• by David Goetzl , February 28, 2011

TRA, the measurement company that attempts to provide a single-source metric linking how effective TV ads are on purchase behavior, has added top executives from Arbitron, Nielsen and the TVB.

TRA board member Pierre Bouvard joins full-time as senior vice president of media sales and will oversee sales with networks and stations. He had been president of sales at Arbitron, where he helped build interest in the Portable People Meter and its potential for cross-platform measurement. Arbitron is a TRA investor.

TRA uses set-top-box data to gather viewing behavior and then matches it with shopper-card data on the purchase end. Customers include CBS, A&E Television Networks, GroupM, MediaVest and Wrigley.

Kelly Mead, who has been a vice president at Nielsen, joins TRA as vice president of advertiser sales. Mead has been involved in Nielsen's efforts in the single-source arena. Those include Nielsen's joint venture with Catalina Marketing and an aborted effort on "Project Apollo," a joint project between Nielsen and Arbitron that was halted due to lack of advertiser interest.

In addition, TVB research veteran Susan Cuccinello becomes vice president of network account management at TRA. She was a senior vice present at TVB, which is a trade group for local broadcasters.

Mark Lieberman, TRA's CEO, stated that the three executives represent "best of breed industry leaders."

In addition to Arbitron, WPP/Kantar, Intel Capital and Kodiak Venture Partners are TRA investors.