TiVo Says It Can Do A Better Job Analyzing The Effectiveness Of TV Commercials

TiVo this morning launched a free website for anyone interested in commercial ratings (particularly marketers, I guess). The ‘Ad Scorecard’ is designed to let people analyze how effective a brand’s TV commercials are at retaining viewers and how well they are performing relative to competing brands.

And by launching, I mean the company pretty much bashed every other audience and effectiveness measurement companies out there, saying they are no longer effective themselves.

The site, which is powered by TiVo’s research tool, Stop||Watch ratings service and its self-reportedly ‘second-by-second’ measurement capabilities, was launched to “demonstrate that there is more accurate information available to the media industry to help them determine the efficacy of their TV ads beyond the limited data used as the industry currency today”.

Fighting words, if you ask me.

Tara Maitra, VP of Advertising & Research Sales at TiVo, also stepped up to the plate, and in a statement deemed current methods of measuring the quantity and quality of television advertising audiences “antiquated and broken”.

Visitors of the site can compare up to three brands with national broadcast and cable TV spots against each other – after registering – to determine which one most effectively retains viewers over a timeframe ranging from one week to three months. Visitors are also shown the weekly performance for each brand broken out in a graphical chart display.

TiVo’s decision to offer a free look into its anonymous ratings data is of course meant to help marketers discover the company’s full suite of research offerings.

But at least they’re not pulling any punches upon launching the free site.