History

PTG does more than respect history. We make it.

For over 30 years, PTG has been at the center of advertising and brand research innovation. With over 100 industry patents, and research contributions to numerous to count, PTG’s Founder and CEO, Lee Weinblatt, has committed his career to advancing the intersection of cognitive science and human behavior for consumer research purposes.

In 1971, while working at the Marplan division of The Interpublic Group of Companies, Lee realized that advertisers and their agencies were frustrated by a lack of information as to why ads and packages weren’t performing as well as expected. An expert in optics, Lee was determined to answer these persistent questions. To that end, in 1971, Lee constructed the first consumer eye movement recorder.

In the 1980’s and 1990’s PreTesting was also busy developing real word simulators for pretesting ad placement and on-shelf planograms, understanding media synergy, as well as ideal world methodologies for evaluating billboards and other out of home displays. With the rise in commercial skipping by both remote controls and DVRs, PreTesting also introduced patented methodologies for quantifying a commercial’s ability to engage readers and radio listeners.

In 2009, PreTesting introduced the Saccadic Eye Movement Recorder, one of the greatest breakthroughs in understanding human behavioral response to commercials, ads and packaging. This patented approach provides true measurement of element-by element, second-by-second engagement, and all without the respondent’s knowledge.

Threaded across all of the company’s innovations has been the concept of measuring stimuli in real world environments. One of our fundamental objectives is to give clients an understanding of how their products and advertisements stack up to competition before full scale investment. As such, our solutions rely upon real-world scenarios and ideal-world simulated experiences. Our respondents are unaware that they are participating in research so our results reflect honest consumer choices made in natural settings.

Today, PTG, as the company is now called, is best known for its audio and video recording eye glasses, on-shelf micro camera, real-world copy testing capabilities, life-sized store shelf simulators, and, of course, Saccadic Eye Movement.