expansion to new markets. Under the terms of the deal, Visible will now provide WPP-owned companies with discounted service rates, expanded search capabilities and a variety of new support services.

Pasewark also noted that the WPP relationship will widen Visible’s access to the top echelon of companies around the world: “WPP companies work with 344 of the Fortune Global 500; all of the Dow Jones 30; 63 of the NASDAQ 100; and 33 of the Fortune e-50 through 2,500 offices in 108 countries.”

WPP owns 49% stake in Visible, following investments in 2007, 2010, and 2011, making it the company’s largest shareholder. In April of this year, Visible acquired Cymfony, a competitor led by Pasewark and previously owned by WPP; after the merger, Pasewark took over the top spot at Visible, replacing former CEO Kelly Pennock. At the time Pasewark cited Cymfony’s strength in sales and Visible’s engineering expertise as key reasons motivating the deal.