Hakuhodo Brings MarketShare's Analytics and Software to its Clients

Hakuhodo Will Leverage MarketShare’s Analytics and Software to Provide Invaluable Insights to the Premier Japanese Agency’s Clients

For Immediate Release
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Los Angeles, CA and Tokyo — November 29, 2010—MarketShare, a leading U.S.-based analytics company that is helping businesses grow more efficiently by quantifying and optimizing what is really driving demand, and Hakuhodo, one of Japan’s leading advertising agencies, announced a strategic partnership to offer marketing effectiveness solutions to clients in Japan and other key Asian markets.

“By partnering with MarketShare, we believe we’ll be able to provide a unique service that will allow us to deepen our relationships with existing clients as well as win new business with this differentiated offering,” said Masaki Mikami, Executive Officer, Hakuhodo. “MarketShare is the leader in providing transparency for businesses across their marketing and sales activities to dramatically improve business outcomes and we are pleased to leverage the analytics and software with our clients.”

Under the agreement, Hakuhodo will work with MarketShare to analyze and meaningfully improve its service of marketing spending optimization and ROI on behalf of Hakuhodo’s clients. Hakuhodo will tap into MarketShare’s patent-pending analytics software that help optimize the marketing allocation across offline marketing such as television, print, out-of-home, radio and other media; online marketing such as search, display, video, social media and mobile; and in-store marketing such as trade promotions, pricing promotions, new product launches and other activities.

”Japan has been a very important market for MarketShare, and our partnership with Hakuhodo will help us further expand there and establish a leadership position in the Asia Pacific region,” said Wes Nichols, co-founder and CEO, MarketShare.    “We look forward to working with such a forward-looking agency to bring sophisticated marketing analytics capabilities to brands throughout Asia.”

Hakuhodo will now be able to more effectively conduct strategic planning for overall marketing activities for their clients, which includes understanding of the effectiveness of each marketing activity and forecast of sales and revenue of the brand by tapping into MarketShare’s software and methodologies. Combining Hakuhodo’s strategic planning and marketing capabilities with MarketShare’s advanced methodologies and models, will allow Hakuhodo to provide customized service and software to meet the needs of the companies in Japan and the Asia-Pacific region.

About MarketShare

MarketShare is the industry’s leading analytics company, helping its clients grow more efficiently by revealing what really drives demand, and optimizing their investments accordingly. Founded in 2005, MarketShare has helped companies of all sizes enhance their advertising and sales programs, including many of the world’s most recognizable brands. The company has developed a suite of proprietary software solutions that enables companies to determine how best to target the 21st Century consumer who, in this era of fragmentation, social media, search and DVRs, is harder to reach. MarketShare has assembled the world’s most respected thought leaders in marketing and marketing science to definitively solve the marketing ROI question, with leaders like Dr. Dominique Hanssens of UCLA, former P&G global CMO Jim Stengel, CBS research guru David Poltrack, Overture CEO Ted Meisel, respected CMOs Mike Linton and Jim Garrity, technologists Ron Conway and Gokul Rajaram, as well as numerous others focused on bringing true accountability to marketing. MarketShare is an Elevation Partners portfolio company. For more information, go to www.marketsharepartners.com.

About Hakuhodo Inc.

Founded in 1895, Hakuhodo Inc. (www.hakuhodo.jp) is the second largest advertising company in Japan, and the leading agency in the world’s eighth largest agency group, according to Advertising Age’s agency report 2010 . Today, innovation and creativity are still at the heart of its operations. Hakuhodo shares with its clients an unmatched depth of knowledge about the relationship between people and brands—knowledge that has grown from the concept of sei-katsu-sha (“consumers with a heartbeat”) which Hakuhodo pioneered in advertising. Through its global network, Hakuhodo provides comprehensive marketing and communications services and solutions for some of the best-known brands in the world. Hakuhodo has 65 offices in 17 countries/regions, and 3,134 employees (as of April 1, 2010).

Sei-katsu-sha insight is the foundation for Hakuhodo’s thinking, planning, and brand building. It reminds us that consumers are more than shoppers performing an economic function. They have heartbeats. They are individuals with distinct lifestyles. Hakuhodo introduced this term in the 1980s to emphasize its commitment to a comprehensive, 360-degree perspective on consumers’ lives.

Hakuhodo is one of three advertising agencies which, together with integrated media company Hakuhodo DY Media Partners, come under the umbrella of Hakuhodo DY Holdings Inc. (TSE: 2433) (http://www.hakuhodody-holdings.co.jp/english/index.html). Hakuhodo DY Holdings Inc., which was established in 2003 through the management integration of Hakuhodo Inc., Daiko Advertising Inc. and Yomiko Advertising Inc., was listed on the first section of Tokyo Stock Exchange in 2005.

Media Contacts:

For MarketShare
Jennifer Stephens Acree
Jennifer@jsastrategies.com
310-780-3331

For Hakuhodo Media contacts:
Chie Nishio
Chie.nishio@hakuhodo.co.jp

Yukiko Ono
Yukiko.ono@hakuhodo.co.jp
Tel: +81-(0)3-6441-6161