Cello is expanding fast after raising £15m by floating on the Alternative Investment Market in November. It subsequently bought market research company Insight Research Group, advertising agency the Leith Agency, and Target Direct. It followed this up in December with the purchase of another direct agency Navigator Response, which it merged with Target Direct.
Contour will generate customer insights by working with a number of partners providing transactional, lifestyle and attitudinal data. These include Acxiom, Computer Software Group, Prospect Swetenhams, Transactis and Valldata.
Evans has been instated as managing director and Metcalfe as operations director, and a team of eight specialists has been recruited. The division will work out of Target Direct's offices in Cheltenham.
Contour has named its thought process the "Insight Development Journey" and claims it can increase direct marketing ROI by as much as 20%.
"We believe that the most valuable customer insight is drawn together from a combination of transactional, lifestyle and attitudinal data from a wide variety of sources that is so often available to clients but is under-utilised and undervalued," Evans said.
Prior to her role as head of data planning at Target Direct, Evans was targeting director at what was Evans Hunt Scott, now EHS Brann, where she worked on Tesco Clubcard and Direct Line.
Metcalfe also joins from Target Direct, where he was head of analytics. His previous jobs include consultant with SmartFocus and data mining consultant at SPSS.
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