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Epinion Asia bosses pledge ‘agile’ market research after management buyout

DecisionLab LogoThe Asia bosses of market research firm Epinion have formed a new company called Decision Lab after a management buyout earlier in the year.

Aske Nickolaj Bach Østergård and Thue Quist Thomasen, who have led the Asia operations of Epinion out of Ho Chi Minh City, owned 40% of the Asia business and acquired the market research component in January. Epinion will continue to run its research production operations from Ho Chi Minh City, where it launched in 2009.

Decision Lab starts out with 16 staff and has an office in Singapore as well as Vietnam’s commercial capital. Clients include Financial Times, Coke, Pepsi and media agencies GroupM and Vivaki.

Decision Lab has a mission to “deliver agile, connected and decision focused market research,” according to a statement from the company.

Thomasen"

Thomasen

Thomasen, the co-founder, told Mumbrella this afternoon that as so many more Southeast Asians have come online since Epinion set up a hub there seven years ago, brands – particularly consumer goods companies – have had to be more reactive, and so need faster turnaround market research done.

“What is interesting is that FMCGs are realising that they need to react to a more digital world, they didn’t used to feel threatened by the rise of e-commerce. But now customer feedback is happening online so they need to be more responsive,” he said.

Research from Epinion Asia in recent years has included the revelation that half of Southeast Asians have clicked on mobile ads by mistake, and Vietnam’s generation Z prefer to communicate via chat apps that face to face.

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