One of the most exciting parts of working for Kantar is the amazing number of globally renowned brands with whom you get the opportunity to work. Our top global clients not only contribute substantially to our revenues, but are also critically important in driving our professional standards. They own the world's most famous brand names, have thousands of staff across the globe and we build long term relationships with them to help them drive their business growth.
American Express Company (NYSE: AXP) is a diversified global financial services company. Founded in 1850, it is one of the 30 components of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. American Express Company’s core businesses are credit card, charge card, and travel services. It continues to innovate in all areas of payment acceptance and travel services.
The company reports $24.5 billion in annual revenue, 87.9 million cards-in-force, representing $620 billion in annual purchase volume, making them the world’s largest card issuer measured by purchase volume. American Express is headquartered in New York City and employs 58,300 employees worldwide.
BAT is the world's most international tobacco group, with brands sold in 180 markets around the world. BAT has built a global reputation for making and marketing a diverse range of high quality brands for the millions of informed adults who choose to consume tobacco.
BAT’s interests range from seed to consumer and throughout all aspects of the business is committed to embedding the highest principles of corporate social responsibility Group-wide.
While nearly all the world's smokers consume ready-made cigarettes, BAT also offers other tobacco products, including cigars, roll-your-own and Swedish-style snus, a smokeless tobacco product.
BAT is one of Kantar's most important global clients. We have a broad and deep relationship with them, servicing the business across most regions. We are their biggest supplier of customised research
The Coca-Cola Company is the world’s biggest soft drinks manufacturer with 21% share of the global market of off-trade ready-to-drink non-alcoholic beverages. Coca-Cola trades in 200 countries worldwide and has revenues of $31 Billion dollars (2009). Coca-Cola is one of Kantar's biggest global clients. We have a broad and deep relationship with them, servicing the business in over 70 markets worldwide. We are their biggest supplier of custom research conducting work in trends, segmentation, innovation, copy-testing, tracking, cross-media, digital and retail.
Danone is a Fortune 500 company – a global leader in healthy foods and beverages – with 160 plants, 80,000 employees, across five continents in over 120 countries. In 2009, Danone recorded sales in excess of €14.982 billion. Danone mainly operates in the food sector and has four main product divisions: bottled water, fresh dairy products, baby food and medical nutrition.
Besides the Danone brand of yogurts, the company owns Cow and Gate baby foods and several internationally known brands of bottled water: Volvic, Evian, and Badoit. Danone owns many other water brands worldwide, including a growing portfolio of major water brands across Asia, where it is the leading vendor of packaged water.
Deutsche Telekom AG is one of the world's leading telecommunications and information technology service companies, represented in around 50 countries, with almost 200 million customers purchasing products and services for connected life and work.
Deutsche Telekom provides network access, communications services and value-added services with ever increasing bandwidth via the fixed and mobile networks. The Group thus supports personal and social networking using innovative products and services. In addition to its core business (classic fixed-network and mobile access business), the company is specifically tapping new growth areas through investments in intelligent networks and its portfolio of IT, Internet and network services.
Diageo is the world's leading premium drinks business with an outstanding collection of beverage alcohol brands across spirits, beer and wine. These brands include Johnnie Walker, Crown Royal, J&B, Windsor, Buchanan's and Bushmills whiskies, Smirnoff, Ciroc and Ketel One vodkas, Baileys, Captain Morgan, Jose Cuervo, Tanqueray and Guinness.
Trading in approximately 180 markets, they employ over 20,000 talented people around the world. With offices in 80 countries, they also have manufacturing facilities across the globe including Great Britain, Ireland, United States, Canada, Spain, Italy, Africa, Latin America, Australia, India and the Caribbean. Diageo is at the forefront of industry efforts to promote responsible drinking.
Ford is an American multinational car manufacturer based in Michigan USA. Founded in 1903 by Henry Ford, who is celebrated as having out America on wheels, Ford Motor began a manufacturing revolution with mass production assembly lines in the early 20th century, and today, it is one of the world's largest automakers, designing, manufacturing and distributing cars and commercial vehicles across six continents. Ford sells more than 5 million vehicles annually around the globe. In Europe they continue to be a market leader in the UK, and a key player across Europe, including growth markets such as Russia and Turkey.
Ford operates in two sectors, Automotive and Financial Services. The Automotive sector markets cars, trucks, parts and support services throughout the world. The Financial Services sector offers various automotive financing products and insurance services.
GSK is one of the world's leading research-based pharmaceutical and healthcare companies. Headquartered in the UK, it is a global organisation with offices in over 100 countries and major research centres in the UK, USA, Belgium and China.They are one of the few pharmaceutical companies researching both medicines and vaccines for the World Health Organization’s three priority diseases – HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, and are very proud to have developed some of the leading global medicines in these fields. In addition, GSK market other consumer products, many of which are among the market leaders:
GSK has a challenging and inspiring mission to improve the quality of human life by enabling people to do more, feel better and live longer.
Headquartered in London, HSBC is one of the largest banking and financial services organisations in the world. HSBC's international network comprises around 7,500 offices in 87 countries and territories in Europe, the Asia-Pacific region, the Americas, the Middle East and Africa.
With listings on the London, Hong Kong, New York, Paris and Bermuda stock exchanges, shares in HSBC Holdings plc are held by over 221,000 shareholders in 127 countries and territories. The shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange in the form of American Depositary Receipts.
HSBC provides a comprehensive range of financial services to around 95 million customers through four customer groups and global businesses: personal financial services (including consumer finance), commercial banking, global banking and markets, and global private banking.
IBM is a global technology and innovation company headquartered in Armonk, NY. It is the largest technology and consulting employer in the world, with approximately 427,000 employees serving clients in 170 countries. IBM offers a wide range of technology and consulting services; a broad portfolio of middleware for collaboration, predictive analytics, software development and systems management; and the world's most advanced servers and supercomputers. Utilizing its business consulting, technology and R&D expertise, IBM helps clients become "smarter" as the planet becomes more digitally interconnected. This includes working with organizations and governments to build systems that improve traffic congestion, availability of clean water, and the health and safety of populations. IBM invests more than $6 billion a year in R&D, just completing its 18th year of patent leadership.
IBM Research has received recognition beyond any commercial technology research organization and is home to 5 Nobel Laureates, 9 US National Medals of Technology, 5 US National Medals of Science, 6 Turing Awards, and 10 Inductees in US Inventors Hall of Fame. The company was behind the inventions of the PC; SABRE travel reservation system; UPC codes, Watson, the Jeopardy!-playing computing system, and much more.
L'Oreal SA and its subsidiaries provide various cosmetics products for men and women.
Mars, Incorporated is a worldwide manufacturer of confectionery, pet food, and other food products with US$30 billion in annual sales in 2010. From its humble beginnings in the Tacoma, Washington kitchen of Frank Mars, Mars, Incorporated has grown into a company of global scope with six business segments including Chocolate, Petcare, Wrigley Gum and Confections, Food, Drinks and Symbioscience, generating annual revenues of $30 billion. As a family-owned company for nearly a century, they are guided by Five Principles: Quality, Responsibility, Mutuality, Efficiency and Freedom.
It makes such worldwide favorites as M&M's, Snickers, and the Mars bar. Other confections include 3 Musketeers, Dove, Milky Way, Skittles, and Twix. Its products portfolio also boasts Seeds of Change organic food, the Klix and Flavia beverage systems, Combos and Kudos snacks, Uncle Ben's rice, and pet food made under the Pedigree, Sheba, and Whiskas names. Mars owns the world's largest chewing gum maker Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company, as well.
MasterCard Worldwide is technology-driven, global payments company, providing a critical link between consumers, financial institutions, and millions of businesses and merchants worldwide.
its customers include approximately 22,000 financial institutions and other entities in more than 210 countries and territories. It supplies innovative services enabling customers to use electronic forms of payment instead of cash and checks to make everyday commerce activities such as shopping, traveling, running a business and managing finances easier.
Powered by the MasterCard Worldwide Network — the fastest payment processing network in the world — MasterCard processes more than 23 billion transactions each year. The network has the capacity to handle more than 160 million transactions per hour, with an average network response time of 130 milliseconds and a 99.9 percent reliability rate.
Their brand is among the most recognized in the world.
McDonald's is the world's number 1 fast-food company by sales, with more than 32,500 restaurants serving burgers and fries in 117 countries. (There are more than 14,000 Golden Arches locations in the US.) The popular chain is well-known for its Big Macs, Quarter Pounders, and Chicken McNuggets. Most of the outlets are free-standing units offering dine-in and drive-through service, but McDonald's also has many eateries located in airports, retail areas, and other high-traffic locations. About 80% of the restaurants are run by franchisees or affiliates. It employs more than 1.5 million people.
McDonald's also owns the Boston Market chain of restaurants and has a minority stake in the Pret a Manger chain. In recognition of its corporate responsibility initiatives, the company's stock is listed in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index.
Microsoft is the world’s largest software company and the worldwide leader in software, services and internet technologies for personal and business computing.
Founded in 1975 and headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA, Microsoft employs 90,000 people in over 100 countries, with over $62 Billion in annual sales. Microsoft’s goal is help people and businesses throughout the world realize their full potential by empowering them with great software – anytime, anyplace and on any device. Consistently ranked as one of the world’s top brands, Microsoft’s products permeate the working lives of billions of people worldwide.
Every day, more than a billion people use a Nokia handset to connect to other people and to information and services that improve the quality of their lives. Nokia’s 2009 revenues exceeded €40 billion and in the second quarter of 2010, Nokia shipped 111 million handsets, representing one third of the world’s handset market.
Nokia’s global reach is unmatched by any other technology company. With products and services sold in 150 markets, R&D facilities in 16 countries and manufacturing sites in 15 countries, one of Nokia’s defining strengths is its multinational presence and a world-leading supply and distribution chain. Nokia place high value on consumer and stakeholder insight, which plays a central role in guiding many critical workstreams in the business and this is one of the key areas where Kantar support them. We are also the providers of much of Nokia’s core tracking research.
P&G is one of the world’s leading consumer products companies. Its portfolio includes leadership brands which are among UK and Irealnd’s most well known household names, from beauty and health, to home and beyond. No company in the world has invested more in market research than P&G. They interact with more than five million consumers each year in nearly 100 countries. They conduct over 20,000 research studies every year, and invest more than $400 million annually in consumer understanding.
The insights they gain help them identify opportunities for innovation and better serve and communicate with their consumers. They work with a variety of different Kantar operating companies, who support them in a range of different areas, offering integrated cross-Kantar solutions and the most innovative techniques and approaches to answer the keybusiness questions.
Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications is a global provider of mobile multimedia devices, including feature-rich phones, accessories and PC cards. The products combine powerful technology with innovative applications for mobile imaging, music, communications and entertainment. The net result is that Sony Ericsson is an enticing brand that creates compelling business opportunities for mobile operators and desirable, fun products for end users.
Sony Ericsson is a 50-50 joint venture between Sony Corporation and Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson.
Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications was established in 2001 by telecommunications leader Ericsson and consumer electronics powerhouse Sony Corporation. The company is owned equally by Ericsson and Sony and announced its first joint products in March 2002.
Sony Ericsson products have universal appeal and are different in the key areas of imaging, music, design and applications. The company has launched products that make best use of the major mobile communications technologies, such as the 2G and 3G platforms, while enhancing its offerings to entry level markets.
Unilever are Kantar’s biggest client and we have a broad and deep relationship with them. Unilever’s CMI and marketing communities are split into two main areas: Brand Development (BD) which is responsible for all strategic and innovation work, up to the point that a product is ready to be launched, and Brand Building (BB), which is responsible for in market activation and sales.
We work across all of Unilever’s businesses: personal care (skin care, hair care, oral care and deodorants), home care (laundry and household cleaning) and foods (ice cream, SCC (spreads), beverages (tea), dressings and savoury).
Across our Operating Companies, we do a huge amount of qualitative work for Unilever, both at the strategic and tactical levels. Key agencies here are TNS, Millward Brown, Added Value and The Futures Company. We are currently exploring ways of collaborating further and/or sharing resources. Unilever want us to partner with them in establishing a different working model for qualitative research in more challenging regions such as Asia.
Vodafone Group Plc is the world’s largest mobile telecommunications company with a significant global presence. Vodafone operates in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific and the United States through wholly owned, dual branded and partner entities. The company had a total market capitalisation of approximately £71.2 billion at 12 November, 2009.
Vodafone is one of Kantar’s biggest global clients. We have a broad and deep relationship with them, servicing the business in 21 core markets and a further 31 partner markets. We are Vodafone’s largest supplier of custom research covering everything from brand and communications, satisfaction to brand strategy and trends.
Volkswagen AG is a Germany-based automobile manufacturer. As of 2010, Volkswagen was ranked as the world’s third largest motor vehicle manufacturer and Europe's largest.
The Company develops vehicles and components, and also produces and sells vehicles, in particular Volkswagen brand passenger cars and commercial vehicles. The Company consists of two divisions: Automotive and Financial Services division. The Automotive division is responsible for the development of vehicles and engines, the production and sale of passenger cars, commercial vehicles, trucks and buses, and the genuine parts business. The Financial services division’s portfolio of services includes dealer and custom financing, leasing, banking and insurance activities, and fleet management. The Company brands include Audi, Skoda, Bentley, SEAT and Scania.
During the year ended December 31, 2009, a total of four million vehicles were delivered to customers worldwide.