Scott Ernst Named President of Compete - a Newly-Acquired TNS Media Company

TNS media today announced Scott Ernst as president of Compete, Inc., a leading digital intelligence company acquired last month. Ernst, who was previously Compete's chief client officer, will assume leadership of Compete, overseeing its continued operations and growth to further strengthen TNS’ global digital measurement and consumer behavior-analysis capabilities.

TNS media acquired Compete to significantly enhance and extend its digital measurement capabilities by leveraging Compete’s insight into the online behavior of millions of consumers. Ernst, an online marketing veteran with complementary experience in advertising, digital media and Web technology, enhances the company’s ability to accomplish this goal through his experience working with global brands such as Carlson Hotels Worldwide, Hyundai Motor America, Upromise, Chrysler, and Verizon Wireless to improve their online business performance.

“Acquiring Compete and appointing someone of Ernst’s caliber enables TNS media to accelerate the development and implementation of our global digital strategy,” said Dean DeBiase, chief executive officer of TNS media. “The addition of Compete to the TNS family provides our clients worldwide with a comprehensive and unrivalled offering, including sophisticated digital research and media measurement capabilities, to help take their digital media strategy to the next level.”

Compete offers the largest and most diverse online consumer behavior panel in the industry, allowing TNS to provide clients with critical insight into behavior choice, and engagement, along with a deeper picture of the integrated marketing landscape across a multitude of industries. By improving search marketing and online advertising efficiency, and analyzing the effectiveness of their marketing versus competitors, clients can optimize their online interactions with customers and prospects, and improve bottom-line results.

“As part of TNS media, Compete has the opportunity to merge online and offline consumer behavior with media spending and exposure data to revolutionize how big brands plan and measure their marketing performance. This is an exciting vision for our clients – in the U.S and globally – and we look forward to providing the fuel for their digital media insights,” said Ernst.

As the complexity of media and advertising increases, TNS media’s solutions – offered through Compete, TNS media research, TNS media intelligence, and Cymfony – provide a single resource for media companies, marketers, and agencies to efficiently quantify and understand consumer attitudes and marketing strategies across a variety of platforms including television, print and digital and social media. The information offered by TNS media, including competitive advertising spending, audience measurement, online and offline consumer behavior, search engine analytics, and reporting of issues and trends in social media such as blogs, allows clients to make more informed and integrated business decisions about their digital and traditional marketing strategies.

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.

About TNS

TNS is a global market information and insight group.

Its strategic goal is to be recognised as the global leader in delivering value-added information and insights that help its clients make more effective business decisions.

TNS delivers innovative thinking and excellent service across a network of 80 countries. Working in partnership with clients, TNS provides high-quality information, analysis and insight that improves understanding of consumer behavior.

TNS is the world’s leading provider of customised services, combining sector knowledge with expertise in the areas of Product Development & Innovation, Brand & Communications, Stakeholder Management, Retail & Shopper and Customer Intelligence. TNS is a major supplier of consumer panel, media intelligence and audience measurement services.

TNS is the sixth sense of business™.

For more information about TNS, please visit www.tnsglobal.com. To learn more about Compete, please visit www.compete.com.