Ipsos has announced 2 strategic acquisitions in Jan 2021

Ipsos in Jan 2021 has made two strategic acquisitions – of MGE Data (a leading player in Out-of-home (OOH) measurement) and Fistnet-Dotmetrics (Croatian digital audience measurement player) in January 2021.

“These acquisitions further consolidate and provide an update to our existing offerings, in the fast-changing area of audience measurement, as it is our constant endeavor to provide clients with the best-in-class solutions to their business problems,” said Amit Adarkar, CEO, Ipsos India. 

Ipsos Paris office has revealed the specifics of both the deals:

MGE Data Acquisition 

Ipsos has acquired the majority stake in the Czech Republic-based MGE Data, a leading player in Out-of-home (OOH) measurement with unparalleled capabilities in consulting, data analytics, application development and technical solutions in the mobility, geo-marketing and media research fields

Founded in 1996, MGE Data operates out of several locations in the Czech Republic. It comprises a team of geo-spatial experts and engineers specialized in Out-of-home measurement who design, develop and manufacture equipment and solutions for mobility, geo-marketing and media research applications. 

Ipsos and MGE have a long-established relationship dating back to 2007, when both companies were awarded the Route contract in Great Britain with a sophisticated combination of GPS, frequency algorithms and modelling of complementary data. Today, Route is one of the most advanced OOH solutions globally and became the industry reference when expanding the combined offer globally. 

The partnership has also proven decisive in the recent appointment by OMA, Australia’s Outdoor Measurement Association, to update its audience measurement system MOVE (Measurement of Outdoor Visibility and Exposure). The upgraded system will cover all formats, be a national model and measure Digital Out-of-home signs.  

Ipsos is a global leader in out-of-home audience measurement and has designed audience measurement systems in other markets such as France, Sweden and Brazil, in addition to Great Britain and Australia. With the acquisition of MGE Data, the combined offer will be expanded to fifteen countries, contributing to the generation of audience data on close to 1.5 million frames and substantially diversifying the market expertise. Amongst these countries are Germany, Austria, Poland, Belgium, Mexico, Chile and the UAE.  

Didier Truchot, Ipsos CEO & Chairman said: “The association of Ipsos’ leadership in research with MGE’s advanced spatial data science expertise will bring clients an unparalleled offer in Out-of-home audience measurement.” 

David Strnad, Chief Executive MGE Data, commented: “Since 2007, our partnership has been a source of success and allowed us to bring together our complementary skills and capabilities across many markets globally. Joining the Ipsos family is therefore a natural progression for MGE Data.” 

Liz Landy, Ipsos’ Audience Measurement Global Service Line leader, said: “Digital and mobile technology have changed both the medium and the measurement possibilities. The integration of MGE Data significantly enhances and accelerates our continuing push towards new solutions in a fast-changing landscape.” 

Fistnet-Dotmetrics Acquisition

Ipsos has acquired Fistnet d.o.o, the Croatian-based company who engineered the digital audience measurement platform “Dotmetrics”. 

This acquisition seals a longstanding and fruitful collaboration between Ipsos and Fistnet in the Adria region, where Dotmetrics has seen great success in measuring and reporting digital audiences.  With new enhancements, the platform has been deployed by Ipsos for Iris solution, becoming in 2021 the official source for Online Audience Measurement adopted by UKOM.

Founded in 2012, Fistnet comprises Big Data audience measurement experts and software engineers. With the Dotmetrics platform, the company has been at the forefront of digital audience measurement, seamlessly tracking and reporting internet traffic to participating websites and apps with improved accuracy of device identification over other methods.  Facing a range of forces making identification of devices increasingly complex, Fistnet has been able to stay ahead in a constantly changing environment. 

Fistnet have also developed a powerful reporting engine and dashboard. Directly connected to multiple data sources, it allows clients fast and flexible analysis of the data. 

Didier Truchot, Ipsos’ CEO & Chairman commented: “At Ipsos we are proud to work with Fistnet’s pool of talented and experienced site-centric technologists, software engineers and modelling experts. Together, we will accelerate the development of our advanced web and mobile measurement solutions.” 

Tomislav Fistric, CEO Fistnet, stated “We are happy to become part of the Ipsos family, which we already know and love. With Ipsos, we will create incremental value for clients by combining the experience and footprint of Ipsos with Dotmetrics’ expertise.”

Liz Landy, Audience Measurement Global Service Line Leader said: “The integration of Fistnet allows Ipsos to continually adapt to the changing demands of site-centric data collection, manipulation and reporting.”