The ARF

The ARF, legally Advertising Research Foundation Inc, is a US nonprofit industry association focused on advertising research, media measurement, analytics, and professional education. It serves advertisers, agencies, media companies, researchers, and marketing practitioners through a mix of membership access, research distribution, councils, events, certification programmes, and licensed data products such as ARF DASH. Its role is closer to an industry knowledge and standards body than a pure software vendor or consultancy. The organisation makes money through recurring membership fees, event participation, professional education, certification-related services, and paid licensing of proprietary research assets and datasets. Its customers are business-side industry participants seeking research access, benchmarking, practitioner collaboration, and methodological validation, particularly in media measurement and cross-platform audience analysis.