Looking at Data from Both Sides of the Brain – a Roundtable with Cathy Hetzel and Jonathan Bokor

The world of data is not that simple anymore. Not only do companies have to understand the tactical, logical application of a myriad of datasets, they must also be creative enough to derive actionable, often intuitive insights from the data crunching results. 

How does the confluence of logic and intuition impact the work we do today? In the first in series of DISH Network sponsored “virtual roundtables” with industry experts, MediaVillage journalists, Charlene Weisler and David Polinchock, posed questions to Cathy Hetzel, Executive Vice President, comScore, and Jonathan Bokor, Senior Vice President of Precision Video at Publicis Media, about a “right brain/left brain” approach to decision making.

Hetzel leads the strategic partnership team which manages comScore’s relationships with the MVPDs and publishers who provide the data that fuels comScore’s massive and passive cross-platform products. This requires both right brain (the ability to think creatively and emotionally) and left brain (the ability to think quantitatively and logically) agility.

Bokor leads the Precision Video Center of Excellence at Publicis Media, which takes a data-driven and technology-enabled approach to evolving television into a more precise medium to deliver improved performance for their clients. Their approach utilizes data to identify strategic target audiences that represent a more refined view of their clients’ true target.

MediaVillage: Do you consider yourself right brain (emotional / creative) or left brain (logical / analytical)?

Cathy Hetzel: I lean toward right brain plus logic … is that even “a thing”?

Jonathan Bokor: I would consider myself left brain dominant but with creative abilities as well.

MediaVillage: Do you think people can be both?

Hetzel: From my answer above, I do think people can be both.

Bokor: In my view most people do tend to lean one way or another, but I’m sure there are people who are close to evenly split, just like there are people who are ambidextrous.

MediaVillage: How is the data with Dish being used?

Hetzel: Dish has been a valued partner for more than 10 years - and was the first company to use our addressable measurement for cross-platform.  We aggregate Dish data with other MVPD data to provide local and national ratings. They were our first national partner, providing our television services with the opportunity to provide measurement in all 210 local markets. Dish was also the first company to use comScore for addressable television measurement and, recently, the first MVPD to use comScore for cross-platform addressable measurement.

Bokor: We have a preference for using 1^st party data when it’s available because it’s the best reflection of the client’s customers and, in general, tends to produce the best results. But we also see that 3^rd party data can perform well too.  Since not all clients have 1^st party data (or may not be willing to leverage it outside their domains), we utilize the best data available to us.  We also try to use attribution data whenever possible in order to gain insights into the effectiveness of our audience-targeted campaigns.

MediaVillage: What type of data is being used?

Hetzel: comScore uses second-by-second viewership data for both linear TV and addressable advertising.

Bokor: This varies by client depending on their objectives, what audiences they seek to target, and what KPIs they are looking to measure.  A wide variety of data types are used ranging from lifestyle/interest data, to purchase data, to TV viewing data to customer data.

MediaVillage: Will there be any attribution modeling with the data and, if so, how?

Hetzel: In combination with other data sources, comScore uses the Dish data for attribution modeling for both tune-in and advertiser-based attribution studies.

Bokor: We do attribution studies with most of our Addressable TV campaigns because Addressable TV provides us with data around which households saw the ad and we’re able to match that to attribution data where available.  Where sales data is available, and we can do a sales lift analysis, that’s usually the first choice, but we also do retail store visit analysis or website visit analysis where available and brand lift studies if that is appropriate.

MediaVillage: What do you think are privacy best practices?

Hetzel: comScore sees privacy protection as our highest priority with our partners. Our massive and passive measurement footprint includes more than 69 million televisions in more than 31 million U.S. homes. This scale, plus our projections for data we do not have – including OTA viewing -- protects our partner data from ever being exposed. And, to ensure the matched data is always protected, comScore uses a third-party match partner.

Bokor: All of our Addressable TV campaigns utilize a third-party data safe haven such as Acxiom or Experian to maintain the privacy of viewers, and we think consumers should have the ability to opt out of TV targeting.

MediaVillage: What do you see as the impact of creative on consumer response, especially in addressable?

Hetzel: Because comScore measures every creative execution at the exact commercial rating level, we are able to provide our clients, such as Dish, the information they need to be able to determine the impact of creative execution for every campaign. Creative is one of many elements of impact including pacing of ads, activation to the “most likely to buy” target and even timing of commercial assets that are measured by comScore.

Bokor:  We believe that using creative that is tailored to the objectives of the campaign are a best practice for audience targeting campaigns.  For example, if the goal of the campaign is to drive web visits, then the creative should reflect that.  However, custom creative isn’t always possible or available, so we can use the same creative that is used for the general market demo-targeting TV campaigns and we have found that we can still deliver lifts in key metrics using the same creative as general market.

MediaVillage: Is there a thought to creating a privacy "value exchange" for the consumer (what makes them happy you are using their data)?

Hetzel: That would be a decision to be made by our partners, not comScore. We provide a lot of value to our partnerships both by selling services to our partners and licensing the data that fuels our products and provides unmatched scale in our industry.

Bokor: It is a consideration that should be explored, but it is easier said than done.  Audience targeting usually carries a CPM premium which requires that it outperform demo targeting in order to make sense, so asking the advertiser to pay an additional amount to deliver a “value exchange” will require that audience targeting perform at an even higher level to justify this additional expense.

MediaVillage: What do you see as the long-term trends in data within the addressable ecosystem?

Hetzel: We ask we are hearing from our clients is to continue to focus on providing cross-platform unduplicated reach.  Getting cross-platform measurement right is our singular focus and the driving force behind what we do. Our aim is to provide unduplicated, comprehensive and objective measurement of content and advertising across any and every platform. We’ll continue to work with the industry to provide data at scale needed to measure viewership wherever the consumer chooses to watch content and advertising.

Bokor: The biggest trend I see is moving towards using the same targeting data across multiple channels and then uniting the data across those channels in order to deliver cross-screen reach, frequency and attribution.  This is a must for us because it allows us to more efficiently allocate our clients’ budgets to deliver the best results (as opposed to running siloed campaigns that don’t necessarily work together and communicate with each other). 

This article first appeared in www.MediaVIllage.com

What Are Data Companies Contributing to the Television Market? An Overview of Offerings – Part 6

This is the sixth and concluding article in a series on the range of television measurement data solutions being offered by data companies in the industry. In Parts One through Five, participating companies answered a range of questions on their data from their business model to attributes to challenges in the industry. In Part Six we look at the future potential of the data with the goal of a standardize-able industry standard. Is this possible in the short term or are we mired in competitive differences that will push any industry solution out into the long term?

My Take: I believe there is a great interest in developing a standardize-able metric or series of metrics for cross platform measurement. But the challenge will be in deciding exactly which metric that will be. Some say delivery might be the best connector. Others have offered reach and frequency. But one thing is clear to me - Until we can agree on the one metric that will tie all measureable platforms together, it will all be just branding and market positioning which only adds to the continued fragmentation in the space.

Question 6: What do you see as the future potential for your data to be used in creating a standardize-able measurement for the industry?

Joan FitzGerald Senior Vice President, Television and Cross Media Service, comScore: comScore provides objective, third-party measurement across platforms – wherever and whenever content or advertising is consumed. What’s important is that buyers and sellers agree up front to the metrics used to transact and those metrics must come from a neutral, consistent and reliable source. Xmedia provides the industry with the flexibility they want and need to plan and evaluate audiences across all screens.

Kelly Abcarian, Senior Vice President, Watch Product Architecture, Nielsen: Nielsen has always and will always provide a standardized, 3^rd party independent measurement that allows the marketplace to transact in a productive and orderly way. The main piece missing today from the future of Total Audience measurement is industry consensus about what metrics will be used to trade in a world that combines unit based and impressions based ad campaigns. Years ago, when the industry collectively agreed upon C3/C7, they didn’t envision the rapid evolution of digital content and the impact on the business in terms of monetizing audiences. Our Nielsen heritage has been built on helping to establish that currency.  In order to continue to meet the needs of our clients, we are encouraging the entire industry to work together again to redefine currency around the evolving media universe.

Cathy Hetzel, Rentrak Corporate President: Rentrak is being used today as the STB-based currency in television. Everyday local stations, national networks, agencies and advertisers are using our ratings with advanced demographics to buy and sell advertising. We are integrated into agency buying systems, such as MediaOcean’s OX system, Strata and Imagine. We are driving many of the engines for programmatic buying and we will continue to work toward unduplicated reach for our cross platform offerings. We are the only massive and passive based television currency currently undergoing the process of MRC accreditation. We believe strongly that there will be a sample currency and a census currency in the marketplace for many years to come.

Leslie Wood, Nielsen Catalina Solutions: There are two places where I see that our work can be standardized. One is in the targeting realm. What we provide are buyer-graphic indexes. We apply those indexes to a Nielsen peoplemeter rating and are trying to find the likelihood a certain consumer will watch this program. That is our Buyergraphic Index which is fairly standardize-able. We’ve done a lot of work on the predictability of those numbers as it relates to demographics. On the other side is measurement and this is my core passion – measuring the core effects of advertising. The current quality of measuring the effects of advertising is very uneven, particularly in television. This is an area that the industry should put enormous effort into. We have put in enormous effort but there are key pieces where we need to know that what we are measuring is valid and there is a long way to go there.

Bill Feininger, President FourthWall Media: Set top box data is now common place in measurement systems.  This will not only increase in use, but be pressed into service for dataset matching and targeted advertising.  FourthWall Media already aggregates data from almost two dozen MSOs, as well as collects all the Charter Communications data, so in effect, we are already a de facto standard.

Charles Buchwalter, President and CEO Symphony Advanced Media: This is present potential for Symphony Advanced Media. Our VideoPulse product launched on September 1, and several companies are already using our data on a charter client basis as the primary source for tracking true cross media content and advertising exposure.

Eric Schmitt, Executive Vice President, Communications, TV and Media. Allant: The Allant Audience Interconnect® is software-and-data-as-a-service to which has been purpose-built to standardize and scale advanced TV and premium video advertising.   Campaign measurement is a key piece of the platform, and is uniquely powerful when coupled with support for custom audience segments and cross-platform industrywide execution. 

Frank Foster, SVP General Manager, TiVo Research and Analytics (TRA): For media to be deemed relevant, advertisers must have the insights that allow them to evaluate multiple platforms with the same metrics. To address that need, we’ve built what we believe is the largest cross-media single-source sample comprised of directly matched second-by-second tune-in data, online exposure, and purchase data from more than 2 million homes. Since our data is 100% matched, while still meeting strict privacy standards, we can measure how effectively advertising drives consumer behavior from exposure to purchase without the uncertainty that comes with modeling or fusion.

Mainak Mazumdar Chief Science Officer, Simulmedia: Simulmedia is not in the business of being a standardized currency or measurement platform. Our data is used by our platform to deliver audience-targeted TV advertising campaigns that drive an advertiser’s business outcomes, and deliver the strongest return on investment for an advertiser’s TV budgets that is available in the marketplace today.

This article first appeared in www.MediaBizBloggers.com

What Are Data Companies Contributing to the Television Market? An Overview of Offerings – Part 5

This is the fifth in a series of articles on the various data solutions for television measurement being offered by data companies in the industry. In Parts One through Four, participants answered questions regarding their data business model and on their data attributes. Now in Part Five we explore some of the challenges to the television data measurement business.

My Take: Entrenched attitudes are, in my opinion, the biggest hurdle to overcoming the shortcomings of television measurement. As long as we continue to forecast on current metrics, change will be slow and painful. Yet, the fragmentation of the television environment and the looming prospect of programmatic TV may push us to change faster, finding and agreeing to solutions to current challenges. The demands of the marketplace might be the engine of needed change sooner than later. 

Question 5: What are some of the challenges you see in the television measurement world today? How can these challenges be solved?

Bill Feininger, President FourthWall Media: Television audience measurement today is measured by panels that determine the total audience.  As the industry moves one-to-one marketing, small representatives are challenged to serve this changing world.  Measuring every household and eventually every individual is essential in providing marketers and advertisers that direct connection to consumers, so set top box measurement is a step along the way to providing the industry the breathe of data that is necessary.

Frank Foster, SVP General Manager, TiVo Research and Analytics (TRA): Sample size is the clearest change that needs to be made to make TV measurement more effective. The proliferation of both distribution channels and content means we have to reevaluate the way we count viewers. To compound basic measurement challenges, advertisers are demanding the audience targeting and outcome based metrics they’ve grown accustomed to in digital. The current sample sizes need to increase by two orders of magnitude to account for these new behaviors and give advertisers the behavioral and psychographic information they need. A bigger sample size necessitates single-source data on a massive scale for advertisers to determine cross-platform media mix and creative effectiveness. Linking data from these disparate sources will continue to be a challenge. 

Mainak Mazumdar Chief Science Officer,Simulmedia: Challenges: Small sample sizes trying to measure the increasingly fragmented TV viewing landscape.  Long-tail is not measured. OTT is excluded.  Standard TV media metrics (GRPs and target demos) do not correlate to ROI, the metric that marketers are really most interested in.  There is also a lack of innovation in incorporating census level data (e.g STB) with panels. Potential solution: While reach is important, measurement should focus on ROI and sales impact of TV ads – the metric that really drives a marketer’s business. Data is now making this possible in the world of TV. Expand measurement footprint by incorporating STB and OTT into standard measurement methods.

Charles Buchwalter, President and CEO Symphony Advanced Media: Today’s single biggest market issue is that the significant developments in viewing media beyond Live+7 are not being tracked by an objective, 3rd party firm. The Symphony Advanced Media VideoPulse offering not only tracks Live, DVR to 7 days, and VOD to 3 days for all programs/episodes in the US, but also tracks OTT, DVR beyond 7 days and VOD beyond 3 days.

Kelly Abcarian, Senior Vice President, Watch Product Architecture, Nielsen: Consumer choice is driving how content is viewed and it is fundamentally changing the business of TV, advertising and measurement. Rapid technological change has forever altered the way that content is distributed and consumed, creating new challenges for measuring audiences across new platforms and screens. It is quite clear that our clients are rethinking the way they access and use data. As they collect terabytes of information on their customers, they want a way to connect the dots between what they know about a customer (and potential) customer to what other companies know; and, they want a clear way to engage with each person in the right way and at the right time. Our Total Audience framework, represents the next step in the evolution of TV ratings by reporting the total audience – across digital and linear – for a TV program or ad campaign in a consistent and comparable way.  As has always been the case, the industry can choose how to transact business, based on the flexibility that comprehensive, Total Audience measurement allows. In addition to total “ratings” – audiences by age/gender – we are also enabling analytics across the thousands of audience segments that are available in the audience-based, programmatic ecosystem.  This is where our acquisition of eXelate enables us to tie together Nielsen’s media consumption data together with eXelate’s audience data (over 10,000 segments) to provide unparalleled consumer insights for an audience-based world.

Eric Schmitt, Executive Vice President, Communications, TV and Media. Allant: Advertisers are shifting dollars to more precise audience-based buying techniques, but measurement is lagging.  A principal challenge is the verification of de-duplicated segment-level campaign reach/frequency across media and platforms.  Related challenges include the need for more automated proposal and execution processes (shorter cycle times), the normalization of segment definitions across TV and online and an advertiser’s ability to scale advanced ad techniques across multiple ad sellers and inventory types.   The Audience Interconnect® solves these challenges by providing a system of record for audience segments (household level counts in seconds, not days), coupled to cross-media campaign execution (national and spot linear, addressable, VOD and online) , and standardized impressions measurement and projections on the back end.

Cathy Hetzel, Rentrak Corporate President: Rentrak is very excited about the business climate over the next several years. We see cross-platform measurement as the opportunity ahead. While today we are able to measure multiple platforms, we are working hard toward providing cross-platform intelligence including unduplicated reach and frequency using new data sources to connect the dots. Rentrak is at the center of these advanced advertising models and is the only company prepared to measure TV Everywhere at the required scale. We see international expansion as a key opportunity for growth. We believe the regulatory environment is favorable for creating jobs and supporting local content, and only with census-based measurement can long-tail networks exist profitably. We highly value consumer privacy and have developed privacy compliant methods to create targets from aggregated anonymous data that are needed to drive advertising models. The days of the not-for-profit Joint Industry Group (JIG) are over as MVPDs should earn revenue for contributing their data for industry.

Joan FitzGerald Senior Vice President, Television and Cross Media Service, comScore: The most pressing challenge in the television measurement world today is that television viewing has ‘escaped’ the television set and needs to be measured across all platforms – MVPD, DVR, SVOD and devices such as smartphones, tablets and OTT.  comScore recently introduced Xmedia, which is the industry’s first syndicated measurement of combined TV and digital audiences. We created Xmedia because our clients have told us that they need solutions now that will help them measure the complexities that come along with the ever-changing way that people are consuming content thanks to the digital world. With better data and technology, linear TV along with Total Video in all of its forms can be measured for the benefit of both buyers and sellers.

Leslie Wood, Nielsen Catalina Solutions: This is a question that someone at Nielsen should answer. They work on this all the time. Because I am focused on the effects of advertising, I don’t need a total audience number. The industry knows we are missing pieces. I am less concerned because I look at consumer groups for a product or a category. The world is changing incredibly quickly. There are new ways of consuming media. How do we define TV? If you see a program on the internet is it TV or is it digital? I leave that to others and take the benefit from what they have done.

This article first appeared in www.MediaBizBloggers.com

What Are Data Companies Contributing to the Television Market? An Overview – Part 4

This is the fourth in a series of articles on the various data solutions for television measurement being offered by data companies in the industry. Parts One and Two asked participants to describe their company's services and their plans to market and integrate the data into television analytics. In Part Three, participants were asked about their client list – who in the television sector is using their current services. Now, in Part Four, we delve into the attributes of the data and its use in television.

My Take: The actual dataset and how it is used is at the core in ascertaining its value for television measurement. Whether there is the granularity of second by second increments, a substantial or highly targeted footprint, measurement of the individuals’ behavior rather than ascription and whether there is connectivity to other datasets, there is not one company who can offer everything. So the challenge is to find the best of each service and connect them to create a greater whole. Cooperation is paramount – between networks and across agencies.

Question 4: What are your data attributes for use in television? What can your data do?

Cathy Hetzel, Rentrak Corporate President: Rentrak’s services provide the industry-accepted audience metrics for local stations, national networks and agency demographic planning tools. Our television ratings combine stable and granular viewing insights from more than 35 million U.S. televisions across every U.S. market from more than 16 million households per day. Rentrak enables clients to target audiences based on television and Video on Demand viewership trends, as well as consumer purchasing behavior and branded entertainment insights, for the most impactful ad buying and placement. Rentrak’s expansive product suite includes Advanced Demographic solutions in the automotive, political, CPG, retail and financial services verticals across linear, Video on Demand and digital platforms. Rentrak’s VOD Dynamic Ad Measurement products will be launched this fall and will compliment demographics available today for linear ad reporting for planning, buying and posting advertising for VOD, the ultimate engagement platform.

Leslie Wood, Nielsen Catalina Solutions: We have a huge potential for what our data can do. The things we have already tackled – it can tell you which television programs to buy, if you have a target it can tell you which brands or categories. We have also done a lot of work understanding the patterns of buying – the structure of the market – and how do people buy, looking at price sensitivity, looking at purchase cycles and all those kinds of elements. How do people buy? And then, more importantly, how does television and advertising change what they buy. We have enormous numbers of demographics and there too we have small data and big data. Small data comes from our representative samples with user defined characteristics and then we have Experian. But we also use our data to improve the characteristics. We would  know everything one would know about the viewing of television and everything you know about purchasing. We know what station, what time, the duration of every episode, we know if you fast forward through a break – anything you can get from NPM (Nielsen peoplemeters) we have access to. On the purchase side we know what aisle you used when you checked out, coupon use, was it on sale. We know this from the UPC. So the data is incredibly granular. The kinds of things we have been measuring are targeting, advertising response, long term effects of advertising, looking at different segments of buyers and non-buyers. 

Joan FitzGerald Senior Vice President, Television and Cross Media Service, comScore: The building blocks of comScore television measurement are individual telecasts for content measurement and advertising impressions for ad campaign measurement.  For content, the system reports reach (unduplicated), minutes, minutes/viewer, and average audience for telecasts, shows, networks and groups of networks and custom groupings.  For advertising, the system reports reach, frequency, impressions, GRPs/TRPs by placement, by creative execution, by creative type and for any custom grouping desired by the publisher or advertiser/agency.  

Mainak Mazumdar Chief Science Officer,Simulmedia: Our data is used to predict future TV viewing behavior and select inventory placements that optimize reach and business outcomes against a specific custom audience. We also have matchable data that directly ties ad exposure to a subsequent business outcome (sales, website visits, etc.). Thus, our data closes the loop on TV and proves out TV’s ROI. This kind of direct matching (no fusion or lookalike modeling, but actual 1-to-1 matching of what people saw and what they bought) is made possible by our data and what our platform does with that data. This closed-loop reporting provides “Real ROI” reporting, detailing the return on investment of campaigns based on actual dollars and cents, and not just indexes.

Bill Feininger, President FourthWall Media: Television viewership information.  This data can be used for a variety of services listed above, as well as integration with other datasets.

Charles Buchwalter, President and CEO Symphony Advanced Media: We capture both the fact of exposure to programs or client specific commercials/custom content/social media etc. as well as the duration of exposure. We can tell which device was being used. We code by loyal viewing, people who switch away from commercials, and the mode of viewing e.g. Netflix, YouTube, Hulu, broadcast, VOD, DVR playback, etc. With our survey capability we can also ask custom client questions.

Kelly Abcarian, Senior Vice President, Watch Product Architecture, Nielsen: Nielsen TV ratings has been the currency for buying and selling brand advertising on TV for decades because it is highly accurate and it provides deep insights into audiences.  In the National People Meter panel, we collect 100+ household characteristics, which enable not just the creation of age/gender based ratings, but also audience insights that can be used to position those audiences for advertisers.  Using our TV ratings, clients can get deep insights into what people watch, how many people watch, whether they watch with friends or family, what device they watched on, whether they watched a program live, or recorded it and watched it later, or whether they didn’t watch at all.  Nielsen also collects digital consumption data from about half of our NPM panelists, which enables analyses such as simultaneous use of digital/TV (e.g. web surfing while watching) and cause/effect (e.g., exposure to TV ad leads to online search). Nielsen has the most comprehensive Advertising Effectiveness Measurement in the industry.  We have pioneered the transition of demographic only insights to purchase behavior enhanced metrics.  Through these industry leading ventures, Nielsen delivers the broadest and deepest coverage of ROI and Media Planning across CPG, Restaurant, Retail, Travel, Pharmacy, etc.  Representing more than $80B in Advertising spend and over $2T in product purchase.  No one else in the industry can deliver the granular insights down to the merchant and UPC level (where applicable) against single source matched, demographically accurate viewership data.  Nielsen’s NCS and NBI product suites are utilized by every major media company in the US for Upfronts, research, industry events and every day negotiations

Eric Schmitt, Executive Vice President, Communications, TV and Media. Allant: We source thousands of household data attributes for almost any TV advertising case one can come up with, be it for automotive, movie studios, retail, consumer packaged goods, travel, political, or healthcare.   We also provide our own data attributes that provide our clients with unique, proprietary insights about how to best reach a given audience using premium video advertising.   On the front end, the data we provide is used to size an audience (how many households fit a given segment), to provide insights into finding a given audience in national media (network, day, daypart, program segment concentrations) and distributor media (DMAs, ad sales zone, congressional district, ZIP concentrations).  At execution time, Allant segments power addressable execution on linear and VOD platforms reaching more than 30 million homes. On the back end, Allant data is used to verify campaign ad impressions into target segments across platforms to calculate de-duplicated reach/frequency, and accurately feed ROI, attribution and media mix planning applications.  

Frank Foster, SVP General Manager, TiVo Research and Analytics (TRA): TiVo Research aggregates second by second household-level TV tuning data – both live and time-shifted – from multiple sources.  We analyze program and commercial viewing data at a granular level, as well as product placement and other custom ad content – both in-program and on-screen. Digital ad exposure can also be incorporated and analyzed, and partnerships with location tracking companies enable us to analyze the impact of ad exposure on foot traffic. In addition to TV data we also aggregate 2.5+ years of grocery store purchase information from over 40 chains, 20 years of auto ownership records, 3+ years of Rx prescription history, and hundreds of HH-level demographic attributes.  CPG and Rx companies and their agencies use our data to plan/purchase and optimize media, maximize campaign reach and frequency, track creative burnout, determine sales lift and analyze in-store traffic. Broadcast and Cable nets use TiVo Research to demonstrate their value to advertisers by delivering custom advertiser targets, and they also use our data to validate results via custom analytics. The networks also use our metrics to more accurately plan and analyze paid and unpaid program promos. DMPs use our TV targets to create seed segments for digital campaigns that maximize cross-media campaign effectiveness.

This article first appeared in www.MediaBizBloggers.com