First American Corp.’s Chief Executive Officer Parker S. Kennedy has been named to the board of directors of Specific Media, an Internet advertiser that claims its targeted ads reach 105 million consumers a month.
The title insurance company executive will be “an incredible asset and resource as we position our company for continued growth,” Specific Media Chief Executive Officer Tim Vanderhook said in a press release.
Based in Irvine, Calif., Specific Media claims new customer acquisitions increased by 600 percent in 2006, and that its clients now include 40 percent of Fortune 500 companies.
While traditional Internet advertising relies on Web site content to serve up display ads, Specific Media says its technology targets users instead. The company says it can predict a consumer’s age and gender based on past online viewing habits, detect each user’s location by IP address and target ads to the ZIP code level, and assign scores related to the likelihood of a purchase in more than 3,300 categories.
As a provider of title insurance and information services for real estate companies, First American has amassed a huge database of property records which it makes available to direct marketers. Home improvement contractors, for example, can target prospects based upon property characteristics including the presence of a swimming pool, the year the home was built, lot size, type of roof or date of sale to identify potential construction, maintenance or home-improvement business opportunities.
