An Eye Towards the Future of Multi-Measurement. The NBCOne Developer Conference

While some in the press called the recent NBCOne Developer Conference “nerdy” it was, in fact, fascinating. The purpose of this 2^nd annual meeting was twofold.  First was to announce the many new innovations that NBC has added to their One-Platform. Second was a call to action on the part of the industry to foster more collaboration between vendors, programmers, marketers and overall competitors to accelerate the advancement of measurement and implement and adopt alternative currencies. 

One panel which highlighted the recent announcement of a long awaited JIC (Joint Industry Committee), summed up the importance of working together as an industry, crossing self-interested lines for the greater good. The goal is to establish a mutually acceptable audience measurement for both the buy and sell side of the industry.

Also presented at the conference were panelists who spoke about the value and efficacy of NBCU’s One Platform, how is it best used across departments and disciplines. NBCU’s Linda Yaccarino, Chairman Global Advertising and Partnerships, noted that when it comes to Big Media and Big Tech, it is important to have both because of the need for data unification and content in one platform. Therefore a JIC is vital to facilitate the breakdown of data silos for a mutually acceptable range of measurements to that position companies to maximize their value.  This requires us to move away from single solutions, move away from simply counting impressions and a move to a multi-currency future (which, incidentally, is available now).

Other highlights included an interview with Apple co-founder, Steve Wozniak by CNBC’s journalist, Carl Quintanilla, on the future of AI where, according to Wozniak, computers are not meant to replace humans but to help them and that the path to success will be filled with errors and missteps.

According to Ryan McConville, EVP Advertising Platforms & Operations, NBCU, new and improved features of One Platform include the ability to activate on multi-currencies through iSpot and VideoAmp that optimize within the life of a campaign.  He also announced a partnership with Mediaocean that enables end-to-end capabilities for transactions which facilitates scaling.

John Lee, NBCU’s Chief Data officer announced that NBC Unified is now ready for targeting and measuring.  Notably, the use of data from trusted first party sources (their advertisers) can now be matched with NBC IDs that include data from content, their fans passions and even theme parks. There are new advertiser segments for measurement that match to real outcomes.

Deborah Wahl CMO GM presented a use case for NBC showcasing how the Platform was used to identify consumers for their electric cars last year and how it will be used this year for launching EVs in all classes from luxury (Cadillac) to mainstream (Chevy).   

Andy Cohen, Host and Executive Producer for Bravo, talked about the success of Fandom and used Bravo as an example with BravoCon while NBCU’s Global CMO, Josh Feldman spoke about eCommerce and Retail Media. Feldman announced the debut of One Platform Commerce partnerships with retail media Citris Ad and NBC Checkout which enables seamless purchase capabilities in partnership with Kerv Interactive. There is also Tech licensing for commerce technology which is a new business opportunity for NBCU.

NBCU’s EVP Measurement & Impact, Advertising & Partnerships, Kelly Abcarian, championed “let there be change” facilitated with iSpot and VideoAmp.  She also predicted that currencies in use today such as C3 and C7 will be out of date by 2024. Notably, NBCU has now “certified” 29 new partners and 5 different measurement categories. 

For those of us who have seen the advancement of technology and data with a sense of excitement, these developments and predictions and the expansion of systems such as NBCU’s One Platform, bode well for an industry that needs to keep up with change. As David Levy, Co-CEO and equity partner in Horizon Sports noted, maybe we are approaching a measurement renaissance.

 

 First published in www.MediaVillage.com Thought Leaders   

Artwork by Charlene Weisler

 

 

 

 

 

 

NBCUniversal Reveals Unified Measurement Currency Results with iSpot

If anyone knows media measurement, it is Kelly Abcarian, previously with Nielsen and now Executive Vice President, Measurement & Impact, Advertising & Partnerships, NBCUniversal. Along with NBCU’s Laura Molen, President, Ad Sales & Partnerships and Sean Muller, CEO iSpot, Abcarian presented the results of a pilot study that demonstrates how iSpot data can be accurately used as currency for OTT.

This year-long study is, “a major milestone to transform media measurement to reach consumers where they are,” according to Molen that helps to address the demand of advertisers for the ultimate cross platform measurement standard. Partnering with iSpot has enabled NBCU to contribute a new solution to the multi-currency future of the media ecosystem. “Some are stuck on legacy. Some are grading their own homework or measuring themselves,” noted Molen. But others are adopting new measurement currencies as evidenced by the large percentage of business that is now conducted on alternative measurements. “Already 40% of our upfront deals have been outside the traditional age and gender guarantees,” using a range of other data suppliers such as Adsmart, iSpot and OpenAP.

But the industry need at this point is to unify and codify a new currency using these alternative services and that is where the partnership with iSpot is pivotal to NBCU’s measurement goals. “They are our first certified partner and a trusted partner of the industry for over a decade,” she stated who has also received the seal of approval from many of NBCU’s advertisers. In fact, over 30% of the advertisers showcased in NBCU’s pilot study were already iSpot customers.

The ability to, as Molen said, “bridge the gaps between platforms and even across the buy and sell side,” to combine all of NBCU’s platforms with one unified method that delivers daily impressions within 48 hours is a major step in media measurement.

For Abcarian, this effort is all part of the bigger plan to, “move our industry forward with better measurement solutions and trying to keep up with the changing, ever growing consumer behaviors.” NBCU’s nine month journey to find the right measurement partner started with an RFP that attracted over 120 measurement providers across six measurement categories. This was followed by a test of 16 advertisers over the Summer Olympics across six cross platform currency partners. This was followed by a range of industry initiatives and announcements, the certification of nine NBCU partners further studies using the Winter Olympics and SuperBowl and finally, a 67 advertiser pilot test examining 158 brands.

“The key takeaway from our last nine months is that cross platform currency is here and it is ready to act and transact,” Abcarian concluded. A notable advancement was the mitigation of friction by using, “Direct server to server integration with iSpot so brands could measure all ads across all platforms and all ads fast.” After hours of training 800 users and testing across a three month period for the 12 brands, NBCU saw an average 546 million impressions per brand, an average mix of 9% on OTT and 91% on linear.

Advertisers were categorized by their mix of linear and OTT and fell into the following categories: Beginners with 10% OTT in their media mix, Experimenters at 10-20% OTT, Adventurers at 20-30% and Pioneers at 30%+. The results of the test were that brands with a rich mix of OTT did better with overall greater reach and acceptable levels of frequency.

NBCU’s goal of true scale integration cross platform measurement for brands’ unique campaigns was demonstrated by Muller who revealed the results of the pilot study which looked at a large retail brand. “Probably the overarching learning here is that linear and streaming can no longer be planned, measured and transacted in silos,” he explained. The retail brand began its campaign with a very low mix of OTT and over the span of the campaign, increased its OTT weight. The result was a significant increase in reach using more OTT, “as linear was saturated and more frequency was building up. And as they layered in streaming, there was pure incremental reach,” he revealed.

What did NBCU learn? All brands are underleveraged on NBCU OTT in driving reach. The pilot study proved that a careful mixture of OTT and linear, depending on the target consumer goal, can result in optimizing reach and frequency that can be smoothed out by moving media weight from linear to OTT.  “The power of premium (content) is both critically important across our linear and OTT platforms to drive reach and results for our advertisers. The ability to measure all viewing in a unified way,” enables advertisers to value and optimize all of their inventory across all platforms with an optimal mix in a frictionless and seamless way with de-duped reach and frequency, Abcarian concluded.

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

Artwork by Charlene Weisler

 

 

 

Nielsen Is Addressing the Challenges in Addressable

"Addressable TV has plateaued," warns Tracey Scheppach, chief executive officer of Matter More Media. "It is very hard to get more impressions in addressable with the path we are on."  But Nielsen is working to tackle this challenge — advancing quickly to unlock the full potential of addressable. Nielsen is doing so in a way that "brings efficiency, simplicity, and collaboration to the media ecosystem," says Kelly Abcarian, general manager, Nielsen Advanced Video Advertising.

There are three big challenges in the addressable marketplace today: scale, simplicity, and reconciliation. And Nielsen has solutions for each.

The Challenge of Scale
"We are struggling with scale," Scheppach (pictured above left) admits. "Big national advertisers are going to need scale of available impressions to lean in" and there are simply not enough available. The solution is the data culled from smart TVs, which have thaddresse potential to unlock all of the national and local broadcast and cable minutes, bringing a rush of new, addressable impressions to the marketplace.

Abcarian (pictured above right) believes that scale is coming quickly. "At least half of all U.S. households have at least one enabled Smart TV," she states. "And the growth of enabled Smart TV households has been rapid. Four years ago, it was closer to 30 million and, now, it is about 59 million", she added.

The Challenge of Simplicity
Simplicity will be solved through automation, which will allow for scale. Nielsen is committed to building simplicity in all of its systems. "Like any solution that is either wholly or partially standards based, someone is needed to bring together a comprehensive solution that works. Nielsen is starting with a full end-to-end [solution] but is very willing to integrate or swap out components where required in an open and modular fashion," Scheppach notes.

To that end, Nielsen's focus is not on a structured, end-to-end solution; instead, its focus is on a flexible, streamlined capability that is easy to understand and implement. "Our platform is truly open and interoperable, and we are technology agnostic," Abcarian says. "We are working alongside all of the existing players to integrate with third-party components that service all sides of the ecosystem."

The Challenge of Reconciliation
Reconciliation equates with fair value. To scale addressable — especially in the linear space, where you have 36 billion hours a month of viewing — technology is needed to overlay an already-sold national availability. Scheppach explains that programmers need to be able to sell off a piece of addressable inventory while also compensating the original underlying buyer of that time. For that to happen, there needs to be a currency-level reconciliation of the underlying availability, so that each advertiser receives the true value of the time they are buying. Nielsen is addressing that issue, as well. They have convened together an Addressable TV Measurement Task Force that is actively engaging all of the major TV networks and leading agencies in discussions about evolving the C3/C7 currency to support the future of addressable TV.

"Maintaining our role as a trusted, independent data and measurement organization is paramount to everything we do," said Abcarian. "Addressable TV ad measurement will play a big part in the evolution of Nielsen's Total Audience initiative, which aims to bring a single set of metrics for measuring content and advertising across all media platforms, including all addressable TV platforms: OTT, set-top-box, video-on-demand, and linear."

Preparing for the Future of Addressable
"What we are talking about is leaning in to the smart TV ecosystem to do real-time ad replacement across the full 16 minutes of both cable networks and broadcast networks [of ads in a 60-minute program] at scale," Abcarian explains. Nielsen will launch its platform next year and will "continue to … drive the scale of the footprint that we can enable for conversion to addressable impressions."
It is predicted that by 2023, there will be 250 million smart-enabled TV sets, according to Statista. "We are optimistic," she says, "that in three years we will have the scale that is required to fully execute the volume of live, linear television impressions in a more addressable, scaled way."

This article first appeared in www.Mediavillage.com

How to Get Personal, According to Nielsen

"Marketers have to get personal," and should explore technological opportunities, according to Peter Katsingris, Senior Vice President, Nielsen Audience Insights (pictured at top).  

He kicked off the recent Nielsen press breakfast with additional personal touches added by Kelly Abcarian, Nielsen's Senior Vice President, Watch Product Architecture, and other speakers to highlight how the organization is keeping pace with the evolving media landscape via its own technological advances.

Presentations illustrated platform and device usage trends, preferences by demographic, ad-supported potential, dynamic ad insertion and how clients are using Nielsen's data to demonstrate TV's opportunities for advertisers, as summed up here:

The Trends:  More Time Spent with Digital Media
Katsingris has a team that "tells stories with data," enabling clients to better understand the impact of how consumers are leaning into content. "Marketers have to get personal," he noted, and should explore technological opportunities such as dynamic ad insertion to better reach consumers who are increasingly spending more time on their personal devices and various platforms.  He reported that, overall, weekly usage of media continues to grow.  In 2018, Nielsen found that viewers spent 79 hours with media per week, compared to 61 hours in 2010 and 51 hours in 2002. Multi-tasking contributes a lot of this extraordinary amount of time spent, as smartphones have surpassed radio and time spent with digital devices in general, reaching parity with time-shifted TV.

New platforms and devices are being adopted at impressive rates.  According to N-Power, in March 2018 91% of all U.S. households had a smartphone, 79% a computer, 69% an SVOD service, 64% a tablet, 55% a DVR, 46% a smart TV, 43% a game console, 40% an internet-connected device and 4.8% a virtual MVPD.  This increase in digital adoption has resulted in increased usage.  Overall, media usage increased +21% from January 2018 to 2019, especially among African Americans (+26%), Hispanics (+23%) and Asians (+38%).

The more opportunity to view on various devices and platforms, the more time is spent on them.  The shift in time spent is a cautionary tale for traditional media.  Once adopted, streaming usage grows from month one (1 hour, 8 minutes) to year one (1 hour, 20 minutes) while time spent with TV declined in the same timeline (from 7 hours, 19 minutes to 6 hours, 33 minutes).

The expansion of the data pool enables Nielsen to offer new and interesting ways to analyze usage, including which devices are used in which room in the house.  Enabled smart TVs tend to reside in the living room (53%) and encourage co-viewing, while internet-connected devices are in the master bedroom (26%) and (unsurprisingly) enabled video game consoles are in bedrooms that tend to belong to younger members of the household (32%).

The Opportunities:  Addressable TV Using ACR
"The time for addressable advertising is now," declared Abcarian.  "TV has changed and grown.  But we need to look at TV differently than in the past."  There is more connected TV ownership (+46% have at least one smart TV in the home, representing +8% growth from January 2018 to January 2019) and greater cord-cutting or shaving (25% of all TV homes).  But don't misread the trends, she advised.  "TV time is growing, not shrinking," because viewers are "using other devices to get to the glass."  In fact, the impact of connected devices is influencing linear viewing, offering a rebirth of TV.

Linear content is experiencing a 5-7x growth with internet-connected devices, while smart TVs provide a 2x growth to linear content.  In this environment, the ability to apply addressable advertising is a boon to advertisers.  It offers precision advertising that highly targets linear TV with advanced demographics.  It provides value targeting that enables agencies to reduce waste and, with Nielsen, "best in class measurement," using "similar audience segments definitions."  To that end, Nielsen is pioneering ACR technology to unlock the full 16 minutes of ads in programming and transforming C3 measurement, so as to enable clients to reconcile with addressable and be able to execute ad models across platforms.

Two main areas of focus in the coming months include audience-based buying to enable advertisers to use advanced audience segments to plan and buy linear TV campaigns, and addressable TV, which offers true one-to-one ad targeting, delivery and measurement across smart TV platforms. The result will be greater measurement transparency and standardization across these two areas. One example of industry collaboration that exists today is between Nielsen and OpenAP. Nielsen's audience data and Enterprise Audience API are used within OpenAP, enabling the buy side to create and share 777 segments within the consortium's platform since it launched in the Fall of 2017.

Part of this is the result of Nielsen's ability to deploy dynamic ad insertion, which is now in the testing stage.  Nielsen uses video ACR technology that is embedded in the glass screen's firmware or chipset.  "We then take a screenshot every half-second to see what is watched on-screen every two seconds," Abcarian explained.  This is matched back to the library and a decision is then made whether or not to replace the original network ad based on pre-arranged rules and audience profiles.  "It is a seamless experience for the viewer and is more engaging because it is a more relevant ad," she said.

The early learnings from this pilot indicate that broadcasters want to see improved sell rate percentages and agencies want accurate forecasts and more standard segments.  For all of this to happen, measurement reconciliation needs to occur, as well as some operational improvements; there are still too many manual processes at the current time to deliver addressable campaigns.  Some of the challenges are the result of walled gardens that "tie up addressable at scale," Abcarian said.  "We need more partnerships in the ecosystem."  She also noted that we need more scale in technology while keeping in mind the privacy that goes with it.

Another challenge is "too many demand pools and measurement sticks," she added.  "We don't know how to buy at scale with confidence."  Further, there needs to be a reconciliation with C3, bringing the measurement holistically across platforms.  Finally, there needs to be education.  "What do we mean by addressable TV?" she said by way of example.  "And, [we have to] put a value against the impressions."

Ultimately, Abcarianis bullish on Nielsen's ability to deliver an addressable product that will be embraced by the industry.  "It offers real-time scale that optimizes both the upper and lower funnel," she noted.  Nielsen is focused on creating a standardization framework that will drive consistency across all platforms.

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

Nielsen 's Local Measurement Initiatives

In a media environment when local is more of a factor than ever, Nielsen has stepped up its local measurement capabilities with a range of added offerings. Since the end of the paper diary that transitioned to electronic measurement, Nielsen has also added various datasets and expanded the sample. They have also added more set top box data to the local market sample and is in the process of formalizing the addition of out-of-home viewership data to better monitor the full viewer experience no matter where they are. 

Measuring Individuals and Helping Stations

This has all helped strengthen and expand data culled on the household level. Now Nielsen is focusing on improving the collection of data for individuals with the most recent announcement of a Nielsen partnership with MBuy. MBuy is a cross platform, data centric, consumer-tracking service that enables advertisers the ability to connect with consumers throughout the purchase lifecycle. The MBUY partnership demonstrates Nielsen’s commitment to furthering local sales capabilities by enabling the targeting of individual consumers rather than households through the use of Nielsen persons data. This enhancement of local market measurement will enable agencies to forecast, deliver, and steward their buys.

These local improvements, along with a move to Live +1 which more closely aligns with consumer behavior viewing habits and national measurement, also deliver a lift to stations’ revenue goals. This provides, according to Steve Lanzano, President and Chief Executive Officer, TVB, “more GRPs for stations to sell.” A win win. 

2019 Nielsen Initiatives

And there is more good news in the pipeline. Kelly Abcarian, Senior Vice President, Watch Product Architecture for Nielsen, noted a range of future innovations that the industry can expect in 2019. She explained, “Only Nielsen can provide Comprehensive, Accurate, and In-Depth local audience measurement to successfully monetize ad inventory and inform content decisions. In 2019, Nielsen will integrate Portable People Meter™ (PPM) technology into Local TV measurement in 44 DMAs. This brings new out of home viewing into the audience estimates and increases stability and reduces reported zeros.” She also noted that in the remaining Set Meter markets, Nielsen is “combining its currency grade panel data with return path data and other electronic measurement from millions of homes across multiple providers. “

Actual Viewership vs Opportunity to View

One of the challenges in measuring individuals is to ascertain whether the individual actually viewed the programming or ad versus their opportunity to view. Nielsen is making the effort to assure advertisers that their ads have actually been viewed. Abcarian explained, “Advertisers pay for viewers who actually view their ads, not for people who have a chance to view ads. Nielsen captures and reports actual viewers. Utilizing best-in-class panels Nielsen is uniquely positioned to deliver to the marketplace persons level viewing estimates, informing both buyers and sellers who viewed their content and ads.”

She stated that other measurement providers deliver only the “opportunity to view” because they are using household level estimates and therefore include the viewing of all the people that live in the home, whether they were viewing or not. “Simply put, opportunity to view would provide data on those that had a chance to view. This can grossly overstate estimates,” she concluded.

Now, with the advancement of addressable and targeted advertising, local has become vitally important to advertisers. With all of these Nielsen initiatives, it is now possible to more fully maximize the value of local inventory for both advertisers and station owners. The future is bright … and green.

This article first appeared in MediaVIllage.com

Local Measurement Takes a Giant Step Forward. Interview with Nielsen's Kelly Abcarian

With the recent announcement of the addition of Comcast set top box data to Nielsen’s data arsenal, there has been a dramatic expansion of Nielsen’s local measurement capabilities. Kelly Abcarian, SVP, Nielsen Product Leadership, has been on the frontlines of these efforts.  I had the opportunity to sit down with her and ask her the following questions:

Charlene Weisler: When did Nielsen first launch their initiative to add STB data to their local measurement and what prompted that initiative?

Kelly Abcarian: We’ve always believed in the power and strength of big data and set-top box integration has been part of our overall strategy of incorporating large ‘census like’ data into all of our services and products.  We are changing 210 markets of Local TV measurement over the next 12 months by bringing the scale and granularity to our measurement that our clients need as audiences continue to fragment across screens. 

Weisler: What does Comcast add to the measurement potential if previous STB datasets have already been modeled into the measurement? Why add more?

Abcarian: With Comcast’s addition, Nielsen now has the largest set-top box data set of any supplier. We have partnerships with multiple providers to provide us the breadth and depth of data across 210 markets.  For Nielsen, it is not about the number of households, as once you get past a certain high threshold, the value of each additional household is diminished. It is much more about the quality of the data, methodology, and variety of sources; and critical for local is making sure “locality” or true local information is included, not just modeled down from a national view.

Weisler: How granular will all of this data be across all 210 markets but particularly on markets 71+? ​

Abcarian: Advertisers and media owners will have consistent daily electronic measurement for all markets 365 days a year. With consistency in measurement and larger sample sizes, clients can dig deep with custom data segments or geographic areas or go big and look across markets that match the media plan for the advertiser.  

Weisler: Is there a plan to match local measurement capabilities to national - that is, daily overnights for some if not all markets? If so, when? If not, what will be offered, especially to smaller markets.

Abcarian: We will still produce daily data with a one day delay in markets we do today. We will shift to next, next day reporting for any overnight markets with set-top-box data. Former diary markets will receive data monthly and with granularity at the daily quarter-hour level.  Eventually we would like to provide data within 48 hours to all 210 markets but it will require close collaboration with our data partners to be able to provide this to all 210 markets at this time.

Weisler: What is the status of code readers​ in diary markets to measure OTA​? Will STB data be incorporated?

Abcarian: Over-the-air (OTA) homes can account for 10%-65% of a station’s audience for news and sports alone, depending on the network. And simply having a home in every zip code does not mean the ratings are representative or reflective of this growing, important viewing segment.  Remember that OTA is not available with set top box data. Nielsen meters are being rolled out across the 140 markets (15,000 TV audience meters in approximately 7,000 homes) that will be directly targeting OTA homes to provide a projectable measurement source for all OTA viewing occurring in the local markets

The installation of these electronic meters will address viewing gaps and provide the truth-set needed to address the limitations of solely using STB data for audience measurement and also deliver actual persons-level viewing. The meters will be concentrated on specific types of homes, specifically OTA, and will have known demographic and TV viewing information, allowing Nielsen to project audience estimates for over-the-air tuning. 

Weisler: Where do you see local measurement in the next two years? 

Abcarian: Consumers will have new devices, new ways of engaging with content, new behaviors both in and outside of the home that will be important to continue to measure.  As technology evolves and new broadcast standards like ATSC 3.0 become more prominent, new “big data” sources from Smart TVs, connected devices and other devices will enable interactive advertisements, audience-based buying, addressable and many other enhancements. 

Full electronic measurement will be in place across the entire ecosystem in the next 12 months – ensuring continued quality of this data as it evolves from STB tuning behavior to smart TV to Virtual Reality. We will also have the capabilities to understand audience changes in real time with our Nielsen Marketing Cloud across a wide spectrum of marketing execution platforms such as search, social media, email, video, mobile, OTT.  It will analyze real-time streams of anonymous audience data and instantly adapt segments to reflect changes in Consumer media and buying behavior, Movement in the consumer path-to-purchase, Audience composition across millions of consumer attributes (including demo-, geo-, behavior, personality) and Market dynamics (including seasonal & local market demand, competitive actions, advertising).

Two years from now, advertisers will be able to purchase more traditional TV programmatically and their efforts will be supplemented with product purchase data and demos. And, as long as we  remember to keep the consumer at the center and connect media exposure with buying behavior, this industry will continue to grow.  Ultimately, this is what matters most to the advertiser – what combinations of media choices drive optimal sales results.

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com