Advancing Cross Media Measurement. Takeaways from the CIMM Cross Platform Video Measurement and Data Summit

 

To those of us in the media world, the discussion of attribution and cross platform measurement has been going on for decades. Waiting for solutions has been painfully slow. But in the most recent CIMM Cross-Platform Video Measurement and Data Summit (now in its 8^th year) the big reveal was that not only has significant progress been made in attribution and cross platform measurement, feverish activity has been taking place behind the scenes for years. 

The reason is that it’s simply not easy to form new metrics and protocols between the need for consensus across all types of companies and the persistent evolution and expansion of technologies.

For Jane Clarke, CEO Managing Director of CIMM, 2018 was a year of significant advancements. At last year’s conference, CIMM announced a Measurement Manifesto to keep the industry focused on cross platform measurement. Her work on content labeling has been pivotal to stitching all pieces of video together across screens. This year Clarke announced the launch of TAXI Complete (Trackable Asset Cross Platform Identification) which is the creation of audio watermarks for content (EIDR) and ads (Ad-ID). It will, according to Clarke, “Advance cross platform video measurement and bring more measurement to TV.”

For me, the major takeaways were:

Ø  While content labeling gains traction, deduplication is pivotal to getting to a reliable and adoptable cross platform measurement currency.

If it can’t be measured it can’t be monetized and if it can’t be measured accurately, monetization will be flawed. Content labeling is continuing apace with more companies adopting the coding and the cost of entry to enroll has been lowered. One next step includes the advancement of deduplicated reach measurement to help accuracy. 

According to Beth Rockwood, Senior Vice President, Ad Sales Research, Turner, “Questions can be answered well with deduplicated reach. It’s an important tool and fits into context of marketing mix models and attribution.”

Ø  Measurement challenges will continue as we try to keep pace with evolving technologies and how consumers use them.

As Krishan Bhatia, Executive Vice President, Business Operations and Strategy, NBCU, noted, “The transformation of the consumption of video on a cross platform basis … has accelerated in the past 18-24 months. Devices are driving it (while) measurement has not caught up or stayed ahead of the curve.“

Evolving technologies such as voice assistants, “are making measurement more difficult,” Jack Smith, Chief Product Officer, Global Investment, GroupM pointed out. “It is happening in apps that are already walled gardens and operating systems are also intermediaries which can control pricing, ordering products and recommendations instead of having a direct relationship with the brand.” These, along with screens in self-driving cars, provide new viewing venues and experiences. As an industry we need to understand how it all works … and morphs over time. 

Ø  Privacy and Transparency need to be addressed. We can no longer kick the can down the road.

“Privacy and data issues will become more important,” stated to Laura Nathanson, Executive Vice President Revenue and Operations, Disney Advertising Sales. “Consumers will demand more privacy and more walls,” she added. But how privacy balances with transparency is still to be discussed. For others there is not enough transparency, at least when it comes to data labeling. 

To that end, part of the content labeling initiative includes  a data transparency label which points to aspects of the data and its collection such as how the data got created and where it came from. The careful balance between privacy and transparency, including the impact of GDPR in Europe on the U.S., require us to continue the discussion and create protocols. 

Ø  As an industry we need to work together to develop and establish adoptable measurements.

“We need to hit the pause button and up level the conversation,” stated Radha Subramanyam, Chief Research and Analytics Officer, CBS. She was referring to the clamor of competing voices around measurement today. “I love the innovation in measurement and the abundance of products and granular data,” she continued, “But are we any closer to making things make sense? My call is for a common sense framework. Stop the noise and see what we are really trying to solve for.”

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

 

TV Leads All Other Media in Delivering a Brand Message

TV continues to reign supreme, according to an updated Neustar research study commissioned by Turner and Horizon Media. This extensive research study – originally conducted in 2015 and updated this year, examines the effect of TV advertising compared to other forms of advertising in the marketplace. Given the rapid expansion of the media landscape and increased pervasiveness of programmatic and digital video in just two years, it is important to compare and contrast more frequently than ever.

According to the research, despite those advancements in technology, new digital platforms, and changes in consumer behavior, TV remains the best vehicle for delivering a brand’s message to a mass audience. The report states that “the new findings from a fresh set of verticals (Movies, QSRs and Consumer Electronics) closely mimic the findings from our original research, meaning that the effectiveness of TV advertising is essentially unchanged despite the explosion of online media over that time.” 

The study confirmed four important takeaways:

1.       TV is Efficient. TV has the highest relative efficiency in achieving KPIs, compared to other media whether offline or online. This means that at a given level of spend, TV generates more business outcomes.

2.       Advanced Analytics Optimizes TV Spend. Marketers should leverage high-frequency data to quickly reallocate resources by TV type, network, creative, and day part to significantly impact results.

3.       Premium Streaming Content is More Effective than User-Generated. And, behavioral targeting required the fewest impressions to generate an interaction.

4.       TV Offers Significant Cross-Product Halo Effect For Advertisers.  And, removing TV and implementing standalone digital strategy had an average negative halo effect of -18% on ROI. For example, TV advertising drives the highest increase of box office sales and online engagement activities surrounding Movies with a 40% bump in overall movie ticket sales when compared to organic search and social media. 

“TV advertising is undergoing an incredible data-driven renaissance, fusing the best of digital’s targeting and measurement with the best of TV’s premium content and reach,” explained Steven Wolfe Pereira, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, Neustar.  “Nothing beats the sight, sound and motion experience of TV and its ability to truly capture attention and drive engagement.  In a world where both brand safety and business outcomes matter, I am extremely bullish about the future of TV.  We’re just scratching the surface of what addressable TV targeting and measurement can do,” he concluded.

“This research reaffirms that television continues to be the biggest driver of marketing success today, yet there remains a lot of room to grow even further as the industry and consumer habits shift,” noted Beth Rockwood, Vice President, Portfolio Research and Chief of Staff, Turner. “Recognizing that growth opportunity, Turner has been one of the industry’s biggest proponents for reimagining the experience of television – developing new audience targeting methods, as well as forging innovative content partnerships, to deliver highly engaging, unexpected experiences to fans,” she added.  

The underlying methodology was based on econometric regression techniques that establish the mathematical relationships between marketing investments and sales outcomes by examining week-to-week sales volume shifts.

Review the full report here.   

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

 

comScore Announces Cross Platform Measurement Advancements

For those of us who have been in the research sector of the media business for a number of years, there is nothing as heady or as exciting as what is happening now in our field of expertise. As Gian Fulgoni, Co-Founder and CEO, comScore noted at their recent industry meeting, “There is a digital revolution the likes of which we have never seen.” And this revolution is creating measurement innovation, not only in the data driven audience marketplace but also in cross platform measurement solutions. 

comScore has recently announced an advanced version of their cross platform measurement capability which could spell the end of age and gender proxy measurement… eventually. (We all know that the media business takes time to adjust to new metrics and protocols.) But the excitement engendered by the introduction of various datasets and their application to measuring viewer and consumer behavior is beginning to mark a distinctive change in the rate of new measurement metric acceptance.

According to Fulgoni, comScore is focusing on the need to be nimble in order to meet all technological changes. Their approach to cross platform measurement includes four pillars:

       1.       Granularity for precise measurement in cross platform and also by individual platform.

       2.       Understanding the unduplicated reach across platforms.

       3.       Buying and selling TV on advanced audiences, beyond age and gender.

       4.       Moving towards an addressable and advanced TV future.  

In a world of panels and census data, do you start with a panel and build out or do you amass census level data and model demographics? comScore’s approach is data scale first then the creation of a unified panel and census metrics. “We believe that scale drives quality,” stated Fulgoni, “You can’t start with a panel and build up on it.” Scale becomes important when measurement must include an expanse of devices; comScore’s Total Home Panel is built to measure content across  mobile, network-connected set top boxes, streaming OTT, PC, home theater, game consoles  and Iot including such devices as wearables, smart speakers and audio systems etc  for unduplicated reach.

These advancements in cross platform measurement could not come too soon for Julie DeTraglia, VP Ad Sales Research, Hulu, Ed Gaffney, Managing Partner, GroupM and Beth Rockwood, VP Portfolio Research, Turner. As DeTraglia explained, “Hulu lives in a world where we have all of the benefits of television and that is television content on a television screen. We have some challenges in measurement that we are working on. But we have all of the benefits of digital. If you want to see what the future of television looks like, look at Hulu today. We sell platform agnostic and are also looking at how ads differ by platform.“ 

Attaining true, unduplicated cross platform measurement is not an easy task. “There is a long list of must haves which makes it hard to do (cross platform measurement) well,” stated Rockwood. “Certainly the quality of the measurement and the scale of the measurement are critical if we really want to be able to get a good view both of consumer behavior and campaign effectiveness. Also understanding how consumers are receiving information in a series and unpacking all of that to understand consumer journeys,” she added. “It’s quality, coverage and scale, in no particular order. We need all three to get a good view of what is going on out there,” Gaffney concluded.

Having a third party measurement that is privacy compliant and can also measure the full range of devices for specific audience targets will enable both buyers and sellers to realize the full potential of their brands. But it will all depend on whether the industry is ready to break with the marketplace measurement metric tradition. “The currency is still age and sex and will be for the near term,” admitted Gaffney. But based on the measurement developments from companies such as comScore, maybe the future is closer than we think.

This article first appeared in www.Mediapost.com

Data, Data Everywhere in the Upfront. An Overview - Part 5

This is the fifth and final part of a series examining many of the new data initiatives of major data companies. Parts 1 through 4 outlined the many data initiatives, their scalability, whether their services were gaining traction in the industry and the issue of a standard metric to link systems and platforms. Now in Part 5, we tackle the role of Research in an era of Data. Is its role changing? 

Is there a future of Research as we know it? The question addressed here in Part Five was precipitated by some major changes over the past year including the transitioning of one research department into a data specialist department, layoffs at some other research departments and the building of new, business intelligence departments working in tandem with traditional research departments but reporting to different managements. 

According to ARF CEO Gayle Fuguitt, “There's never been a better or harder time to be in research, insights and analytics, and there's never been a more important time. Data is just facts, without inherent insight.  The role of the new analytics leader is to develop growth ideas and quantity opportunities that bring consumers' needs and values to life and make an emotional connection.”

My Take: My concern about the future of Research is not some random paranoia. There is scuttle talk that even Sales, that sacrosanct area of perpetual expansion, might retrench with the advent of programmatic TV. With change there is transition and even upheaval. So why should Research, even in this age of data worship, not be negatively impacted as well? One would think that the focus on data would catapult Research’s role in C-Suite decision-making but I am of the opinion that the results so far are mixed. In fact, executive titles in Research are now tending to leave off the term “Research” while adding “Analytics”, “Insights” and “Strategy”.  When did “Research” become a title to be avoided?

Question 5: What is the status of the Research department in your company? Has the data imperative changed the perceptions of your departments? If so, how?

Beth Rockwood (Senior Vice President, Market Resources, Discovery Communications): The research group’s responsibilities are growing; we are in the fortunate position of being able to demonstrate the value of our inventory in new ways.  Collaboration with sales teams, agencies and clients, has always been important, but now is much more central to our role as researchers. 

David Poltrack (Chief Research Officer, CBS Corporation and President of CBS VISION): It hasn’t changed the perception of our department because we have been looking beyond the demos for many years. We have been working with our sales team on usage based data and metrics that are more definitive than age and sex to evaluate our media offerings vs the competition. The fact is that we have formalized the program and significantly increased our investment because more advertisers are beginning to embrace and talk about these new data sources and the quality and quantity of the data is much greater and more comprehensive today. More and better data and growing advertiser interest have moved research into a more operational part of the business.

Tom Ziangas (SVP Research and Insights, AMC Networks): The AMCN Research team under my leadership has managed a very simple mission statement which is, “WE MAKE EVERYONE SMARTER”.  Our data initiatives are a function the lack of movement by industry research partners. We need a holistic view into the world of media and how it is being consumed across platform & device, our data initiatives are exposing key stakeholders in Senior management, Ad-Sales, Programming, Marketing and Affiliate on how we can better target, segment, use 3rd party data and understand the behaviors’ of our consumers.

Geri Wang (President ABC Sales, ABC): Research continues to be a critical component of our ABC and larger TWDC organization, and, as the emergence of new types of data and use cases evolve, we are continuing to invest in new capabilities and people across our organization.  We’ve hired a number of data scientists to work specifically on data modeling and targeting initiatives, and have in the past year created a new group within the NY Sales organization responsible for all data-driven and programmatic sales strategy and implementation.  We expect those investments in people and capabilities to continue.

Katie Larkin (EVP Advertising Sales Research and Strategy, NBCU): All of advertising sales research came together under one roof last year. We are focused on our clients’ needs and bringing comprehensive data-driven capabilities to the marketplace. We added a dedicated analytics team and we are pushing forward to find new metrics in order to give clients better insights. Our move to Cogent Reports for CNBC’s Business Day is an example of needing to go beyond Nielsen because their measurement of out of home viewers and highly affluent audience is inadequate. Our research and insights continue to evolve as we drive and lead in this space of data and analytics.

Paul Haddad (SVP and General Manager Advanced Data Analytics, Cablevision Media Sales): With the availability of census level set-top box data the concept of research and reporting evolves to accurate and accountable measurement that leads to advanced insights and analytics. We see data as glue across all platforms. Without it, there would be no realizing the full value in new advanced advertising techniques. Data is plugged into every platform and every step of our work flow, and comprehensive census-level data is crucial for more accurate measurement in general.

Kern Schireson (EVP, Data Strategy and Consumer Intelligence, Viacom): Research has long been an essential aspect of our business, but we no longer separate data from research. Data and research work in unison at Viacom, and both continue to broaden and evolve at our company ever-rapidly to stay ahead of the pace at which our consumers’ consumption behaviors change as they engage with our brands and stories across an expanding array of platforms and experiences.

This article first appeared in www.MediaBizBloggers.com