Australian research consultancy Fiftyfive5 has acquired the The Digital Edge, including its consumer panel and parent company, The Leading Edge Market Research Consultants.

The announcement:

Australia’s leading independent research consultancy Fiftyfive5 welcomes The Leading Edge and The Digital Edge to it’s 200 strong team. Announced to the ASX this morning the The Digital Edge, including its consumer panel and parent company, The Leading Edge (TLE) Market Research Consultants has been acquired by Fiftyfive5.

The acquisition enables Fiftyfive5 to better control and solve for an industry wide challenge around the declining quality of panel data, to innovate in connecting to and understanding consumers and to further enhance existing capability in automation, technology-based delivery of insights, modelling and data analytics. The immediate focus will be on growing the size of the panel, integrating the TDE and TLE teams and cementing a range of potential external partnerships to enrich the panel data.

“We know the team at TLE and TDE well and they bring a lot to our business which we are excited about. Having ownership of a panel and panel capability opens up a range of really interesting opportunities for us – from building out bespoke sub-panels of hard-to-reach audiences, to integration of panel and transactional data. Ultimately, this gives us the freedom and flexibility to innovate in approach.” says Mark Sundquist, CEO of Fiftyfive5.

The teams will move into the Fiftyfive5 Ultimo office on May 9th.