• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, February 28, 2007

Competitive intelligence in the field of media planning and buying is about to get a lot more competitive--and faster, too.

An alliance scheduled to be announced today between ad tracker TNS Media Intelligence and media-buying analytics firm COREMedia systems will give TV advertisers and their agencies a competitor's TV ad schedules within 48 hours of running. It will enable them to respond and adjust their own media plans with a speed that previously had been available only to advertisers with their own proprietary intelligence tracking systems.

The system, dubbed Ignite Competitive, initially was developed by COREMedia to give greater spontaneity to its core roster of direct-response agencies and advertisers. But the application will likely have an impact on a broader base of clients and agencies seeking to understand what their competitors are doing.

Both TNS MI and rival Nielsen Monitor-Plus offer various competitive ad alert services that email subscribers when new ads are detected by their systems. However, the new system developed by COREMedia will allow this information to instantly flow into planning and buying systems to make immediate, on-the-fly adjustments.

The data, initially available only for national cable networks, ultimately will be expanded to include all the major media tracked by TNS MI. In addition to detailed information on a spot-by-spot basis, the new system will provide Internet links to video samples of the commercials that have aired.

The new system is among the suite of new services that are part of a new dashboard system that COREMedia will unveil at the American Association of Advertising Agencies media conference and trade show in Las Vegas. It moves the firm beyond its traditional direct-response roots into the mainstream of media-buying management.

One of the new products, for example, is CoreWeb--a media-buying management system for buyers of interactive advertising that will appeal to interactive buying departments, as well as traditional direct-response shops.

The competitive media deal, meanwhile, represents a coup for TNS MI, which is in a battle with Nielsen Monitor-Plus for share of market. By getting its data out quicker and flowing it directly into planning, buying and posting systems, the data ostensibly will have greater utility.