Media Gurus to Drive Rentrak Video Research

In the US, multi-screen media measurement firm Rentrak has appointed Bruce Goerlich as Chief Research Officer and Dr Michael Vinson as Vice President of Statistical Sciences and Analytics. The new positions have been created to push the development of video ad research products.

Rentrak is now positioning itself as a major player in tracking the distribution of video-on-demand content. The firm, which competes with companies such as TNS, TiVo, TRA Analytics and Nielsen, currently processes data from 13 million digital set-top devices in the US with commercialized data available from 3.8 million of them via AT&T's U-Verse system.

In their new roles, Goerlich and Vinson will help create new services that integrate syndicated and custom marketing data to provide customers with advanced measurement of how their video advertising is performing across all screens.

During his 25-year career with ad agencies and industry associations, Goerlich has been involved in developing new media research approaches including those for TV optimization, econometrics, and understanding consumer lifestyles.

Most recently, he was President of Strategic Resources at ZenithOptimedia, North America, prior to which he served as Chairman of the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF), and was the past President of the Market Research Association. He will continue to serve as Co-Chair of the ARF's 360 Media Planning Committee.

Vinson's experience includes a combination of mathematics and theoretical physics as applied to media and advertising, having most recently worked as SVP and MD of Digital Insights and Analytics at Starcom Media Vest Group. Previously, he worked at erinMedia as Chief Research Scientist, where he was granted seven patents relating to mathematical methods for estimating demographics from privacy-compliant digital set-top box data.

'I am very pleased to welcome Bruce and Michael to Rentrak,' said CEO Bill Livek. 'As the company expands its offerings to incorporate more sophisticated reporting and market research information services, these newly created positions are part of our growth strategy that will further drive us to deliver indispensable information and unique knowledge to our customers.'

Web site: www.rentrak.com .