• by John Gaffney , May 24, 2002

With three new agencies signed as clients and a plan to expand its services, 2002 is shaping up to be a benchmark year for Intermedia Advertising Group.

The IAG, which claims it monitors the performance of every ad in primetime on the six major broadcast networks, recently made waves by signing Inititive Media, Mindshare and OMD to its client list. Co-CEO Alan Gould says IAG will expend its primetime measurement to cable networks sometime during the fourth quarter of this year. He says IAG is also planning on adding more dayparts to its service. Primetime is currently the only measured daypart.

“We’re going to grow as our revenues permit,” Gould said. “And we’re growing at a good pace. There are a lot of academic type studies on the effectiveness on TV advertising but there’s not a lot of data about how that advertising works in real time. We’re applying the ROI concept to TV ads. You pay by the CPM, but we’re trying to define exactly what an advertiser gets for the money.”

Charter partners on the IAFG service, which started last fall, include Tricon, (KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell), Unilever, Coca-Cola, Bristol Myers-Squibb and Nabisco/Kraft. According to current IAG data, Burger King’s commercial featuring LA Lakers star Shaquille O’Neal has the highest recall among consumers, rating an index of 220.

It also tracks an ad “likeability index” currently led by Hallmark at 152. While these numbers give data on how consumers are reacting to a spot, Gould says ad agencies that sign as clients have more services available.

“We have a normal series of questions we ask our survey audience,” he says. “A participating agency can add more detailed questions if they want to measure a specific feature of an ad. The way it works now, agencies can adjust their ad campaign to reallocate dollars based on how an ad is performing.”

So if you’re Burger King, you might want to heavy up on the Shaq commercials. If you’re not rating well on the IAG data, you might want to rethink the approach both creatively and from a planning standpoint.

“More info is more helpful than less info,” Gould says. “In order for your ad to stimulate the proper result, somebody has to watch it. We’re starting to provide reliable information on whether it’s being watched.”