OMD and CBS Vision Team Up on Marketing, Research Center

Communications Lab @ OMD looks to test efficacy of multi-platform campaigns

By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 11/9/2009 12:21:01 PM

Omnicom's OMD media agency is partnering with CBS Vision's Television City Research center in Las Vegas in a venture being branded as Communications Lab @ OMD. OMD said it would help shift audience research from "siloed and synthetic" to "integrated and organic."

Television City has been taking advantage of the cross-section of viewers that flows through the MGM Grand Hotel to conduct qualitative and quantitative research to conduct focus groups, surveys as well as eye-tracking and brain scanning techniques to test digital and mobile platforms as well as traditional TV.

Omnicom clients will now be able to tap into that research, with Hershey's, McDonald's and Pepsi already signed on as charter users of what they are calling a Media Effectiveness Communications Lab.

Omnicom, which CBS says is the first agency to tap into the research facility, is one of the founding partners in the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM), an effort to improve cross-platform audience measurement.

"Communications Lab@OMD represents the next evolution in media research - true, multi-platform engagement that gives marketers a higher level of insight into how their consumers interact with brands and messages across all media environments," said OMD CEO Alan Cohen in a joint release.

The companies say the research is cheaper than "standard rates for comparable traditional research.