How Many Were Going To St Ives?

Adrian J Cotterill, Editor-in-Chief

Marketing services company, St Ives PLC announced last week its acquisition of Incite Marketing Planning Limited, a market research and insights consultancy.

Most people in our industry will know St Ives through Robert Padmore (ex-Avanti of course) who is Head of Digital Media for St Ives Digital.

The acquisition of Incite builds on St Ives’ continuing drive to develop its marketing services offering, creating a complementary range of digital and marketing services that will enable the Group to add further value to existing and new clients. Added to the existing portfolio of businesses providing services from data management, through planning and consultancy to execution and evaluation, Incite will add a further range of insight led research skills to help develop targeted customer communications across all media.

Patrick Martell, Chief Executive of St Ives told us “The purchase of Incite is another important step in our development of a portfolio of marketing services capabilities. It has a very high quality offering of both research and consultancy, and an enviable blue chip client base.”

Established in 2000, Incite develops marketing strategies through the design and execution of bespoke research and the provision of consultancy services. The business employs approximately 40 staff and is headquartered in central London. Incite’s strong client base includes a number of international consumer facing businesses in the FMCG, technology, entertainment and retail sectors, such as Nokia, Cadbury, Diageo, Skype and Warner Bros.

The acquisition will support Incite’s plans to grow further in specialised sectors such as healthcare and financial services and to expand into new markets internationally. Incite will operate as a subsidiary of St Ives and will continue to be managed by the existing management team from its current premises, including co-founders Elaine Kent-Smith and Sid Simmons and Chief Executive Roger Banks.


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