I was lucky to be a client of awesome Jan Kestle & her team >25years ago, benefiting from a terrific (then underappreciated) ability to help a Marketer tailor messaging & media on a neighbourhood level. What an awesomely powerful toolset! imo that was the beginning of applied psychographics as we now know it; her team was Compusearch (Micromarketing).
20 years ago when Equifax bought Compusearch, then flipped it to R L Polk, I was baffled; my understanding is all Polk wanted was auto sector data expertise for themselves, thus leaving applications in other sectors unfulfilled. [I was reminded of that acquisition 2 years ago, by a similar move; Amazon wanted to use Kiva’s robotics logistic capabilities (which had applications in many diverse areas/sectors) so they bought… the entire company].
Thankfully, much of the Compusearch team later ended up being recreated, still in Toronto, under the Environics umbrella, as ‘Environics Data’ – to this day, they were still run autonomously, from what I could see.
Recent news that Environics Data was bought by Bell leaves me perplexed- again. I see potential for Bell to offer a Full Service Suite of media & messaging applications, differentiating them from Rogers, Shaw, etc. And letting the Environics Data guru’s work with Bell’s extensive mobile phone data could yield GOLD for modeling & ad targeting. But what happens to Environics for Retail location services? (an area where their data can – and has – been very productively leveraged) or its USA market applications?
Having Bell as a parent imo brings little to those markets & may prove an impediment (what if a parent firm fails to appreciate those opportunities.?). Hmmm…
https://mediaincanada.com/2020/12/03/bell-canada-acquires-environics-analytics/