ANALYSIS: Advertising - Adding up the sum of Aegis' parts. Adrian Chedore faces up to the task of unifying Aegis' far-flung research empire. Alfred Hille reports

Adrian Chedore, the newly-appointed worldwide chief executive officer of Aegis Research, has moved swiftly to reshape what is now an informal collection of separate research houses into a global organisation sharing a common strategic direction. Aegis Research - part of Aegis Group, which also operates independent media agency Carat - has existed for less than three years. It has grown through mergers and acquisitions and now boasts leading research companies, including Market Facts in the United States, Pegram Walters in Britain, MEMRB in Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Demoscopie in France and Asia Market Intelligence (AMI) in Asia-Pacific. The task Chedore now faces since taking up the role in September is to unify the group's far-flung empire. In part, that means establishing new operations in Japan, Australia and Western Europe. The more important strategy, however, is "to pull everything together so that globally we have a single identity, culture, vision, objectives and product and service offering", says Chedore, who is also the chief executive and co-founder of AMI, which Aegis acquired in March last year. "We have 2,500 employees in 74 offices in 38 countries. A multitude of different cultures and heritages, therefore, exist. But we have to bring them together as a cohesive whole, so that they share a common vision as well as common systems and processes," he says. This means selling a common package of the best products and services the group has at its disposal. It also means training staff and hiring people from a variety of different industries to more effectively meet the needs of clients. The latter point is uppermost in Chedore's mind. "We want to be able to speak the client's language; not simply sell the products we happen to have. We can't sell what we are offering like a packet of cornflakes. We must tailor it to meet clients' needs," says Chedore, who launched AMI in 1991 with eight people. Clients demanding actionable advice as well as data and trends have been the key driver behind the redefinition of Aegis Research. But in response to growing demand by media agencies for a single source media consumption survey in Asia offering more in-depth questioning of respondents for psychographic analyses, Chedore counters: "The arguments are too simplistic. You could find that a yuppie group drinks Carlsberg. Then you find that an older group also drinks Carlberg. The question they are asking is akin to asking how long a piece of string is. "What research needs to do is not prejudge ways of segmenting people but to build surveys that are useful and which do not exhaust the respondents in the survey process." The reshaping of the group includes renaming and rebranding the company because the 'Aegis Research' name has already been taken in the US. The image makeover is expected to take place next year, which should go some way in strengthening Chedore's chances of turning his vision into reality. However, he says there are no deadlines. He likens the progress towards these goals as part of the company's natural evolution. "The work will never be done because we will always continue to add new geography, services and tools. It's dangerous to set anything in concrete these days."

Sign In

Trouble signing in?

Reset Password: Click here

Contact Customer Support at

Customerservice@campaignasia.com