J.D. Power and Associates Announces Collaboration with Compete To Offer New Intelligence on the Automotive Shopping Behaviors of Vehicle Buyers

Westlake Village, Calif. - 12 February 2009 -- J.D. Power and Associates has formed an agreement with Compete, a TNS Media company, to jointly develop valuable products based on market intelligence gathered on the online automotive shopping and buying process.

The J.D. Power and Associates/Compete products will be designed to offer auto marketers and their agencies and publishers never-before-seen intelligence about consumers and their automotive shopping habits. Data will be collected on actual vehicle buyers, rather than online automotive shoppers or Web site visitors who may not make a purchase. In particular, the jointly developed products are intended to assist marketers with understanding the shopping funnel and to help them to plan media buys and to target and intercept key prospects.

“The expertise that J.D. Power and Associates and Compete each bring to this relationship will yield a wealth of new information and actionable recommendations that will be particularly valuable in targeting new-vehicle buyers,” said Gene Cameron, vice president of marketing and media solutions at J.D. Power and Associates. “By linking J.D. Power and Associates’ unique abilities in automotive research and in analyzing automotive buyer metrics with Compete’s industry-leading ability to analyze consumer online behavior, together our organizations will deliver innovative new tools and products to assist automakers gauge return on marketing investment.”

The first product arising from the collaboration—the Online Media Behavior Study—will be released on Tuesday, March 3. The Online Media Behavior Study is a media planning tool that identifies which Web sites are visited by prospective new vehicle buyers during the previous month.  It provides media planners with near real-time reporting on automotive buyer online visitation across thousands of Web sites. This tool will allow media planners to find Web sites with the greatest reach among actual new-vehicle prospective buyers, analyzed by competitive vehicle segment, which is information no other media planning tool has ever been able to offer. Other metrics for engagement such as average time spent per visit/visitor and bounce rate will also be included. Plans are for the Online Media Behavior Study to be updated monthly and to be delivered within five weeks after the close of a month.

“In today’s challenging economy, understanding the behavior of automotive buyers is not just nice to have—it is business critical,” said Skip Streets, executive director of sales, automotive, at Compete.  “This new Compete alliance with J.D. Power and Associates empowers marketers to put the right message in front of the right audience at the right time.”

About Compete
Compete, a unit of TNS Media, helps the world’s top brands improve their marketing based on the online behavior of millions of consumers. Leading marketers such as Carlson Hotels Worldwide, Hyundai Motor America, Upromise, Chrysler, and Verizon Wireless rely on Compete's services to create effective online experiences and highly profitable advertising campaigns.  Compete’s online behavior database—the largest in the industry—makes the web as ingrained in marketing as it is in people’s lives.

Compete was founded in 2000 and is located in Boston, MA, with offices throughout the U.S.  For more information about us, please visit http://www.competeinc.com/, or to join the conversation visit http://www.compete.com/.

About TNS media
Established in more than 30 countries, TNS Media explores all the media—print, radio, TV, Internet, social media, cinema and outdoors worldwide, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and offers a full range of insights, analyses and audience measurement services.

TNS Media combines the deepest expertise in the industry to provide media and marketing intelligence including advertising expenditure monitoring, advertising creation monitoring, audience measurement, market influence analytics, online consumer behavior tracking, news monitoring, sports sponsorship evaluation and more.  The TNS Media companies track more than 3 million brands and provide vital market intelligence to 16,000 customers in the world. http://www.tnsmediagroup.com

About J.D. Power and Associates
Headquartered in Westlake Village, Calif., J.D. Power and Associates is a global marketing information services company operating in key business sectors including market research, forecasting, performance improvement, training and customer satisfaction.  The company’s quality and satisfaction measurements are based on responses from millions of consumers annually. J.D. Power and Associates is a business unit of The McGraw-Hill Companies.

About The McGraw-Hill Companies
Founded in 1888, The McGraw-Hill Companies (NYSE:  MHP) is a leading global information services provider meeting worldwide needs in the financial services, education and business information markets through leading brands such as Standard & Poor’s, McGraw-Hill Education, BusinessWeek and J.D. Power and Associates. The Corporation has more than 280 offices in 40 countries. Sales in 2008 were $6.4 billion. Additional information is available at http://www.mcgraw-hill.com.

Media Relations Contacts:
Syvetril Perryman; J.D. Power and Associates; Westlake Village, Calif.; (805) 418-8103; media.relations@jdpa.com
Sarah Ellis; Compete Media; Boston, MA; (617) 275-6546; sellis@greenoughcom.com

No advertising or other promotional use can be made of the information in this release without the express prior written consent of J.D. Power and Associates. www.jdpower.com/corporate

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