OMD, which is owned by Omnicom, will use a range of CBS technology available at Television City, including eye-tracking and brain-scanning, to carry out cross-media effectiveness testing, determine effective levels of multimedia exposure, explore consumer response to advertising through brain-scanning techniques and test ad size effectiveness through eye-tracking.

The new venture has been called Communication Lab @OMD and the media agency said that Hershey’s, McDonald’s and Pepsi have already signed up as charter users.

OMD CEO Alan Cohen (pictured) said: “With this partnership, our two organisations are driving a seismic shift in the media effectiveness research paradigm – from siloed to synthetic, to integrated and organic. Communications Lab @OMD represents the next evolution in media research – true, multi-platform engagement that gives marketers a higher level of insight into how their consumers interact with brands and messages across all media environments.”

The agency said that its own staff will oversee client research at the facility, while CBS staff are responsible for recruitment and technical support. For focus group discussions, OMD will decide whether to uses a CBS moderator depending on the the project.

The service will open its doors to clients in early 2010, OMD said.

Television City is housed in the MGM Grand Hotel and is the focus point of CBS Corporation’s research activities. It screens pilot episodes of new TV shows to visitors who take part in surveys afterwards to rate what they have just watched.