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Advertising - Friday, January 25, 2008

Ad Effectiveness Firm IMMI Raises $25M

This sounds like a nutty idea but it seems to be working. Integrated Media Measurement hands over specialzed cellphones to a panel of everyday folks that measure which TV and radio ads they see and hear. Integrated Media Measurement Inc. Any ads that the panel hear are recorded and then analyzed. That data is then sold to media buyers to provide some layer of metrics to their work - no matter how thin it may be. For most media buyers radio's Arbitron ratings and TV's Nielsen ratings make them feel that they are skating on thin ice so another source of data may be welcome.

Sample report

IMMI has been able to provide results that its predecessors likely could not match. For example, panelists who watched a Burger King commercial with a tie-in to “The Simpsons Movie” were 40% more likely to see the film than those who saw only TV, radio and theater trailers for the movie. IMMI also determined that 10% of the audience of NBC's “Heroes” watched it over the Internet.

San Mateo's Integrated Media Measurement (IMMI) has raised $25M in Series C funding led by WPP's Kantar Media Research with return backers Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Advanced Technology Ventures. The company had raised around $15M in another round.

IMMI is led by Tom Zito, an interesting character who got his start as a rock critic but has since made a nice career as a tech entrepreneur. In 1986, Zito took public AXLON, a high-tech toy company. He then founded Isix which was acquired by Hasbro. He also cofounded game developer Digital Pictures as well as digital record label Garageband.

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