By leveraging the power of knowing what vehicles consumers have in their driveway and what show is on their TV, TRA, a media marketing and analytics software company, and Experian Automotive launched new patented advertising software on Thursday.

The companies explained Media TRAnalytics TV Auto Ratings is designed to be a solution enabling advertisers to accurately target the networks and programs that best reach desired consumers. The solution is geared to automatically match automotive registration data with television tuning data at the household level.

Through this relationship, the companies indicated the Web-based service creates proprietary ratings for specific auto brands and categories, creating what they contend is dramatically improved precision and accountability of the media buying process.

Media TRAnalytics TV Auto Ratings can enable advertisers and networks to identify the right TV programming based on the make and model of vehicle purchases by households watching specific networks and programs.

By matching households of television tuning and automotive registration data from Experian Automotive’s North American Vehicle Database, TRA says it can provide advertisers, advertising agencies and television networks the industry’s only household-level single-source solution to plan, buy, sell and evaluate the automotive industry’s current investment in television advertising.

The auto single-source database is nearly 700,000 households, an unprecedented match according to officials.

“Now, for the first time, the automotive industry is enabled to focus their television advertising dollars, providing far greater return on investment than ever before,” stated TRA chief executive officer Mark Lieberman.

“At the same time, television networks can go to market and sell against the most accurate value propositions available today,” Lieberman continued. “By placing advertisements on the right networks within the right programs, we are establishing a new standard for targeting, measurement and accountability in the automotive category.”

Experian Automotive president Scott Waldron added, “We are excited to work with TRA to launch a product that will provide our automotive clients’ greater insight of their customers on a household level.

“Having this information helps them in having a better understanding of the market, the vehicles, and the people who buy them,” Waldron went on to say.
TV Auto Ratings is the newest addition in TRA’s Media TRAnalytics, a patented Web-based business intelligence software solution that can match second-by-second TV tuning data from set-top boxes in 2.2 million households with consumer purchase data for consumer package goods (more than 500,000 single-source households) and pharmaceuticals (more than 900,000 households).

The companies also mentioned the launch of TV Auto Ratings is the next step in TRA’s existing relationship with Experian Audience IQSM, a full-service data-driven advertising platform.

In September 2010, TRA announced a feature that enabled clients to measure the impact of TV ads on auto sales. It combined aggregated automotive ownership data from Experian’s Auto Market Statistics product with that from TRA’s own TV set-top-box database.