Taking the MRC into the Future. An Interview with George Ivie

When you think of a Good Housekeeping seal in the media industry, one immediately thinks of MRC accreditation. There is arguably no greater source of expertise in evaluating metrics and analytics for use in media measurement. Leading that effort is the MRC’s CEO, George Ivie who has recently renewed his contract with the organization for another five years.

Charlene Weisler: When did you start at the MRC and what are your greatest accomplishments so far?

George Ivie: I started as MRC CEO, Executive Director on January 1, 2000 but all told, I’ve been working with MRC as an auditor and in MRC leadership since the early 1980s.

Probably my most significant accomplishment is to move the MRC into a focus on digital measurement and digitalization, first through development of expertise within our organization, but later through development of standards and follow-through with audits and validation work at dozens of measurement services.  The group of standards MRC has promulgated, such as measurement of digital impressions, viewable impressions, clicks, invalid traffic and fraud filtration, digital audience measurement, ad verification, location measurement, content-level brand safety, cross-media measurement and the latest additions (some in finalization processes) of SSAI, CTV, in-game, digital place based and the totality of out-of-home measurement as well as outcome measurement, have collectively added structure, terminology, disclosure requirements and best practice guidance that in some cases the entire world is using.  This has been a very significant accomplishment for me as CEO, but really attributable to the Staff of the MRC as well as our membership leaders.

Notably, this body of work has impacted all measurement organizations, not just those that one would think of as “digital” measurement organizations or platforms.  Digitalization, data quality and machine learning, modeling and modeling bias, etc. are areas that impact almost all of our audited enterprises whether they are legacy measurers, digital measurers, ad verification, digital platforms, etc.

Other accomplishments include: (1) greatly expanding number and diversity of both the MRC membership and the audits we conduct, (2) re-establishing the recognition of our industry self-regulatory role with the US Government as well as updating our status with the US Department of Justice, and (3) continuing to improve on the recognition of the neutrality, expertise, reputation and influence of MRC within the US and abroad.

Weisler: What do you hope to accomplish in the next two years?

Ivie: We have a full list. Bring accreditation back to television measurement among available measurers, considering new techniques evolving to capture all audience usage as well as improving the stability of measurements. Move forward and build audits and general industry compliance for the SSAI, CTV and in-game guidance we have produced.  Establish an entirely new area of accreditation centered on outcome measurement — specifically: outcome metrics, transparency, attribution and data quality. Continue to make progress on digital platforms audits with the penetration of our audits among the platforms and our four audit goals of impressions, IVT, audience measurement and brand safety (soon adding outcomes metrics). Consider privacy and privacy driven changes across our measurement standards and audits. Finally, ensure the marketplace continues to view representation of all types of Americans within research as a critical quality attribute.

Weisler: What are the biggest challenges to the media industry and how can the MRC address them?

Ivie: We will focus on assimilating consumer changes, measurement methods changes and technology changes while considering the importance of these changes, and properly valuing those in the context of measurement and commerce. We will also be assessing new (or newly prominent) entrants in the measurement space and bringing the light of MRC’s independent 3rd party audit and validation process to those services as the marketplace begins to place reliance on them. We will be adjusting measurement to reflect privacy requirements, maintaining fair and representative measurement and bringing outcomes into validation, auditing and accreditation, giving the increasing prominence outcomes in evaluation of advertising.

Weisler: What are the biggest opportunities in media and how can the MRC facilitate them?

Ivie: The critical big-picture areas include aligning our industry’s work with important consumer preferences, ensuring research is consumer centric, complete and representative. We also strive to keep measurement transparent and validated while being responsive to necessary changes like the increasing granularity of data needs, etc. We also want to promote cross-media measurement and views of the consumer while being privacy safe and compliant.

Weisler:  What are the biggest challenges and opportunities specifically for the MRC?

Ivie: One of our biggest challenges is keeping up with expertise requirements, new technologies and maintaining our relevance among newer practitioners who may not be aware of the history and significance of our role in the industry as well as the education of our members and outsiders about various critical research changes and evolution.

Weisler: What will the media landscape look like 5 years from now from the MRC's perspective?

Ivie: I project that outcome measurements will become increasingly prominent. I also see continued growth in CTV, Apps and other enhanced content delivery methods that are consumer tailorable. There might also be a more complex media measurement environment with numerous providers with perhaps a small number of larger cross-media measurers as a back-bone. Finally I see a fuller realization of identity and first-party data growing sources of value in measurement, increasing levels of data-source to measurer integrations through APIs and the growth of clean-room environments.

 

This article first appeared in www.Mediapost.com

Artwork by Charlene Weisler

 

The 4As Examine Media Measurement Priorities at Advertising Week

There is strength in numbers. And I don’t just mean that in terms of all of the data being gathered and transacted upon in our industry today. I also mean it to suggest that we need to work together - from networks to agencies to the range of other media oriented businesses - to finally solve for cross platform measurement.

The conversation on cross platform measurement has been going on for over a decade through the work of several media organizations. But, frankly, these were often siloed efforts that gathered fleeting attention and struggled for cohesive industry action... until now. The push for an industry standard cross platform measurement is not only gaining momentum, it is also consolidating efforts across cooperating media entities.

As part of Advertising Week, the 4As hosted a panel titled “Media Measurement Priorities” that covered the joint efforts of leading industry entities to facilitate cross platform measurement and to decide, as an industry, what media measurement needs to look like in this new media environment. “What we have now really doesn’t fit the bill,” noted Louis Jones, Executive Vice President, Media and Data, 4As. 

He added that, “We need to have a collaborative point of view,” that also takes into account the needs of agencies. From there, the 4As set out to coordinate the efforts of companies and organizations working on the issue and published a whitepaper titled, Media Measurement Priorities,” as the first salvo.  

The paper set the stage for discussion of the most important priorities from an agency’s perspective. 

Here are the top five:

      1.       Unduplicated Reach

      2.       Currency

      3.       Short term versus long term

      4.       Walled garden and identity graphs

      5.       Attribution

Agency Perspective

Even for these top priorities, there may be flexibility in the solution. Take, for example, Currency. Historically, the TV industry has transacted on a strict set of metrics for currency. For Jonathan Steuer, Chief Research Officer, Omnicom Media Group, “We are in a world that is complicated enough that if everyone had access to the right underlying data, different partners could agree to trade on different metrics and that would be okay.” His point was that agencies seek impressions on specific target audiences and the way these impression are valued may vary across different platforms.

For Ed Gaffney, Managing Partner, Director of Implementation Research and Marketplace Analytics, GroupM, the currency just has to be well understood, transparent and stable. “We can have multiple currencies,” he explained, “We have them now,” with digital and TV and even within TV there are a range of metrics. “As long as everyone knows how they are counted, and can use that data, for both sellers and buyers, it works well.”

For Gaffney, Unduplicated Reach is critical to address waste. But the barrier, according to Steuer, is that the measurement currency for TV “is based on volumetrics and not real humans” and is delivered, “on the aggregate and not the individual. We need a census to tie together and understand device delivery to actual humans.”

Industry Perspective

In addition to agencies, there are businesses and organizations that are deeply involved in the measurement discussion. The MRC has been pivotal in establishing cross media measurement standards. George Ivie, Executive Director Media Ratings Council, explained that the MRC has been involved in a two year effort resulting in a brand new industry standard for video that was just released in early September. Three hundred 300 people and 175 companies participated. “There was a lot of discussion about measurement of exposure and how important it is as a building block to understand who saw your ads and how many times they saw it and the ability to de-duplicate,” he noted.

This standard provides the framework for equalizing the exposures across platforms and de-duplicating it across some general principles: Establishing a  common set of granularity, second to second level starting with counting impressions and then equalizing them as much as possible across the various video outlets, viewability, measurement and requiring invalid traffic and fraud filtering, the ability to measure people – demographics and targets – completes and duration weighted view of impressions so as to measure how long the viewable conditions persisted.

The reaction from the industry was both accepting and guarded. Radha Subramanyam, Chief Research and Analytics Officer, CBS, noted that measuring, “viewability is a good thing. Nobody wants invalid traffic. Duration is important. But the devil is in the details. Implementation versus theory – there is a big gap there.” Brian Smallwood, “Different advertisers are going to want to transact on different measures. This (MRC report) is one way of standardizing it but there are other parts of the ecosystem that want to trade or operate differently.”

If you ask me, an effort that has created the foundation for the trans- corporate cooperation today has been through CIMM. This organization has been working on universal content labeling to help stitch together content on various platforms and devices through Ad-ID and EIDR. Without a UPC-like code, there is no industry wide way to insure that content is accurately being captured wherever it airs. Jane Clarke, CEO and Managing Director, CIMM, noted.  “It is an evolving time in television and we don’t have a granular, nationally representative impressions-based TV measurement system in place right now,” she explained, because the data is siloed, behind walled gardens and not shared.

But, as there is strength in numbers, the first powerful step has now been taken. “The tech environment innovates. Technology improves. The standard is a first step in a long journey,” Ivie concluded.

This article first appeared in www.Mediapost.com

Working Together to Improve Measurement. Insights from the Cynopsis Data and Measurement Conference

For anyone working in the research, data and analytics space, there is no better event than the annual Cynopsis Measurement and Data conference. It is an opportunity to dissect what is going on in the Wild West World of media data that maps the intersection of two main issues; the ever increasing availability of new datasets that expand our knowledge of consumer behavior and the legacy measurement that continues to monetize and fuel the business. At some point these two forces must merge. But how?

What is Constant and What is Evolving

There are some aspects of the media business that remain constant such as the need to agree on KPIs for a campaign, the need to form partnerships that have open communication and the need to agree on how success will be measured. But more and more, we are seeing elements of the business that are perpetually in flux such as the range of data availability, metrics and measurement analytics and  consumer behavior with device usage. For George Ivie, CEO and Executive Director, Media Ratings Council, getting a handle on measurement all boils down to data usage. The two major industry changes according to Ivie, are, “How the industry views using research data and how consumers view data usage.”

Defining outcomes are pivotal to managing change. From a technological standpoint we need to understand “how consumers are using technology. They are moving off linear and the MRC is tracking that behavior. Everything is mobile which is harder to measure and nail down,” he noted. “Consumer choice is causing tension in our business. We need to design server side ad insertion and find ways to avoid ad blocking,” he concluded.

Improve the User Experience

Solving for content navigation in a world of increasing choice would seem to be a no-brainer for the industry. Carol Hanley, Chief Revenue Officer, TV Time offers a solution. “We are a consumer facing app,” she explained, “With 13 million global users who interact around TV content. There is a need in the TV business to understand how to get content and we are like a TV Guide on steroids,” she explained. This app also captures user data such as sentiment information, social dialogue and moment by moment interactions.

Scott Levine, Senior Vice President, Product and Technology Distribution, Univision, looks at content to drive viewer satisfaction and delight. This is an ongoing process. “Our whole history as media company is about evolution and creating a closer and more direct relationship to our audience. What makes people happy,” he explained.

Improve the Advertiser Experience

Attention appears to be the most valuable commodity for advertisers, once the ad itself is viewable and unblocked. But how does one define attention? Dan Schiffman, CRO and Co-Founder, TVision, believes that, “Attention can be defined by the outcomes that occur after a person sees an ad.” But how much time does it take for a brand attention to occur? How many seconds? Schiffman says three seconds is that threshold for recall and awareness of that ad. But Julie Detraglia, Vice President and Head of Research, Hulu, disagrees. “It’s hard to believe that three seconds are enough for an individual. We have more work to do to understand what the threshold is.” She noted that Hulu only charges when ad completed 100% and the viewer can't skip ads.

Donna Speciale, President Ad Sales, Turner, has made it her mission to reimagine TV and advertising. “Our collective goal is to make advertising better for our fans and clients,” she explained, “We develop smart marketing initiatives across all platforms empowered with ideas and solutions to drive consumer outcomes.” She advocates a new direction for measurement. “We need to transact on those formulas that show how people are actually consuming our content.” 

Next Steps

Maybe the era of competitive cooperation is here and will lead to much needed new industry measurements and standards. Apropos of OpenAP, the Advanced Audience Platform created by Turner, Fox and Viacom that has now added NBCU to the mix, Speciale noted that, “We have a lot more work to do. No one company can change the industry. We need to hold each other accountable so we all win.”

This article first appeared in www.Mediapost.com

Trends Revealed at the Cynopsis Data and Measurement Conference

For those of us navigating the brave new world of media, the data rushing into the market has been met with both exhilaration and, let’s face it, a bit of dread. What datasets are most predictive and valuable? How can a company best manage all of its data and connect it seamlessly across platforms? What metrics are most useful and capable? 

The recent Cynopsis Data and Measurement Conference offered some insights into these questions, showcasing trends in media data from its impact, its measurement, its use by advertisers and its targeting applications. Here are some takeaways:

Lazy Data Confounds the Path to Purchase

Lazy data is misleading data, according to Mike Rosen, Executive Vice President Portfolio Sales and Strategy, NBCU. Lazy data is essentially those datasets that are not efficiently and accurately attributed back to the sale or are not adequately counting the value of certain consumer groups. “Data in the service of marketing and media is a very human endeavor,” he explained, “We can use data to understand human behaviors.”

But as a Baby Boomer, Rosen believes that his spending patterns are not given the credit they deserve. He does not have a social footprint but he spends on a variety of goods and services from shopping at a range of online and offline stores, using credit cards, “I own two cars, I have insurance policies, I travel, own loyalty cards and spend on entertainment. I throw off lots of data but because of lazy data, they can't find me.” Advertisers are “targeting demos like Millennials and Gen X. I am a Boomer. I am out.” Advertisers consider older consumers acceptable waste, reached anyway. “If you market to me do I not shop?” he intoned, “I am a human consumer with a high credit rating. You can't seem to find me.”

The root causes of lazy data, according to Rosen, are:

       1.       Sticking with age and gender categorizations which don’t count valuable consumers.

       2.       Buying by network and not by program, diluting the ability to efficiently reach target viewers.

       3.       Equivalizing platforms. Platforms have different viewing experiences and different levels of engagement.

       4.       Correlation Causation. “We so badly want to relate things to each other but it could just be coincidence. I live in Westport. I love Greek yoghurt … but not because I live in Westport,” he stated.

Without an attribution model, the problem of lazy data will not go away, “It is never quite that simple to determine the path of purchase,” Rosen concluded, “The messaging route by platform each carries a different role in purchasing.”

Unified Measurement Pessimism

Let’s face it, finding a unified measurement that works well across platforms is not an easy task. In fact, according to a questionnaire floated by Cynopsis before the conference, 60% of all respondents believe that we will never attain unified measurement. This is a staggeringly high percentage of pessimists.

George Ivie, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer, Media Ratings Council, is writing the viewability standard. He asked his panel, “What metrics matter? Which are the most relevant? Why are we rushing to try and equalize metrics? Shouldn’t we focus on value and let them be different?” There was general agreement here. According to Manu Singh, Group Vice President Commercial Insights and Digital, Discovery, “not all impressions are created equal.” Brian West, Director, Multiplatform Research, ABC added that he is, “focusing on the full life cycle of measurement by setting requirements in place, implementing measurements, validating them and using them to drive insights,” implying the creation of many metrics. “Inventory is the goal to measurement,” noted Ed Davis, Chief Product Officer, Fox. “What delivers attention to the brand - how much and how long?”

There is no ideal. It all depends on the campaign goals. There may be multiple ad formats that, in my opinion, make standardization difficult. So it may come to pass that there is never going to be a unified measurement across platforms. But according to some industry executives, we may not need one.

Measurement Surprises

Taking unified measurement one step further is the idea that technology advancements are creating unintended considerations that are bubbling up in measurement discussion. For example: In a world where media companies can disable fast forward … or not … how do you measure forced versus organic viewing durations comparably? Ivie discussed duration weighting and developing metrics that demonstrate how platforms and content perform differently. Singh noted that, “We want to standardize those metrics. We support duration weighting.” The MRC is also tackling deduplication, focusing a great deal of attention on its methodology. “When it comes to unduplicated reach, there is still work for us to do as an industry,” noted West.

The measurement wish list is long. Singh would like, “all interactions of consumers to funnel into one repository,” and to also, “take into account qualitative data.” While West added, “It's not a one size fits all. We work consultatively with our clients. What is the ROI? What is the impact on brand? We make some form of compromise. Data is device based when we want persons based, for example. We need to advance on that.”

Jamie Power, Chief Operating Officer, one2one Media may have summed it up by saying, “When it comes to multichannel measurement, it is easier to find audiences but harder to measure them.” With all of these great minds pondering the measurement universe, maybe we can convince the pessimistic 60% that some form of standard measurement (or measurements) might indeed be possible one day.

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

CIMM Continues to Pave the Way for Cross Platform Measurement

CIMM, The Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement, hosted its 5^th Annual Cross Platform Media Measurement and Data Summit last week. The organization has accomplished a lot in the past five years. 

Jane Clarke, CEO and Managing Director, outlined CIMM’s mission which is to “foster innovation in cross platform measurement, bring more granular measurement to TV and look at measurement in new ways. We pilot test new measurement tools to meet the needs of users. It has been a multi-year effort of working together to drive change in media measurement.” 

Goals and Actions For Cross Platform Measurement

CIMM seeks to establish a clear understanding of consumer centric usage across all platforms, to measure exposure by pilot testing touchpoints and to evaluate the results. “Enriching media data quality is the key to ROI and data quality is increasingly important for enhancing the buying currency. CIMM is advocating for more passive measurement at scale, linking census based with shopping behavior,” Clarke stated as she announced a Measurement Manifesto that has three goals and eight actions.

The “must haves” for cross platform media measurement are:

      

       --Accurate representation of cross device universe at scale to use advanced audience segments.

Ø        --An efficient supply chain to real time, with timing comparable to digital.

Ø        --Comparable metrics across platforms with a standard video to average minute to measure ads.

The Actions taken to achieve these goals are:

Ø        -- Embrace competition.

Ø       --  MRC standards.

Ø       --    Move beyond panels, embrace big data and move to census measurements in TV and digital.

Ø       --  Bring more return path data to market for planning. Nationally represent SmartTV and STB data.

Ø       --Measure Out of Home in the ratings. Measure across all possible media points.

Ø       --  Measure both households and individuals.

Ø        -- Implement standardized metadata for content and ads.

Ø       --Demand transparency from 3rd party data companies, linking IDs across devices and channels.

The Impact of Data

Artie Bulgrin, SVP Global Research & Analytics, ESPN, moderated the first panel on Cross Media and Data and asked his panel whether we will see a move away from age and gender demos in buying and selling media across platforms. Michael Strober, in a new role as EVP Client Strategy and Ad Innovation, Turner, replied, “Currently there is too much of the business activating on age and gender.” But, he added, “We are working towards a variety of measurements.” Michael Piner, SVP Investment, MAGNA GLOBAL, was more open to change and said, “We are working towards it. If we can use and overlay third party data, then we don't need (to buy on) age and gender.”

Data rules, according to the panel, whether first or third party. Benjamin Jankowski, Group Head, Global Media, MasterCard, explained, “We have our own data which drives quantitative actions. We can create segments - not individuals because of privacy. The qualitative side is more ahead of the curve. We use social listening to know people's interests.” Piner said, “We use a tremendous amount of big data, are incorporating it into the data stack and ingesting it into our planning system.”

Progress on Cross Platform Measurement

Alan Wurtzel, President, Research & Media Development moderated a panel of end users. When asked how they were using the data to facilitate cross platform measurement, Don Robert, EVP Research and Analytics, A+E Networks spoke of his company’s recent efforts. “We are monetizing cross platform effectively by examining how each platform looks when you take out the commercial units. We are looking at program impressions by duration using currency data based on impressions,” he explained.

However, data delivery lag is a challenge for an industry used to overnight ratings. Ed Gaffney, Managing Partner, Director of Tactical Planning, GroupM explained, “While problems can be solved by research and good quality data, there also needs to be good velocity. The data can’t be six months old. We need it now so we can see what lift we get.”  This means that, for the foreseeable future, the industry is expected to stick with the usual data suspects for upfront buying.  “Nielsen is currency,” Gaffney said, “That is where we are going to do business. We work with comScore (for digital) and Nielsen (for TV).” And yet it is still an open field for more competition In the future. “No one can crack it to everyone's satisfaction,” stated Gaffney, “We will spend the money (for more services). We won’t be happy about it but we will spend the money.”

Participate!

Collaboration is key and George Ivie, Executive Director and CEO, Media Ratings Council is leading the charge. “Accreditation is a difficult road,” he admits, “but we hope to be done with a cross media standard by the end of 2016.” The MRC standard to follow is the duration-weighted viewable impression filtered for non-fraudulent, valid, human traffic.

The most important thing is for all of us in all areas of the industry is to get involved and help facilitate standardize-able measurement solutions. Ivie concluded with a plea. “Participate!” he said.

This article first appeared in www.MediaBizBloggers.com