Rentrak is making a bid
to offer the elusive single-source metric to programmers and advertisers. Subscribers to its national and local TV measurement services can also receive data on purchase behavior, offering insight
into whether a particular ad makes the cash register ring.
The company offers two viewer measurement services derived from set-top-box data under its "Essentials" brand -- one for national
networks, the other for local stations. Viewing data can now be overlaid with purchase tracking provided by Experian Simmons.
Advertisers have long been searching for a system that matches
whether a particular spot motivates buying. Recently, TRA has been offering a similar opportunity with a service that links viewing data from set-top-boxes with household-level shopping card data
provided by supermarkets.
Rentrak says it will soon have second-by-second viewing data from 17 million TV sets, culled from Dish Network, AT&T U-verse and some Charter Communications (in Los
Angeles) homes. Rentrak indicates that it can provide "single-source" data linking viewing to buying individually in all 210 DMAs.
Bill Livek, Rentrak CEO, stated that the Experian Simmons link
brings an aspect of "direct marketing" to TV analysis, "benefiting all parties in the advertising ecosystem."
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