Aegis Signs With Rentrak, Will Use Exact Commercial Ratings

In an effort to get beyond conventional Nielsen ratings, Aegis Media North America this morning announced an agreement to license Rentrak’s digital TV set-top audience data for Carat and other Aegis shops.

Aegis said the deal gives it access to Rentrak’s TV Essentials service, which it described as “census-based currency” data, and said it would enable it to “target, plan and buy television more effectively.”

Carat, along with Havas’ MPG and Omnicom’s OMD, have been among the more aggressive media shops exploring the integration of digital set-top data as an alternative to Nielsen for planning and buying television advertising, especially for so-called “long-tail” networks that are not currently measured in Nielsen’s standard TV ratings. Earlier this week, Rentrak announced that it had added an “exact commercial ratings” module to its TV Essentials service, enabling advertisers and agencies to plan, buy and post their TV advertising based on the actually exposure of their commercials, as opposed to the average commercial minute ratings offered by Nielsen.

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"Audience data has become standard currency in helping us achieve more efficient and effective media solutions on behalf of our clients," stated Michelle Lynn , senior vice president-head of research and consumer insights at Carat USA . "Rentrak's TV Essentials and exact commercial ratings metric provide the type of information required to better understand people's viewing behaviors in a highly fragmented marketplace.”

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