• by Wendy Davis , June 21, 2005

Sparked by traditional marketers' growing interest in Web advertising, WPP's Millward Brown research unit quietly acquired burgeoning online researcher Dynamic Logic on Friday. Millward Brown, which has been a leader in testing advertising effectiveness for traditional media -- mainly TV -- has been seeking to move into testing online ad effectiveness.

While they are known as "online" researches, companies like Dynamic Logic, InsightExpress and Marketing Evolution also use online research methods to track traditional media effectiveness. Such methods have been growing in popularity within the ad industry in growing recognition of the online universe's increasing representation of the consumer population. Online research methods developed by Affinity were championed at last week's Association of National Advertisers' Print Advertising Forum in New York, and the so-called XMOS studies developed by Marketing Evolution have been lauded as a gold standard by both the Advertising Research Foundation and the Internet Advertising Bureau for measuring advertising effects across media.

The move also signals a further expansion of WPP Group, an ad agency holding company that owns MindShare, Mediaedge:cia, J. Walter Thompson, Ogilvy & Mather and Y&R, into research.

While terms of the deal were not disclosed, Dynamic Logic's sales last year came to $11.5 million and the company's net assets totaled $7.1 million as of the end of the year.

Dynamic Logic co-founder Nick Nyhan will remain as president of the company, which will operate as a Millward Brown subsidiary. New York City investment banking firm AdMedia Partners helped put the deal together.

Mary Ann Packo, CEO of Millward Brown North America, said Dynamic Logic would help the company satisfy marketers' increasing demand for research and analytics about their online campaigns. "The brand managers that we work with--traditional CMOs--are really recognizing that it's not just about TV any more," she said. While Millward Brown has done some online research, it's better-known for its work with TV and magazine campaigns.

Packo added that the last six to 12 months have seen a dramatic uptick in the number of marketers seeking research about online campaigns, but she had no precise numbers. Packo herself has a background in online research, having served as president and chief operating officer of audience measurement company Media Metrix prior to joining Millward Brown.

Dynamic Logic and Millward Brown already had several common clients, including MSN and ESPN. Nyhan said that he anticipated that Dynamic Logic and Millward Brown increasingly will work together on projects. "We're going to start to collaborate with Millward Brown and cherry-pick opportunities where it makes sense," he said.

Nyhan added that Dynamic Logic tapped AdMedia Partners about six months ago, in response to buyout inquiries. "We were not looking until a few research companies approached us," he said. "We realized it was probably time to have a partnership, because a lot of interest was coming in unsolicited."