Nick Priestley will continue as general manager of the company along with the current management team, with the exception of Phillips (pictured), who will follow other business ventures.

With offices in both London and New York City, US, Tonic will now be known as LRWTonic.

This is the second in LRW’s planned series of acquisitions, as it aims to become a leading, global analytics and marketing consultancy, supported by growth capital from Tailwind Capital Partners. Details of the deal have not been disclosed.

Dave Sackman, chairman and CEO of LRW, said: “The addition of Tonic to our business expands our ability to deliver ‘so what? ®’ insights at speed for our clients. Until now, clients have been limited in what they can achieve with market research communities, being forced to choose between partners with either a technology or consultancy speciality. We believe with Tonic’s unparalleled expertise paired with LRW’s icanmakeitbetter.com’s leading-edge community platform, our customers no longer need to make those tough trade-offs.”

Phillips said: “The team we have built at Tonic are a great group of researchers and now they will get the chance to shine on a bigger stage. We wanted to find a partner with a great culture and focus on innovation and who would enable Tonic to reach its potential and in LRW we couldn’t have found a better fit.”

LRW’s headquarters are in Los Angeles with offices in London, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Orange County.