Corporate Executive Board to buy trends researcher Iconoculture

US— Consumer trends researcher Iconoculture is set to be acquired by the Corporate Executive Board (CEB), an executive research and advisory firm, for upwards of $15m.

CEB chief executive Thomas Monahan (pictured top) said Iconoculture’s data and insight “fills a key gap in our strong sales and marketing practice area”.

Discussing the deal with financial analysts, Monahan said: “We saw our members asking us for more help on consumer insight. We faced the classic ‘make/buy’ decision and came to the conclusion that the Iconoculture team had done a great job of building up terrific content, good relationships and a great organisation and we saw an opportunity to accelerate our ability to meet that need.”

The acquisition is expected to close some time in the next month or two. As to the deal’s value, Monahan said: “Broadly speaking, Iconoculture is about $15m in annual sales. We paid a little more than one times revenue up front, with some additional consideration available based on our 2010 performance.”

CEB’s first quarter revenue was down 15% to $100m while net income declined 11% to £11.6m. Monahan said the revenue drop was expected and that otherwise the firm had made “a solid start”. “There’s no doubt we have benefited as the economy shows signs of thawing,” he said.

Iconoculture CEO Dan Frawley (pictured bottom) is expected to remain with the business following the CEB takeover, along with the rest of his leadership team.

Vickie Abrahamson and Mary Meehan, the co-founders of Iconoculture, left the agency in February after 18 years to launch a new trends business called Panoramix Global with a focus on researching consumers in G20 countries.

We hope you enjoyed this article.
Research Live is published by MRS.

The Market Research Society (MRS) exists to promote and protect the research sector, showcasing how research delivers impact for businesses and government.

Members of MRS enjoy many benefits including tailoured policy guidance, discounts on training and conferences, and access to member-only content.

For example, there's an archive of winning case studies from over a decade of MRS Awards.

Find out more about the benefits of joining MRS here.

0 Comments


Display name

Email

Join the discussion

Newsletter
Stay connected with the latest insights and trends...
Sign Up
Latest From MRS

Our latest training courses

Our new 2025 training programme is now launched as part of the development offered within the MRS Global Insight Academy

See all training

Specialist conferences

Our one-day conferences cover topics including CX and UX, Semiotics, B2B, Finance, AI and Leaders' Forums.

See all conferences

MRS reports on AI

MRS has published a three-part series on how generative AI is impacting the research sector, including synthetic respondents and challenges to adoption.

See the reports

Progress faster...
with MRS 
membership

Mentoring

CPD/recognition

Webinars

Codeline

Discounts