• by Joe Mandese , June 21, 2007

Online search has transformed the way Madison Avenue plans and buys media. Now it's affecting the way it researches it too. New systems being developed by both established industry players and new start-ups are being rolled out that seek to take the complicated and often arcane process of conducting media research and simplify it by utilizing the same kind of intuitive, natural language, keyword search techniques popularized by Google and others. Earlier this week, Balihoo, a Boise, Idaho-based developer, kicked off a beta test of a new vertical search service that gives agencies and advertisers the ability to search millions of Web pages for results that could lead to advertising plans and buys. On Monday, long-time media planning and systems provider Telmar will launch a search-based system enabling its customers to access thousands of industry research studies via a simple, intuitive keyword search tool.

"We're in a complicated business. We wanted to come up with a way to help simplify it. We wanted to develop something that was more like a Google search, where they could put in a single word and have it produce results," Stan Federman, chairman-CEO of Telmar, told MediaDailyNews during a preview of the system in Telmar's offices this week.

The system, dubbed ReSearch Guru, uses a Web-based search method that cross-tabulates all of the industry research accessible through Telmar's systems, including some of the most utilized, such as studies from Nielsen, Mediamark Research Inc., Arbitron and others, as well as more obscure and focused studies worldwide. Telmar currently accesses some 6,000 individual studies, Federman says.

But unlike Balihoo, which gleans open source results from the public Internet, Telmar's ReSearch Genie returns results from proprietary databases that Telmar clients have licensed access to. Each client only has access to the data it is licensed for, and those results show up in a two-pane screen. After typing a keyword term or phrase into ReSearch Guru, matches to the research studies and products containing that term show up in a panel in the upper righthand portion of the screen. Users must click on individual studies to see the actual results for those studies indexed in a "results box" on the lower portion of the screen.

Other features enable users to get quick summary reports of each result in the index by "media," "demographics" and "products."

Federman says Telmar is working on new versions that will enable users to see universal results indexed across all of the research studies they subscribe to, and potentially to see results for research they currently do not subscribe to but might want to purchase.

The power of the system, Federman says, derives from its ability to cross-tab, and weight the results of a multitude of research studies based on their relevance to a user's keywords and terms. Federman says the relevancy weights were derived from Telmar's institutional knowledge of the media industry. Telmar is one of two leading suppliers providing access to advertisers, agency and media company clients across all the major media research studies, and has been in business for 39 years. The other major provider is Nielsen Co.'s IMS unit.

ReSearch Guru is the latest refinement in an ongoing progression from clunky proprietary systems to intuitive, Web-based systems for accessing industry data and information. Most of the major research and systems providers now offer secure, Web-based access, and Federman says that reflects a cultural and generational shift in the industry as much as it does technological innovation. He says ReSearch Guru initially is most likely to be used by younger Turks in media research and planning, and by agency account executives, creatives and client brand managers who may not be as versed on how to find research sources via Telmar's older eTelmar system, which requires that they know what study they are looking for before they can find it.

Telmar does not currently plan to utilize the system to access results for relevant, publicly posted media research on the Internet. To do that, says Telmar director of information technology and product development Corey Panno, "They would use Google or something like that."

While it is not focused on media research per se, Balihoo has developed a system that returns relevant, vertical results on ad-supported media properties to industry pros. It claims to be beta testing the system with a group of planners, buyers and advertisers representing more than $25 billion in U.S. ad spending, but has not disclosed who is participating.

Balihoo's beta will run for about four weeks, and based on that initial feedback, the company plans to fine-tune the system and introduce it publicly in the fall.