The acquisition expands Circana’s global footprint in marketing analytics and boosts its modelling and measurement.

MMM is an advanced statistical modelling approach used by brands to understand the incremental impact of their marketing investments across all channels and touchpoints.

The deal follows the company’s acquisition of NCSolutions (NCS) in June this year, which strengthened its media measurement.

The MMM business and its staff will be integrated into Circana’s media team alongside NCS, with Circana using the combined capabilities to create a measurement platform covering media planning and targeting, in-flight optimisation and post-campaign analysis.

Cara Pratt, president of global retail and media (pictured), who joined the business earlier this year, leads the newly integrated Circana Media team.

Following the 2022 merger of Information Resources, Inc (IRI) and The NPD Group, the combined company rebranded as Circana the following year.

Stuart Aitken, president and chief executive at Circana, said the acquisition of MMM highlighted Circana’s aim to create “the industry’s leading media measurement business”.

Pratt said: “This combination gives our clients the ability to understand not just what happened, but why it happened and how to optimise future investments for maximum impact.”

Karthik Rao, chief executive officer, Nielsen, said: “As we focus on our own portfolio, we believe Circana is the ideal owner for the NCS and MMM businesses.

“These best-in-class assets and teams can now unlock immense opportunity for customers as part of a fast-growing data, science, and technology powerhouse on the leading edge of the industry.”