Greentarget and Duff & Phelps, the global advisor that protects, restores and maximizes value for clients, won The Holmes Report’s 2018 Diamond SABRE award for Superior Achievement in Research and Planning. The SABRE Awards recognize campaigns that demonstrate the highest levels of strategic planning, creativity and business results. Greentarget and Duff & Phelps were recognized for their campaign, “In Defense of Fairness Opinions.” As the industry leader, Duff & Phelps felt a responsibility to elevate the conversation around fairness opinions, an important industry practice relied upon by corporate boards. While Duff & Phelps could speak to its own client work, the firm needed empirical evidence to demonstrate the utility of fairness opinions as an industry practice. The solution required analyzing thousands of pages of data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (which could only be done using artificial intelligence). The result was a report entitled, “In Defense of Fairness Opinions: An Empirical Review of Ten Years of Data.” Greentarget partnered on the thought leadership campaign, including the research program, content development and media outreach. “Boards of directors seeking fairness opinions have long been left to rely on their own intuition and experience in scrutinizing valuation estimates. The report provides directors with new data and empowers them to ask more informed questions,” said Chris Janssen, Global Head of Transaction Opinions at Duff & Phelps. “It’s an honor to be recognized for our efforts and commitment to providing clients with cutting-edge thinking on a long-standing and valued business practice.” “This program demonstrates how data-driven storytelling can address the most complex questions in technical industries,” said John Corey, Founding Partner, Greentarget. “Data-driven storytelling provides a powerful complement to the quantitative research programs we’ve delivered for years. Leaders in business services that can integrate big data, machine learning and predictive analytics into their marketing programs can add tremendous value to their clients. We were honored to work with Duff & Phelps on this ground-breaking campaign, and we are thrilled to see Duff & Phelps and Greentarget recognized for this prestigious award.”