Is There a Future for Media Measurement Currency? The Industry Weighs In.

The issue of cross media measurement currency (and by currency I mean a standard metric that can be used as a comparison point between companies and platforms) has been a hotly debated discussion for a while. Now, with the ever expanding access of various data points and the de-accreditation of Nielsen’s local and national TV measurement services, the pressure to come to terms with the state of measurement has never been more pronounced.

In surveying the industry, there are many differing opinions on the future of measurement currency and what it should be. Many agree that some generally accepted metrics and methodology is table stakes. Yet, even beyond that general opinion, there are many divergent views.

When I posed this issue to Research Wonks, a forum for people who work in media and advertising research, analytics and data science, the response was immediate, well considered and over whelming.

Media Currency Agreement - Optimists versus Pessimists

“Currency removes friction in the market … until it’s at odds with what the market needs to function smoothly,” explained Stephen DeMarco, Head of Business Development at Tubular Labs. “Adults 35 and younger spend more time watching social video content than they do linear TV.”

For Aaron Fetters, Head of Client Development at Truthset, the ability to craft a currency in the current media ecosystem is close to impossible. “There is no solution for true cross-platform measurement,” he admitted. “Fifty years ago, the idea that it makes more sense for one independent, neutral party to count and define audiences was understandable. There was one dominant form of media at the time, television. It was not so difficult to apply a single methodology and process to the collection and interpretation of data across all major media owners.”  Now, with media fragmentation across platforms and devices, “the effort to produce numbers which somewhat realistically report the total unique reach (and frequency of exposure) of either an ad campaign or a piece of content and they all come up short for a variety of reasons, largely out of the control of the measurement providers,” he noted.

Arguably the most pessimistic is Chris Squire, SVP Head of Data, Samba. “The outdated, legacy currency measurement barely scratches the surface of advertiser needs via proxy metrics that fall short of measuring the business outcomes that are instrumental to campaign ROI. As the industry approaches a critical inflection point to rethink how advertisers transact with each other, we are excited at the prospect of multiple currencies based on these business outcomes for true ROI insight.”

Media Currency Solutions – Considerations

The ever increasing opportunities to push content across platforms can lead to new and highly creative measurement adaptations while at the same time, pose further challenges.

 “There's a massive move from counting delivery in the form of GRPs to measuring outcomes, whether that's advertising's ability to grow brands, drive engagement or sales,” explained Anne Hunter, VP, Product Marketing, DISQO, because of fragmentation, speed of consumer change and direct to consumer as well as one-to-one marketing efforts.

For Senior Insights Consultant, Laura Chaibi, the ability to form closed loop selling can make the discussion of a currency irrelevant. “In other parts of the world, it is almost problematic when the publisher is also the bank in places like China. They see how much money you have, how you spend it and what you can afford. This is the ultimate closed loops selling – do you need a currency in this market?” she posited and added, “Amazon seem closer to full end to end closed loop selling more than any other platform / publisher (if you can call them that) in the USA that is selling media.”

Setting priorities in measurement solution is the view of Daniel Slotwiner, VP, Measurement, Insights and PMM, Gopuff. He would like to, “See more of a discussion about explicitly measuring ads versus content. I think both need to be measured, for sure, but for trading purposes I think it's time we leave content aside and focus on measuring ads (with some meta data about the context in which/on which they are viewed).”  

Conclusion

In my opinion, some form of standard, generally accepted baseline metric is important for comparison purposes across properties, but just like any wildly divergent industry of competing self -interests, to get all interested parties in agreement is probably a pipe dream. Should we keep the traditional status quo of Nielsen, despite its limitations? Do we migrate to a Comscore with its own set of limitations? Or do we venture into new parameters with another company, TBD? Perhaps a consortium of industry organizations can form a special committee to address measurement standards to either strengthen the current or form a new standard protocol.

For Jane Clarke, Managing Director, CIMM, “There doesn’t have to be one solution for a new currency, because different marketers have different needs and will use different datasets.  We just need common standards to verify ad exposures across media.  Those who provide ad exposure data need to be willing to have that data audited and accredited.” 

As a closing but important added consideration, Ben Tatta, President of Standard Media Index concluded, “It wasn't long ago when there was no debate regarding the currency or any viable alternative for measuring TV.  I suggest that we bifurcate, "measurement" from "currency."   Even if it takes time to transition to a more unified impressions-based currency that doesn't mean we can't change the basis by which we measure performance and outcomes.”        

Let the conversation continue….

This article first appeared in the Hocus Focus Newletter.

 

 

605 and Inscape Make the Best Sandwich, According to Ben Tatta of 605

The data analytics company 605 just announced that its dataset will now include Inscape’s viewing data, expanding 605’s footprint to more than 20 million U.S. homes. Inscape is a wholly-owned subsidiary of VIZIO and a leading provider of automatic content recognition (ACR) technologies and cross-screen metrics. Previously known as Cognitive, VIZIO is the largest single-source of opt-in smart TV viewing data available today.

According to the press release, this arrangement places 605 as one of the few companies in the industry to capture and measure set-top-box data along with other sources of TV viewership data, such as over the air (OTA) and basic over-the-top (OTT) viewing data from Inscape’s more than 10.5 million smart TVs. 

Ben Tatta, Co-Founder and President, offered further insights: 

Charlene Weisler:  What metrics are being used?

Ben Tatta: In addition to household-level impression and engagement metrics 605 maintains a library of over 5,000 household attributes (that are deterministically matched to the viewing data) that provide advertiser and programmer clients an unprecedented level of granularity when measuring and analyzing audiences and campaigns.  605 can also match digital data and 1st party CRM data to provide additional dimension on a cross-screen basis...and among unique customer types/segments.  The latter is essential in proving full funnel attribution to clients.  

Weisler: How will this partnership change, improve, enhance 605?

Tatta: With the addition of Inscape, 605 will now maintain one of the largest, matchable data-sets in the U.S.    By combining set-top box data and ACR data 605 will be in a unique position to measure nearly 100% of viewing in a household regardless of TV manufacturer, pay-TV provider or OTT service for more than 20 million homes nationwide.

Weisler: What are your expectations once this partnership is in place for a few months?

Tatta: ACR data and set-top box data are like peanut butter and jelly.  The two datasets complement each other perfectly.  Our hope is that in three months we will have the best PBJ sandwiches available anywhere.  

This article first appeared in Cynopsis

Bringing Linear TV into the Addressable Market – The Spectrum and 605 Data Partnership

“Linear television does not come to mind when people think of advanced products,” noted Rob Klippel, Senior Vice President of Advanced Advertising Products and Strategy, Spectrum Reach, but being able to do targeted one-to-one addressable in linear television is becoming closer to a reality. 

Of course, “even just applying data to linear TV, even if it is not one-to-one targeted, to better find audiences and on the back end use data to find ad exposure is part of an advanced advertising group,” he concluded.

Now as the dust settles on the Spectrum and 605 data partnership, we begin to see how addressability in linear TV has taken a step forward with the introduction of their AudienceApp data platform. This new platform was developed in partnership between Spectrum Reach and 605 for linear media planning and optimization. I sat down with Ben Tatta, Co-Founder & President of 605 and Rob Klippel to learn more:

Charlene Weisler: What types of data points will be made available by Charter for 605?

Ben Tatta: As the second largest cable operator in the U.S., Charter provides 605 with aggregated TV platform data from all its cable system operations nationally resulting in more robust and granular audience measurement and analytics solutions. Charter data gives us broad national reach and deep coverage in 13 of the top 20 U.S. markets. As part of the partnership, we also have matching rights to Charter data giving us the ability to append a broad array of household attributes to the viewing data (in a secure manner that protects privacy).

Weisler: What are some of the challenges?

Tatta: This partnership is a major step in fueling the industry migration from sample-based measurement to true census-level measurement moving beyond traditional ratings to deeper, more actionable, impressions-based data. The challenge will be educating and encouraging the industry to embrace this transition, which will be of benefit to all from advertisers, programmers, providers – ultimately the buyers and sellers.

Weisler: Will there be the ability to use the data in some form to measure cross platform?

Klippel: Yes. We are capturing and providing aggregated and anonymized viewing across all platforms.    This gives us the ability to not only leverage cross-platform insights for planning and execution, but also post-campaign analysis and attribution.

Weisler: What other data sets will be part of this effort?

Tatta: 605 uses data from over 40 million addressable households to deliver its ad and campaign analytics services and also maintains a library of over 1,500 demographics, behavioral, transactional and psychographic attributes and possesses consumer records for 131 million unique households, containing 240 million adults.

Klippel: Charter has a robust set of first party and third party attributes that we leverage for the most effective and efficient way to deliver specific segments for our local and regional advertisers.  A unique aspect of our partnership with 605 is the broad append rights to enable similar detailed customer segmentation for national advertisers and programmers.

Weisler: What metrics will you use?

Tatta: In addition to more granular, household level impressions data, 605 also measures content and/or ad consumption on a second-by-second basis.  605 also developed a set of engagement and conversion metrics designed to measure ad response, ROI and attribution.  Ultimately, the metrics we utilize vary based on the unique objectives of our clients.

Weisler: Have any advertisers signed up for this yet?

Tatta: 605 currently works with blue-chip advertisers such as Walmart and Uber. We are also working with programmers such as A&E to help them understand specific audience attributes to enable them to serve their advertisers and connect with specific audiences. We have also added several new advertisers following the launch of AudienceApp.

Klippel: AudienceApp was launched in August and our goal is to have all markets launched by the end of Q2 2018.  In the markets that have launched, AudienceApp has had an immediate impact on our customers and the way campaigns are being planned.  We have seen early and open adoption by our local customers, changing the way existing customers are buying TV as well as bringing new advertisers to local TV.

Weisler: How will this be marketed?

Tatta: Our efforts center heavily on industry education and building awareness about the benefits of census-level audience measurement and advanced analytics relative to TV advertising and programming. Ultimately, it’s about doing really great client work so being able to communicate some of the interesting things we’re doing for clients like Walmart and Charter is truly a privilege.

Klippel: AudienceApp is a mobile tool that will be in the hands of our sales account executives to allow them to work in real-time with their customers to plan and optimize against audiences.  In addition, we will be working to build awareness of the benefits and effectiveness of using viewership and audience data to drive advanced campaign planning and advanced analytics, ROI and attribution.

This article first appeared in www.Mediapost.com
 

Joining Forces to Create Addressable Measurement Standards

Cross MediaWorks, parent company of Cadent, one2one Media and TCA, is partnering with TV data analytics firm, 605, to advance addressable by creating a new measurement standard. Not only will this effort promise to scale the addressable television marketplace, it will also create an independent, third party verification of performance to standardize impressions - based television campaigns and actionable insights.

Nick Troiano, Chief Executive Officer, Cross MediaWorks, and Ben Tatta, Co-Founder and President of 605, explained their joint vision and approach:

Charlene Weisler: What are the expectations from this partnership?

Nick Troiano: At Cross MediaWorks our main objective is to make it easy for TV buyers to understand and use Advanced TV solutions. Our new agreement with 605 will help us build a seamless solution to utilize important data and inventory providers in the Advanced TV space, making it easier for brand marketers to add targeting capabilities to their traditional TV buys. 605 has an expansive data portfolio that allows Cross MediaWorks clients to better target on TV.

Ben Tatta: This partnership centers on the development of a standardized approach to planning, measuring and optimizing audience-based ad campaigns on TV - executed on either an addressable or optimized-linear basis.

Weisler: What datasets are being used and how will they be integrated into Cadent’s business?

Troiano: We work with more than 200 MVPDs across the country and have access to more than 100 million TV households. The new solution with 605 allows our clients to home in on a specific target audience and go beyond simple segmentations, like age and gender, on a tremendous scale.

Tatta: Cross MediaWorks will leverage 605’s census-level viewership data, combined with a vast array of third-party audience attributes including both behavioral and transactional data-sets.

Weisler: Will it be guaranteed?

Troiano: We work with all our clients to make sure they reach their target audience and are happy with their campaign results, but do not offer specific guarantees.

Weisler: Any challenges in implementing the data?

Tatta: 605’s core data platform was designed to transform raw TV tuning records into refined, measurement-grade, match-able data. We’ve worked closely with Cross MediaWorks on the design and implementation of these new capabilities to ensure they can now take advantage of more robust data and measurement in a more seamless and scalable way.

Weisler: What are the next steps?

Troiano: Evangelizing and helping educate clients. The evolution of TV targeting is still fairly new, but is real and actionable today. We look forward to working with clients to help them reach their target audience at scale on TV.

Tatta: While the initial focus of the partnership is on the introduction of standardized planning and measurement for audience-based TV campaigns, the next phase will encompass more advanced campaign analytics, including brand and sales attribution, ROI analytics, etcetera.

Weisler: What have been the reactions from the clients? 

Troiano: Overwhelmingly positive – clients are excited to scale the business and really zero in on their target audience.

Tatta: This partnership was based solely on client and market demand for more robust targeting and measurement solutions for TV.

Weisler: Can you give an example of how it will be executed?

Troiano: I will provide you with an example of how we work with an Auto client – for both Cadent and one2one Media: With Cadent, we provide an efficient broad reach campaign on TV – then follow up in another campaign to target a specific audience of consumers who are looking to buy a car and target the specific days, times and networks that audience watches. With one2one Media using addressable advertising, we target specific households of that same audience with the same message. By utilizing 605 data we can create an independent, third-party verification of performance providing a standardization of an impressions-based television campaigns.

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com