Product category:
Marketing strategy and consultancy
News Release from: Added Value
Edited by the Marketingservicestalk Editorial
Team on 17 January 2008
Innovation firm Cheskin joins Added
Value Group
Added Value, WPP's brand development business, has acquired Cheskin, the market-leading innovation-consulting firm.
Cheskin, now named Cheskin Added Value, will benefit from access to Added Value's worldwide network and broad-based market insight capabilities In turn, Added Value will be strengthened by Cheskin's renowned expertise in innovation, and by its strong presence in the technology sector, design strategy experience and in-depth understanding of US Hispanic markets
Cheskin Added Value will continue to operate with a high degree of autonomy with Darrel Rhea maintaining his leadership role as CEO.
The firm will retain its core vision and focus on consumer insights-based innovation consulting for product development, branding and marketing.
"Change opens up great possibilities for innovation and the new Cheskin Added Value will stimulate fresh ideas and perspectives that will benefit our clients and grow our services into new markets," said Maggie Taylor, CEO of Added Value, North America.
"Darrel's leadership, energy and creativity have been a key element in Cheskin's growth and will continue to drive its success".
Cheskin Added Value will collaborate with other Added Value offices around the world to enrich the company's expanding client needs and bring solid experience in new industry sectors including technology.
In addition, Cheskin Added Value offers critical market expertise especially in the US Hispanic market, essential to many global clients.
"In order to continue to lead the world in innovation consulting, we need to extend our presence and reach around the globe," said Cheskin CEO, Darrel Rhea.
"Joining with Added Value will allow us to dramatically enhance the level of service we are providing to our global clients in an increasingly international market, and it adds real power to our offering in emerging market countries like China.
"In today's competitive environment, innovation needs to be driven by deep, proprietary consumer insights; both our companies share a profound commitment to creating value through the design of meaningful customer experiences, and our skill sets for producing this are incredibly complementary.
"This will help us take the industry's best practices in innovation to the next level".
Cheskin is a consulting firm that guides innovation through a deep understanding of people, cultures and change.
From a perspective grounded in research, design and marketing, Cheskin helps companies identify new markets, develop new products and services, and enhance brand experience.
Cheskin's clients range from technology and finance to consumer goods and professional services, and include Microsoft, Del Monte, Visa, eBay and Wal-Mart.
Cheskin was established in 1946 and is based in Redwood Shores, CA, with offices in New York and Seattle.
Added Value offers brand development and marketing insight services to blue-chip companies across all industry sectors.
Everything it does starts with insight and ends with action, in pursuit of healthy brand growth for clients.
Added Value's approach is individually tailored to the task in hand, with one important element a constant: the belief that people will always choose the brand that makes them feel the way they want to feel.
With a footprint that now extends across 25 locations in 15 countries, drawing on the expertise within its global network, Added Value Group fuses brand marketing, consumer insight, innovation, and communications optimisation to help solve clients' marketing problems.
Added Value Group is headed by Global CEO Angus Porter.
Added Value Group is part of Kantar Group, the information, insight and consultancy arm of WPP, one of the leading communications services companies.
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