Forget high-tech bugging and computer hacking, a new application available in early November will make it easier for advertisers, buyers, and planners to get the skinny on their competitors’ deep, dark TV secrets.

Nielsen Media Research is touting Ad*Views as the most comprehensive competitive advertising intelligence app available to the Canadian media industry.

Ad*Views will track and analyze GRPs, occurrences and expenditures in a single, easy-to-use application. It will allow agencies and advertisers to determine competitors’ television media strategies by analyzing GRP activity for the 13 major television markets in Canada (four NMR people meter markets plus the nine others offered through the ACN (ACNielsen) GRP Service).

The key features of Ad*Views include availability of ad expenditures for TV by creative campaign rather than brand-level only; GRPs and expenditures by market in a single report; multi-market functionality for effortless regional analysis; wizard capability for seamless report building; custom templates; and weekly availability of TV creative and GRP data, as well as story boards and AVI (Auto Video Interleave format) files for all television creative.

Advertising expenditures are also available by medium for all major regions and markets.