Kantar TNS is a global

market research Market research is an organized effort to gather information about target markets and customers: know about them, starting with who they are. It is an important component of business strategy and a major factor in maintaining competitiveness. Mark ...

and market information group with offices in over 80 countries. Formerly listed on the

London Stock Exchange London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange in the City of London, England, United Kingdom. , the total market value of all companies trading on LSE was £3.9 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St Pau ...

and a constituent of the

FTSE 250 Index The FTSE 250 Index ( "Footsie") is a capitalisation-weighted index consisting of the 101st to the 350th largest companies listed on the London Stock Exchange. Promotions and demotions to and from the index occur quarterly in March, June, Septemb ...

, the firm was acquired by

WPP Group WPP plc is a British multinational communications, advertising, public relations, technology, and commerce holding company headquartered in London, England. It was the world's largest advertising company, as of 2019. WPP plc owns many compan ...

for £1.6 billion in October 2008, when it became part of WPP's Kantar Group. In April 2019, Kantar announced that it was unifying all its legacy brands (including Kantar TNS) and consolidating all services and offerings under the Kantar brand name.

History

The history of TNS as a market research company began in 1946 with the establishment of National Family Opinion (NFO) in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

.- A History of Success Delivering Market Research & Insight
; TNS Global online; accessed March 2019 Since then, various

mergers and acquisitions Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are business transactions in which the ownership of companies, other business organizations, or their operating units are transferred to or consolidated with another company or business organization. As an aspect ...

involving large companies from the US, Europe, and Asia Pacific eventually became the Taylor Nelson Sofres group.

Six original companies

The 1960s saw the establishment of the six main companies that today form part of TNS. Starting with NFO in the 1940s, Intersearch in the US in 1960; then AGB in the UK in 1962; Sofres in France in 1963; Frank Small Associates (FSA) in Australia in 1964; Taylor Nelson in the UK in 1965. Over the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s, these companies grew significantly as individual businesses. The 1990s and early years of the new millennium saw consolidation in the industry. In 1991 AGB and Taylor Nelson merged to create Taylor Nelson AGB. In 1992, Sofres acquired Secodip. In 1997, Sofres combined with FSA. In 1997, Sofres acquired Intersearch and then merged with Taylor Nelson AGB, thus creating TNS. In 1998 Taylor Nelson Sofres acquired Chilton Market Research, followed by CMR in 2000, and the NFO WorldGroup in 2003. In 2006, a class action lawsuit was filed against TNS alleging that it failed to disclose major financial information in a registration statement associated with the company's

secondary offering A secondary market offering, according to the U.S. Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), is a registered offering of a large block of a security that has been previously issued to the public. The blocks being offered may have been held ...

. The TNS Group continues to grow, mainly by acquiring small research companies to strengthen its position in markets in which it already has a presence. For example, in December 2007, TNS acquired Landis Strategy & Innovation in the United States, a specialist research-based consultancy. In the same month, TNS announced that it had reached agreement to increase its ownership of LatinPanel Holdings from 33.3% to 100%. TNS was formerly a joint venture partner with the NPD Group and the IBOPE Group in this continuous consumer panel business serving Latin America operating in 15 countries in Latin America, and covering 96% of the region’s GDP, providing local and international clients with access to a household research panel across the packaged groceries, toiletries and cosmetics, fresh foods and textile retail markets. In early March 2008, TNS announced the merging of its North American operating units TNS Media Intelligence, TNS Media Research with the recently acquired firms Compete and Cymfony to create TNS Media Group. On 29 April 2008 TNS announced that it was in talks to merge with German market research company

GfK GfK (originally german: GfK-Nürnberg Gesellschaft für Konsumforschung e.V., lit=Nuremberg Society for Consumer Research, label=none) is a provider of data and intelligence to the consumer goods industry. It is headquartered in Nuremberg, German ...

. The announcement was followed in May by two conditional offers from WPP to buy TNS for a combination of cash and shares, both of which were rejected by TNS’s board. The hostile WPP bid led to GfK and TNS abandoning their merger plans. GfK sought without success to find backing for a rival offer, leaving WPP’s hostile bid as the only one on the table. On 9 October 2008 WPP declared that its latest bid had been successful and that it was buying TNS for $1.93bn. TNS was bought by WPP's

Kantar Group Kantar Group is a data analytics and brand consulting company, based in London, England. It was founded in 1992, and has approximately 30,000 employees in 100 countries working in various research disciplines, including social media monitoring, ...

. Many Kantar subsidiary companies underwent restructuring and rebranding. In 2013, TNS acquired Sinotrust Market Research, a leading market research and consulting company in China. On 8 September 2016, TNS was rebranded as Kantar TNS. On 2 April 2019, Kantar announced that it was retiring the names of its brands (including Kantar TNS) and consolidating all services and offerings under the Kantar brand name.

Operations

TNS NIPO is a Dutch survey agency. Together with

Synovate Synovate was a market research company with more than 100 offices in 62 countries. It was acquired by Ipsos in 2011 which combined to be the third largest in the world. Company history Synovate was one of the largest firms specializing in custo ...

(formerly Interview-NSS) and Surveys from Maurice de Hond ( Peil.nl), it is one of the top three (

political Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...

) survey agencies in the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

. In June 2013, TNS NIPO received the MOAward for Market Research Office of the Year. TNS is structured around specific areas of marketing expertise: Brand & Communication; Innovation & Product Development; Retail & Shopper; Customer Experience; Employee Engagement; Qualitative; Automotive; and Political & Social. TNS separates its worldwide operations in over eighty three countries into a number of regional divisions:

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

; Northern

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

; Southern Europe;

Asia Pacific Asia-Pacific (APAC) is the part of the world near the western Pacific Ocean. The Asia-Pacific region varies in area depending on context, but it generally includes East Asia, Russian Far East, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia and Pacific Is ...

; Latin America; and Africa, Mediterranean and Middle East.

Methods

TNS NIPO has a database of thousands of screened

respondent {{unreferenced, date=February 2012 A respondent is a person who is called upon to issue a response to a communication made by another. The term is used in legal contexts, in survey methodology, and in psychological conditioning. Legal usage In ...

s. For each survey a selection is made from the

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases sp ...

and submitted to the respondents. TNS NIPO's goal is to have the respondents surveyed once every six weeks. TNS NIPO uses software from

NIPO Software NIPO, previously named NIPO Software, is a long term provider to the professional market research industry for online, CAPI and CATI survey solutions. NIPO is a major worldwide Market Research software provider. NIPO's main offering is centered ...

for its research surveys. The five following methods of research are used: *CATI:

Computer-assisted telephone interviewing Computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) is a telephone surveying technique in which the interviewer follows a script provided by a software application. It is a structured system of microdata collection by telephone that speeds up the col ...

*CAPI:

computer-assisted personal interviewing Computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) is an interviewing technique in which the respondent or interviewer uses an electronic device to answer the questions. It is similar to computer-assisted telephone interviewing, except that the inter ...

(by interviewer) *CASI: computer-assisted self interviewing (respondent receives questions via modem) *CAWI:

computer-assisted web interviewing Computer-assisted web interviewing (CAWI) is an Internet surveying technique in which the interviewee follows a script provided in a website. The questionnaires are made in a program for creating web interviews. The program allows for the questionn ...

(respondent visit site) *Qualitative research The appropriate research form depends on the subject and target group.

Logo

In 2003, when company went from being Taylor Nelson Sofres with several local names to one unified TNS, a new logo was designed. Wolff Olins was the agency behind the 2003 rebrand. Daniella Meirelles, a Brand Consultant at Wolff Olins was the one who brought the global project to the agency. Then in early 2012 the old logo was altered further.

References

External links

TNS NIPO website
{{Authority control Companies based in Amsterdam Companies established in 1997 Companies formerly listed on the London Stock Exchange Market research companies of the United Kingdom WPP plc