• by Masha Geller , December 17, 2001

While everyone keeps talking about simplifying the process of buying online media and thus attracting more traditional advertisers to the medium, one company seems to have taken it upon itself to actually do something to accomplish that goal.

Atlas DMT, an advertising technology provider and operating unit of Avenue A, Inc., announced today that it has unveiled its GRP and Reach Forecaster - the first-ever Gross Rating Points (GRPs) tool for online media.

GRP is the standard measurement for quantifying advertising exposure in traditional advertising (derived by multiplying reach by the average frequency for a buy), but online the difficulty has been in finding the necessary online data to forecast reach and frequency.

Atlas promises to solve that problem. And, interestingly enough, they've got the approval from two organizations that generally don't pay much attention to online media.

The first is the American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA), whose EVP Michael Donohue says this is a "tremendous step forward for the advertising industry," adding that "Atlas DMT's new GRP and Reach Forecaster will definitely help traditional agencies plan online advertising more efficiently."

The second endorser is the Advertising Research Foundation, whose president Jim Spaeth says, "The goal of the GRP and Reach Forecaster is to help media planners easily integrate online media into the media planning process. This marks true innovation."

Of course, the true test of the system will be whether or not it attracts more traditional advertisers to the web, but this is not a bad start.