• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, May 27, 2014

Editor's Note: A correction to this story was updated here:

The Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) has once again expanded its board of directors as part of a strategic plan to broaden its perspective and the diversity of the media and marketing research communities it represents. The two new board members include a top ad agency executive (Brandon Cooke, global chief marketing officer of Dentsu's mcgarrybowen) and a major online research supplier (Magid Abraham, executive chairman of comScore), and bring the ARF board to 35 members, including two from comScore (chairman and co-founder Gian Fulgoni has been a long-time ARF board member).

The expansion of the board is being made to drive “growth and innovation” in the media and marketing research industry, says Gayle Fuguitt, who joined the ARF as CEO and president last year.

The new members, she says, reflect both the complexity and diversity of research and measurement issues confronting the ad industry, noting that the two new executives join six others that were added to the ARF board in the past year:

Kim Dedeker, chair of the Americas, Kantar

Jeffrey Graham, global director-sales research, Twitter

Lori Hiltz, CEO, Havas Media North America

Dave Morgan, CEO, Simulmedia

Stan Sthanunathan – senior vice president-CMI, Unilever

Steven Wolfe Pereira, CMO, Datalogix

The expansion underscores a shift in the composition of the ARF's board over time. The ARF began life as a research organization representing the interests of Madison Avenue, and was created by the Association of National Advertisers and the American Association of Advertising Agencies in 1936, and top executives of those trade groups (Bob Liodice and Mike Donahue, respectively) remain its only permanent board members.

While retaining that voice is core to the ARF's mission, Fuguitt says the changes in the consumer media and marketing environment require new voices on the ARF board, especially digital media companies like Twitter's Graham, Simulmedia’s Morgan and comScore's Magid.