• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, September 19, 2018

After years of being chaired by a digital media executive, the Advertising Research Foundation once again has named a traditional consumer marketer to head its board. Barbara Murrer, senior director of marketplace insights for quintessential American brand Levi Strauss & Co., is succeeding Google Director of Brand Measurement Jed Meyer as the foundation’s chair.

The move is symbolic for two reasons. One is that she is the first female marketer to chair the ARF. The second is that the ARF has been criticized in recent years for coming increasingly under the influence of big digital media platforms such as Google and Facebook, although its charter is intended to serve advertisers.

The ARF was originally created under the auspices of the Association of National Advertisers and the American Association of Advertising Agencies to be the ad industry’s “research authority,” and to help the industry define principles, guidelines and standards for what constitutes best practices in advertising, marketing and media research.

Google’s Meyer has served as chairman since 2016.

Murrer, who also is the first ARF chair to be based on the West Coast, has 25 years of consumer marketing experience. Prior to Levi Strauss & Co., she was director of market intelligence at The Clorox Company, where she led the Cleaning Division and international research teams handling all insights work across product, brand and sales.