Kantar Media Acquires CIC. Does Your Brand Know What Chinese Netizens Are Buzzing About?

The Chinese government isn’t the only one listening in on Chinese netizens. Fortunately, CIC is a service of a far more benevolent kind. It’s a leader in China’s social media monitoring space, helping brands make sense of the online buzz.

Kantar Media’s acquisition indicates that China’s social media advertising space is taking off. In the US, there’s already a host of competitors in this space, including Radian6 which was acquired by Salesforce for $326 million last spring. As platforms like Sina Weibo grow their advertising, CIC’s ability to measure ROI will steadily grow in importance.

But there’s still a long way to go. AdChina’s presentation on China’s advertising market shows that under half of Chinese advertisers use social media marketing, whereas 80% do in the US.

Social media marketing still requires a lot of customer education in China; I’ve been told many customers never even access online dashboard tools, but prefer printed reports. That’s why CIC has not only technical solutions, but also employs a large number of analysts to serve their brand clients.

CIC was founded by the American expat Sam Flemming, back in the early days when BBS was dominant, putting the firm in great position to capitalize upon the subsequent explosion of other social media outlets like microblogs.

It’s extraordinarily rare and requires extraordinary ability and perseverance for a foreigner to build a successful Internet company in China, so congrats to Sam and the CIC team. TechRice’s very own Sunny Ye is also a consultant at CIC, and I wish the team all continued success.

PRESS RELEASE: Kantar Media to acquire leading Chinese social business intelligence agency CIC 

Deal extends WPP unit’s capabilities in social media listening and analysis into world’s second largest ad market 

Kantar Media, the media research and insights division of Kantar, has expanded its social media offer in China with the acquisition of CIC, a leader in the Chinese Social media listening and  analysis industry. The deal will build on the company’s significant global presence and activities in media market research and insights with 5,000 staff across 60 markets, with CIC working along with the other leading Kantar Media partnerships in China including CSM and CTR. Kantar Media is a unit of Kantar, the consumer insight arm of WPP, the world’s largest communications services group.

The acquisition comes in response to the growing client need for the real-time monitoring of consumer brand conversations in a market with over 70% of the 500 million Internet users on social media and with over 50,000 enterprises owning a microblog account. It gives Kantar Media a strong base in China and Asia Pacific for social media intelligence and insights as China this year became the world’s second largest advertising market.

Founded in 2004 and with offices in Shanghai and Beijing, CIC coined the now standard Chinese industry term Internet Word of Mouth (IWOM) and pioneered the concept of social business in China. With a team of over 60 social media consultants, innovative dashboards solutions and patent pending in technologies such as Chinese language text mining, CIC has led the industry in developing and applying social media intelligence and insights across its roster of blue-chip clients includes 5 brands out of the top 10 listed in Brandz Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands, and is at the forefront of monetizing the social business industry in China.

Sam Flemming, founder and chairman of CIC, commented: “In joining Kantar Media, we will provide our clients with accessible, intelligent and meaningful analysis of brand discussions wherever they take place. We will also develop new client offers by identifying the synergies between our data set – including an archive of over 3 billion consumer brand mentions – and Kantar Media’s vast data resources. Further, the relationship will allow CIC to bring social business intelligence and insight to Kantar and across the whole WPP network as well as replicate its success in the broader Asia Pacific market.”

The CIC team will remain based in Shanghai and Beijing, China and its management team will report to Jean-Michel Portier, global CEO of Kantar Media.

Portier said: “It is clear that the monitoring of consumer, brand and market discussions and the resulting insights are vital tools for executives worldwide. With Kantar Media Cymfony, we are already committed to maximizing our clients’ success in monitoring and analyzing consumer discussions in the US and in Europe. With CIC, we are achieving another milestone to establishing the same recognition for excellence in China that Cymfony already has .CIC is an exciting and successful company.  CIC will enrich our global digital expertise in capturing millions of online conversations and “making sense of the buzz” in order to provide interpretation that informs strategic decisions and leads to action.”

 

About Kantar Media

Kantar Media provides strategic advice and competitive intelligence to the world’s leading brands, publishers, agencies and industry bodies, helping them navigate and succeed in a rapidly evolving media industry. This includes analysis of paid media opportunities; counsel on brand reputation, corporate management and consumer engagement through owned media; and, evaluating consumers’ reactions in earned media. Kantar Media provides clients with a broad range of insights from audience research, competitive intelligence, vital consumer behavior and digital insights, to marketing effectiveness and online influence. Our experts currently work with 22,000 companies tracking 3 million brands in 50 countries

Kantar Media is a unit of Kantar, the consumer insight arm of WPP. WPP is the world’s largest communications services group with billings of $66 billion and revenues of approximately $15 billion.