iSpot.tv Hires US Census Bureau's Will Waldron

Real-time television ad measurement firm iSpot.tv has appointed former US Census Bureau and Nielsen exec Will Waldron as Vice President of Research, overseeing the statistical quality standards and methodological practices of its television ratings and ad measurement products.

iSpot's proprietary platform provides a complete view of TV ad activity across national, local and OTT services, enabling brands to measure attention to ad creative and connect ad exposures to business outcomes. In March, it became the first measurement company certified by NBCUniversal for use as currency in the purchasing of national ad campaigns, following criticism of Nielsen by its TV industry clients. The following month, investment bank Goldman Sachs acquired a $325m minority stake in iSpot.

Waldron (pictured) joins after more than three years at the US Census Bureau, where as Lead Scientist, he oversaw sampling operations for multiple demographic surveys for various federal agencies. Before this, he was Lead Technologist at Booz Allen Hamilton, working on time series regression modeling for the evaluation of federal patient safety programs; he spent six years at Nielsen, latterly as Manager, Statistical Methods; and he was a Senior Statistical Programmer at Information Management Services.

In his new role, Waldron will oversee iSpot's Media Rating Council (MRC) accreditation process, the first stage of which will be completed later this year. In addition, he is tasked with managing the company's audience panel, focusing on data quality, measurement and ratings. Commenting on the role, Waldron said: 'iSpot is ushering in a new era for audience measurement and one that can make the TV marketplace more equitable. The firm recognizes the societal value of properly measuring the TV consumption of racial and ethnic minorities in service of the most representative sample of viewing.'

Web site: www.ispot.tv .