The LA-headquartered market research company says the acquisition will help it to accelerate its advertising effectiveness expertise and gain a portfolio of research products. These span the entire advertising lifecycle, from identifying what consumers think about pre-released ads to measuring how ads influence consumer beliefs and behaviours.

Phoenix is known for its ad testing and measurement insights. The firm’s Phoenix Brand Effect platform (formerly Nielsen TV Brand Effect) tests and measures thousands of ads annually, gathering critical feedback about advertising storylines, creative elements and messaging from core audience segments. It also includes the influence of ads on consumer affinity and consideration, plus purchase intent and lift. 

Combined, MarketCast now boasts more than 100 technologists and data scientists and 400 quantitative and qualitative researchers working in media and brand advertising research and analytics. Phoenix will benefit from MarketCast’s big data expertise, including its Smart TV and ad attribution measurement capabilities. Together, MarketCast will help advertisers and media companies uncover deeper audience insights with more granularity, in order to enable them to better understand and predict advertising performance.

“The acquisition of Phoenix supports MarketCast’s vision of creating the most tech and data-forward research business on the planet, where primary research is combined with big data to determine what fans watch, buy and listen to most and why they choose to watch, buy, and listen”, said MarketCast chief executive John Batter. “We see tremendous opportunity to bring these two businesses together, combining our unique media research and big data expertise to innovate new ad effectiveness solutions.”  

Allen DeCotiis, founder and CEO of Phoenix added: “We are very excited to join MarketCast, a team that shares our common values, passion, and vision for the future of advertising research and technology. With a powerful portfolio of media and advertising research and a record of working with the biggest names in entertainment, sports, and technology, MarketCast is the ideal home for Phoenix’s people, platforms and clients. We look forward to beginning this new chapter of growth and innovation together.”