Ground Truth Attracts Media Measurement and Technology Luminaries to Advisory Board

SEATTLE, April 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Ground Truth, the mobile measurement firm that delivers precise, timely and actionable mobile intelligence, today announced that it has assembled the foremost thought leaders in new media measurement and interactive media technology to serve on its advisory board.

Ground Truth's advisors: Peter Daboll, Usama Fayyad, Clark Kokich, Henry Lawson and Chris Maher, are the executives who have built some of the world's most innovative and successful interactive media and measurement businesses, such as Hitwise, Razorfish, comScore and Donovan Data Systems.

"The fact that some of the most brilliant and successful executives in the interactive media and measurement industries have aligned themselves with Ground Truth is a tremendous show of confidence for both the opportunity we have identified and the business we are building," said Sterling Wilson, president and CEO, Ground Truth. "I couldn't be more pleased to have the collected wisdom and experience of these outstanding executives as we fulfill our charter to make Ground Truth the standard in mobile media measurement."

Advisory board member Peter Daboll has spent the past 25 years in executive roles at respected measurement firms and Web companies. He is the former chief of insights at Yahoo!, president and CEO of comScore Media Metrix, president at MarketTools, COO for MediaPlan and executive vice president at Informational Resources, Inc. (IRI). He is currently CEO of Bunchball, a marketing technology company that leverages rich consumer insights and game mechanics.

"Understanding how consumers use mobile devices to consume, communicate and create digital media is the future of marketing," said Daboll. "I believe Ground Truth has an innovative and game-changing technology to measure large numbers of consumers to understand nuances of behavior and response."

Usama Fayyad is a serial entrepreneur and renowned pioneering scientist in data mining and predictive analytics. He was chief data officer and executive vice president at Yahoo! after his company (DMX Group) was acquired by Yahoo! in 2004. He was CEO of digiMine, Inc (Audience Science Inc.), the behavioral targeting company he co-founded in 2000. In addition to his work leading the development of the data mining and exploration group at Microsoft, Fayyad was the recipient of several prestigious research awards while working at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Today, he's CEO of Open Insights, the market-leading data strategy and technology firm.

"The Ground Truth team is seeking nothing short of shedding light on and understanding the new world of the Mobile Internet and device/app usage in an area that remains poorly understood – despite the fact that it is touching almost every human on the planet," Fayyad observed. "These insights will unlock vast and novel opportunities in the richly interactive mobile arena of the future."

For the past decade, Clark Kokich's name has been synonymous with interactive marketing. In 1999--when the Internet was beginning its rise to becoming a mass medium--Kokich was appointed president of Avenue A. Under his leadership, Avenue A became one of the largest interactive marketing agencies in the world, acquiring Razorfish in 2004, selling to Microsoft in 2007 and last year becoming part of the Publicis network. Today, Kokich is leading international expansion and strategic investments as chairman of Razorfish.

"I joined the Ground Truth advisory board because the company is solving one of the fundamental problems of the mobile advertising industry," Kokich commented. "There's tremendous potential in mobile, but it won't be realized without access to standardized and reliable audience data."

Henry Lawson is recognized in the media industry as a leader of Donovan Data Systems, a provider of IT systems and services for the marketing communications industry. In his role as president and European CEO, Lawson was responsible for running the company's European operations and building its global business.

During Lawson's 14-year tenure, he led the transformation of Donovan Data Systems' U.S. business and led the team that conceived BrandOcean, its flagship product, used widely by agencies today. He is currently executive in residence at Warburg Pincus, London, chairman of Cogniti and member of the advisory boards for Covario and Zumobi.

"The personal power of mobile together with its ability to accompany consumers right into the retail environment is unique," said Lawson. "With accountability becoming mandatory in media today, real measurement is needed. As soon as I saw Ground Truth's vision for building universal, accurate measures from census-based industry data I knew it was the best solution. I am proud to be associated with the team who has achieved so much and has a bright future ahead. Agencies are going to pore over the analyses Ground Truth makes possible and this will be the catalyst for an explosion in mobile media in its many forms."      

Chris Maher brings a wealth of knowledge and experience from the measurement and data intelligence industries to Ground Truth. Before assuming his current role as CEO, eBureau, a predictive analytics company, Maher was president of Hitwise, where he oversaw the company's global operations and financial performance, culminating in the company's $250M sale to Experian. He joined Hitwise from Jupiter Media Metrix, where he was vice president, sales.

"The growth of the mobile medium is dependent on solid metrics, which have long been lacking in this market," said Maher. "Ground Truth solves a critical problem at a critical time, so there is tremendous value in this company on multiple levels. In addition, management has put together an outstanding team, each of whom is renowned in their field. I'm honored to be affiliated with this dynamic company."

About Ground Truth: Ground Truth is a mobile measurement firm that delivers the precise, timely and actionable mobile intelligence required for operators, advertisers and publishers to measure, optimize and grow their businesses. As the sole provider of actual usage data aggregated from millions of subscribers using True View™, a patent-pending census-based methodology, Ground Truth sets the benchmark for Mobile Internet measurement. Ground Truth is headquartered in Seattle, Washington and is venture-backed by Steamboat Ventures and Voyager Capital. For more information about the company, please visit www.groundtruth.com.

CONTACT:  Jaimee Steele of Ground Truth, +1-206-390-6637, [email protected]

SOURCE Ground Truth