Focusing on TV Measurement. Interview with iQMedia's John Derham

John Derham found the pathway to data via his work the financial services industry. Now, as Founder,  Head of Innovation, iQ Media, Derham is focused on TV measurement. “When I saw marketers struggling with a lack of data around linear TV, I started iQ Media to improve the data and timeliness for organizations who needed to leverage TV signals to better understand their marketing,” he explained. “It is our everyday mission to make TV data more accurate, transparent and attainable for any brand,” he added. 

Charlene Weisler: From your perspective, has TV measurement changed and if so how?

John Derham: Television measurement is continually changing based on the availability and access to new and different types of data. Historically ad measurement was the main measurement point, but new technology, such as iQ Media capabilities, enables the measurement to reach into the contextualization of content. Product placements, mentions, in event views are a sampling of the new measurement objectives. 

Charlene Weisler: Tell me about iQ Media and where it sits in the TV measurement world. What does it offer that is not being offered by TV measurement services today?

John Derham: We bring context to viewing on television, helping our customers accurately identify when their brand is seen and heard on TV, and pinpointing earned vs paid mentions, allowing them to  evaluate and measure their major investments in real-time. And, we partner with other companies to quantify the impacts at both audience and key ROI hurdles. 

Charlene Weisler: Is your company developing new metrics for TV measurement? If so what are they?

John Derham: We are continually developing new tools and metrics for measurement. One of our newest and most exciting innovations is around the viewability of brand exposure on screen.

Charlene Weisler: How do you calculate the viewability of brand exposure on screen?
John Derham: Viewability deals with a number of factors such as size, location, and persistency (to name a few). The ultimate goal of measuring brand exposure on screen is ensuring that the brand is actually being seen and registered by the "human eye”. Put another way—it’s identifiable by a passive viewer who’s not specifically looking for it. Many times brands are visible, but not identifiable. When you have someone manually tracking brand appearances, they know exactly what they’re looking for, so they’ll always see it and count it—even if it wouldn’t be noticed or registered by someone who wasn’t looking for it. Reporting those instances just isn’t helpful to brands because they don’t bring them any value.

Charlene Weisler: How would you move the TV measurement market to the type of data metrics that your company supplies? Why is it better than what we have now?

John Derham:  I believe the market is mature and is comprehensively aware of audience behaviors. There is still a mix between earned and paid content exposures and the two should continue to converge and be measured together. Another area of improvement should come in the form of quicker turnaround times of data and resources.

Charlene Weisler: What are earned and paid content exposures for TV? Sounds like digital.
John Derham: Earned content is simply anything that is not paid. Mentions of brands or logos that show up in TV content aren’t always paid. Brands often get earned mentions or views on news and other dynamic content programs, for example. 

Charlene Weisler: Do you think TV measurement and digital measurement are comparable qualitatively? If not which is better and why?

John Derham: One of the challenges of digital media is measurement and tracking. Individual consumers are exposed wide ranging variants of exposures coming from multiple platforms. Advertisers are paying much more than they are getting value for and are returning to more traditional forms like television because of the tracking and certainty of the exposure. 

Charlene Weisler: There’s a lot of energy around local TV spending recently—is TV measurement as good as it can be here? If not, how can it improve?

John Derham: Local TV spend is a $25 billion dollar business. Technology now exists to help track local DNA spending and the inventory associated with it is becoming more flexible and adaptable. iQ Media's platform helps broadcasters and marketers understand local market data and viewing trends for brands. Most television ad tracking and media tracking is being done only on a national or cable basis. We have the tools to access local market content in the same manner as national content. 

This article first appeared in www.Mediapost.com