Rentrak hired a pair of media-research veterans, naming Bruce Goerlich as chief research officer and Michael Vinson as vice president of statistical sciences and analytics.
The two executives, both in newly created positions, will "tap into Rentrak's deep data collection, reporting, analytical and research capabilities to develop new research products," the company said.
Rentrak may be staffing up for a specific opportunity: An affiliation of TV programmers, ad agencies and advertisers, under the moniker Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement, is reportedly working on a plan to develop a new standard for cross-platform video-viewing metrics.
New York-based Goerlich most recently was president of strategic resources at ZenithOptimedia North America and has also served as chairman of the Advertising Research Foundation and president of the Market Research Association.
Vinson most recently worked for ad agency Starcom MediaVest Group, where he was senior vice president and managing director of digital insights and analytics. Prior to that, Vinson worked at erinMedia as the chief research scientist, where he was granted seven patents relating to mathematical methods for estimating demographics from privacy-compliant digital set-top box data.
"I am very pleased to welcome Bruce Goerlich and Michael Vinson, two very distinguished advertising and analytical research industry leaders, to Rentrak," Rentrak CEO Bill Livek said in announcing the appointments Thursday. The newly created positions "are part of company growth strategy that will further drive us to deliver indispensable information and unique knowledge to our customers."
