WPP buys virtual reality firm Red Dot Square

UK-- Red Dot Square, which produces virtual reality simulations for shopper research, has been bought by WPP, becoming part of the Kantar insight division. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The firm's 3D store simulations allow retail and manufacturing clients, including Wal-Mart, Tesco, Unilever and Kimberly-Clark, to test out store layouts and product designs before implementing them. It brought in £6.1m revenue in 2008.

Founder and president Mark Edwards said: “We are very excited about the opportunity to co-develop a world-class shopper marketing capability within Kantar and WPP. Our technology has broad application across a range of customer needs and the alliance with WPP/Kantar adds scale, expertise, flexibility, speed and superior delivery to our offer.”

Kantar CEO Eric Salama said that the combination of Red Dot Square's expertise with the broader research and consulting capabilities of Kantar and WPP would allow them to deliver “market-leading solutions”.

The senior leadership team will stay with the company in their current roles.

Red Dot Square's system runs on a computer equipped with a monitor, a joystick adapted to resemble the handle of a shopping trolley, and an eye-tracker. It can be set up at field locations such as shopping malls for consumer tests.

Participants can look through the virtual store and pick up any item that interests them in order to view it in detail. The system records where they went and what caught their eye, and can produce visualisations showing which items or areas of the store are ‘hot' or ‘cold'.

European sales director Keith Collins told Research that Red Dot Square is now investing in R&D to improve its technology and “take it into new environments”.

The firm is based in Milton Keynes and has a US office in Chicago. It was established in 2006 and now employs 60 people.

• Kantar Operations is to close its call centre in Corpus Christi, Texas in June with the loss of 87 jobs, according to the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. The closure of the centre, which has been operating since 1998, was attributed to a fall in demand for telephone surveys.

Author: Robert Bain

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