Database guru Coad launches new venture
Tony Coad, who sold the Calyx Group, the parent company of lifestyle databases NDL International and CMT, to VNU in 1995 for an estimated &£50m, has launched a new company under the NDL International name. NTL is its first client.
Coad says: “The commodity list-rental business is a thing of the past. What we’re into now is multi-media, small, highly targeted audiences who are used to instant media such as e-mail.”
After selling Calyx, Coad joined the Telegraph Group as development director, in charge of putting together a direct marketing strategy and exploiting the newspaper group’s database of reader names and information.
The new NDL already has a claimed database of information on 9 million UK individuals, which it plans to merge with data sources from client companies such as NTL to develop new ways to target consumers. NTL has 3.3 million residential customers signed up for its cable television and telephone services and 1.6 million customers for broadband.
NTL head of customer insight and operations Honey Arneja says that Coad’s “experience at the Telegraph Group is a blueprint for what we wish to achieve. We want to ensure we offer our customers the best partnerships.”
Coad left the Telegraph Group in 2000 to form database and research company Coad Cole & Burey with David Cole and Bill Burey.
After buying Calyx, VNU merged it with rival database company Claritas, before selling it to Acxiom. The NDL name has not been used since 1994, Coad says.
