• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, October 31, 2011

The surprising winter storm that hit the Northeast over the weekend caused power outages that have temporarily affected access to the web-based products of WPP's Kantar Media research unit, including competitive ad intelligence services such as Stradegy, MarketAdvisor, Ad$pender, MagAdvisor, AdDetector and AdScope, the company said in a notice sent to clients this morning.

Kantar Media said its email systems have also been affected.

"We have been actively working with Verizon throughout the weekend to restore access to all systems. As of this morning, Verizon estimates that we will be back up and running by 8:00 PM Eastern today. We do stress that this is an estimated time from Verizon," the company said, adding that due to the disruption in online access, it has created "contingency plans" to service time-sensitive requests, including a special "hotline" phone service: 800.497.8450.