Davis and Twist Worldwide Announce Global Visual Intelligence Partnership

After a decade of close collaboration for major retail and consumer-products companies, Davis Brand Capital and Twist Worldwide today announced a formal partnership among the firms’ principals to co-develop visual intelligence offerings for consulting and research clients.

Patrick T. Davis, founder and chief executive officer at Davis Brand Capital, will become an equity partner in Twist Worldwide. Davis Brand Capital will develop and commercialize Twist’s consulting offerings and intellectual property, including a 25,000-image archive considered one of the most valuable in the consumer products and retail industries.

For more than 15 years, Twist Worldwide consulted for Target Corporation and developed a number of the store’s most successful platforms across multiple categories. “Twist’s influence on the modern consumer and retail landscape is profound,” said Davis. “They have produced billions of dollars in realized value for clients, and we are honored to formalize our already very strong partnership,”
he said.

Together, the firms will formalize the practice of visual intelligence, or the global study and photographic documentation of early stage consumer and cultural patterns. “Twist sees what is emerging across cultures, identifying organic patterns of behavior well before they become trends,” said Lee Walker, a former vice president of marketing at Target Corporation. “That means Twist clients are ahead of the competition,” she said.

Mark Sottnick, founder of Twist Worldwide, and partner Sherry Villanueva manage the company and a team of global correspondents from offices on the East and West coasts. “The broader the geography, the broader the perspective and the deeper the insight,” said Sottnick. “Images have become our true global Esperanto, and we need to see as much as possible to know what is going on in a meaningful way. Then, we can translate a world story into a specific retail or consumer strategy at a national or local level,” he said. Sottnick also is a celebrated filmmaker, best known for creating the widely respected production studio, Rabbit Ears.

“Visual intelligence is about seeing through the blur,” said Villanueva. “The street is our source, but knowing what to focus on is the key to seeing a pattern. Human behavior is like a stream of data. We connect various points that indicate emerging activity worth attention. Once they are recognized as trends, it is too late. Our clients are trend-setters, not followers,” she said.

In addition to partnering on work for Target, the firms previously have worked together on projects for American Greetings, Anheuser-Busch and Chipotle, among others.