BVA GROUP and BABEL start paving a new way
19/09/2018
Gérard Lopez (CEO, BVA Family) and Laurent Habib (CEO, Babel Agency)
BVA Family, which recently joined the ranks of the top 10 Global Market Research Companies (reaching 150m Euro in 2017), has invested in a 30% share in BABEL, the French communication agency chaired by Laurent Habib.
BVA’s mission is to facilitate the transformation of their clients by leveraging the human factors behind the data: the customer, the citizen and the employee. BVA is known as one of the pioneers in applying behavioural science (behavioural economics, but also neuroscience and UX research) and has won multiple awards within the industry (ESOMAR Excellence and best paper awards).
Beyond its geographical expansion the group has a strategic aim to grow its consultancy offering, which has led to many investments and transformations in the past few years – including the creation of the BVA Nudge Consulting , LPI acquisitions (CEO consultancy), Okoni (design agency),and BDRC (a UK based global MR group). Indeed, such hybridisation between skills allows BVA quickly to transform insight into real solutions for customers – using nudge, design, innovation and communication - with more integrated and agile answers.
In order to expand its behaviourally informed consultancy offering, the BVA Family has chosen to ally with BABEL, a new French challenger with rapid growth in the fields of creation and brand strategy consulting. Created in 2012 by Laurent Habib, CEO of AAC (a French communication agency association) and former CEO of the Havas Group, BABEL is the fastest growing French agency, now reaching €19m gross margin with 200 collaborators. Its mission is to defend strong brands and accompany their transformation. BABEL is one of the first communication agencies that has been able to advise brands by integrating deep consumer insight with an interpretation of the emotional dimension of the customer/employee experience.
“We share with Babel an ambition to reinforce our position in the market. In alliance with Babel we can create a high level joint offering which best fuses our distinctive approaches to strategic branding,” said Gerard Lopez, BVA Family chairman. Laurent Habib, BABEL Chairman, has confirmed, “Such an alliance will put the deep consumer understanding and the human intelligence in the heart of the company and brand strategies, to build the unique qualities necessary to their survival.”
This alliance of BVA and BABEL will create a brand new value proposition in the market; a consulting approach that is very different from those who only rely on technological ‘solutionism’. Indeed, today companies realise that their transformation success (or failure) mainly relies on the human factor. BVA and BABEL will together bring an undeniable expertise in the field of human-sensitive intelligence and mastering emotional levers of engagement.
About BVA
The BVA Family is a fast-growing research and consulting firm (150 M euro in 2017), expert in behavioural science, ranked in the top 10 world-wide agencies. BVA brings data to life and converts deep understanding of customers and citizens into behaviour change strategies. We operate for both private and public sector clients with methodologies fuelled by data science and behavioural science. Our FMCG department (PRS IN VIVO) is a global leader in packaging and shopper research, and the BVA Family is a European leader in Customer Experience research (feed-back-management, mystery-shopping, quality monitoring, customer satisfaction & NPS and ethnography). More than 100 leading brands use our behavioural insights to provide seamless shopper journeys and design successful new products and services, including solutions from our multi-awarded Global Nudge-unit.
With a France-based HQ, BVA also has offices in New York, Chicago, London, Geneva, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Rome, Milan, Shanghai and Singapore.
To learn more about the BVA Family, please visit www.bva-group.com
