Edwina Dunn and Clive Humby have joined social network analytics firm Starcount

Edwina Dunn and Clive Humby, the duo behind Tesco’s hugely successful Clubcard scheme, have joined social network analytics firm Starcount with the aim of helping brands to better understand and engage with their digital audience.

The husband-and-wife team founded Dunnhumby, the customer insight business, in 1989.

They pioneered the use of data analysis for customer benefit and signed their landmark deal with Tesco in 1994, later selling the business to the supermarket giant for £93m.

Dunn and Humby have now joined the board of Starcount as executive directors and taken a “significant minority equity stake” in the business, which aggregates data and trends across the world’s 11 most popular social media networks. Starcount has acquired the pair’s new H&D Ventures business as part of the deal.

Dunn said: “Social media has thrown up an intriguing new hypothesis for data analysts – that networks are to a very significant extent driven and influenced by a very small pool of users, in a way that could never have been possible before the internet.

“This creates huge opportunities for both brands and their customers – to create a social loyalty currency which will allow companies to properly understand and engage their digital audience.”