Former TNS Media Head to Advise TRA

Advertising ROI specialist TRA has announced the appointment of Andrea Mezzasalma to its Advisory Board. Formerly Global Sector Head of TNS Media Research, Mezzasalma will provide expertise in the areas of strategic corporate initiatives and global partnerships.

Before his time at TNS, Mezzasalma was Partner and VP of Research Methods and Technologies for Eurisko in Milan, Italy; and served as a consultant to major MR agencies. His experience revolves around the development of innovative solutions and offerings for media measurement, targeting and single-source.

TRA burst onto the media measurement scene a year ago this week promising a revolutionary system for measuring and reporting 'True ROI Accountability' for advertising spend and describing it as 'the first element in an in-depth research system that will ultimately measure the effectiveness of all significant advertising media, nationwide'. The announcement was seen by many observers as instrumental in the shutdown just two weeks later of Arbitron and Nielsen's joint venture Project Apollo.

The firm kept up the pace throughout last year, appointing sales veteran James O'Hara as EVP of Sales in May, and a number of senior execs and advisors in December, including Steve Walsh as Senior VP of Sales, and Frank Lizza as VP of Services. In November, it announced the compilation of a database of 370,000 US homes, and the signing up of Discovery Communications as a client.

Chairman and CEO Mark Lieberman, who co-founded the firm with ad industry measurement pioneer Bill Harvey, comments: 'Andrea Mezzasalma's expertise and insight will be a great benefit to TRA, its customers and partners in the industry both domestically and abroad. We are looking forward to working with him to further grow the company...' Mezzasalma himself says he is 'highly impressed by the technical and commercial advancements that TRA has made since its founding'.

TRA, which boasts 1.5 million households of TV data and 55 million households of purchase data and derives its name from the idea of 'True ROI Accountability for Media', is on the web at www.traglobal.com .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.

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