Overcoming the Challenges in Cross-Platform Measurement. Nielsen’s Megan Clarken Explains It All at the ARF

Megan Clarken, Nielsen’s Chief Commercial Officer, spoke at the recent ARF on the changing consumer content consumption patterns and the transformation of measurement to meet this evolution.

Nielsen has found that overall media usage is increasing. American adults now spend close to 80 hours of media consumption in a week, which is a remarkable number that has continued to grow over the past 15 years. Live TV is on decline, she pointed out. Consumption rose in time shifted TV, game consoles and use of the computer, said Clarken, adding that smartphone and tablet are also on the rise, especially in playable video. So Nielsen’s focus is increasingly on digital devices and their growth and the changes to the way consumers are watching the TV screen.

Challenges
Clarken noted that this growth in media consumption is not translating into great benefits for the business at this time.

• Advertising Growth: Why is advertising not growing at same healthy rate as media consumption rate? “This is a critical issue for our industry,” she stated. It’s because marketing dollars are going to places beyond advertising. “The biggest problem is a problem of trust,” she explained. “We need to work out what it means to advertise.” Trust is a big consideration.
• Comparability: There is also little comparability cross screens. “Without comparability everyone is a walled garden. TV doesn’t escape this problem and it is confusing to advertisers,” she stated. Without comparability, if you line up all of the collected data, third party measurement will be wrong.
• Frequency Capping: Companies don’t want to pay for frequency capping or the wrong demographic that is served over and over again because of the walled gardens. “This is a major problem,” she said. “We believe in simplifying the notion of currency. Comparable metrics to monetize brand lift, sales lift, engagement, ROI, attribution and demographics. How many times did they see it? Where did they see it? When did they see it?”

Cross Platform Measurement
As Nielsen is the leader in measurement currency, Clarken recommends the use of impressions for the measurement of devices. “We measure people,” she explained, “and the cost must be palatable. We need consistent cross platform measurement that is comparable and that marketers can trust and avoid waste.” The best way to produce a gold standard cross platform measurement is to start with tagging and counting using a digital ad ratings tag calibrated to a digital ad ratings methodology and an audio watermark for TV that is calibrated to the NPM panel. Then a single-source de-duplication must take place. ”From here we can produce the measurement total ad ratings and total content ratings,” she explained. The result is reporting on computer, television and mobile using only-only-both metrics. “It is an education process, an alignment on comparability and ubiquitous measurement where everyone sees everything. This needs to happen and the ecosystem needs to support it. But if we can’t afford it we will be in trouble,” she concluded.

Between education, money to support efforts and the breaking down of walled gardens, there are enough issues to slow the process. But that would be a mistake, according to Clarken. “We have to go there and we have to go fast or we will miss the advertising spend,” she warned. “We need to get behind people who are doing more and more of the work. We don’t want 80% of market spend going into (marketing) pamphlets.”

This article first appeared in Cynopsis.

It’s Time to Welcome the 55+ Demo into the Media Mainstream

Some topics of conversation in media never get old and that includes the ongoing discussion of the value of older consumers. For years, many of us in programming, marketing and advertising have been engaged in one long conversation regarding the accuracy of age-based demographic breaks that effectively exclude Adults 55+ from the sales value equation. “Oh we don’t need to specifically target Adults 55+,’ they will say, “because we can reach them anyway – they are heavy TV viewers.” Well not so fast, sonny. Today’s 55+ are not like 55+s of yesteryear.

While this has been argued before, it bears repeating. According to economic trends, today’s older consumers command much greater buying power compared to current and previous generations. Boomers alone represent 70% of the total net worth in America and account for 40% of total consumer demand.  It is time for the media metrics to keep pace with economic realities.

Media Ecologist Jack Myers believes that it is vital for the industry to come together and change the traditional age-demo breaks. “We need to recognize the economic and societal evolutions that have occurred since the 1960s and embrace a new set of demo standards,” he stated. He proposes the following breaks:

Ø  Teens/Tweens (11-17)

Ø  Gen-Z (18-24)

Ø  Millennials (25-45)

Ø  Gen X/Y (45-62)

Ø  Boomers (63-75)

Ø  A new combination for sales targeting purposes (45-72)

The History

Let me share some history that will help explain why this makes sense. It all started out innocently enough. In the early 1960s when advertisers divided the media pie into simply households and men or women, upstart network ABC, which trailed in overall household performance, had a great idea; why not further divide the population into age breaks? After all, the younger-skewing ABC argued, younger people were less fixed in their brand loyalties and were more open to change and experimentation. At the time, they were referring to the rebellious Baby Boomers who were very different psychologically from previous (and future) generations. Unfortunately, the idea of youth worship based on age alone resonated with advertisers and programmers. Today it has stultified into dogma.

A sales positioning idea that was initially conceived to more easily categorize audiences into future, peak and declining brand building and spending years has, in my opinion, led the industry astray. In fact, one could argue that 18-34, 18-49, 25-54 and 55+ breaks never really made much sense. Did an 18 year old ever really spend like a 49 year old? Does one fall off the face of the economic earth on their 55^th birthday? Of course not!

If there was ever a cohort that should be actively sought by advertisers and programmers, it would have to be psychologically based, not necessarily age-based. Who came of age when consumerism was at its peak, when advertising was the epicenter of choice consideration and when media technology was young and experimental? Baby Boomers. Today they are still active in the workforce, are in their peak earning years and are as changeable and rebellious as ever. Maybe it’s time to finally reevaluate the age-break demographic to better reflect the behavioral dynamics of the generations it purportedly represents.

Changing Business as Usual

Older consumers in 2018 are very different from older consumers in 1960. In 1960, if you were 55+ you could have experienced a Depression and two World Wars in your formative spending years. There were also much fewer brands and the major forms of communication were newspaper and radio. Today’s older audiences grew up in a time of relative luxury and peace, the grand expansion of media communication and advancements in healthcare that has extended not only longevity but also quality of life. How today’s older adults live and spend are worlds apart from their grandparents and parents.

Getting to Consensus

In this highly competitive media world where reaching the “right” audience is pivotal to success, how do we get all of the players to agree on a modification of the standard age-break ranges? Megan Clarken, President Watch, Nielsen, understands the dynamics of the marketplace. “Reaching industry consensus is always a journey, especially when it comes to determining changes to the currency,”  ​she said. “For example, if an older-skewing network pushes for an age-break re-definition, there will be a younger skewing network that would push back. Our role is to encourage the conversation and provide the data and insights - whether its age-gender or advanced demographics beyond the standard demos - that the industry needs to transact with confidence.”

But there is some movement in reaching a new consensus. “While the vast majority of industry deals remain a demo currency, revisiting demographic breaks is an important piece,” advised Radha Subramanyam, Executive Vice President, Chief Research and Analytics Officer, CBS Television Network. “Going forward, moving away from age/gender as the foundation of planning and buying seems to make the most sense. The framework needs to be audiences and audience cohorts, though defined more broadly than some of the segments currently popular in the programmatic ecosystem,” she added.

In a world quickly moving to more addressable consumer segments, some believe that a change in the standard age breaks are unnecessary at this time. “Given the industry’s continued push to implement purchase-based targeting, I am not sure there is a strong rationale for what looks to be subtle changes,” stated Ed Gaffney, Head of Implementation Research and Marketplace Analysis U.S., GroupM. “Targeting begins with planning. The buying teams simply refit the planning target to a demo to facilitate media deals.”

Further, as we head more towards cross platform measurements, Gaffney believes that it will inevitably lead to a new targeting consensus. “The linear networks will most likely not be interested in moving to different demos when they could move to targets that better align with those used in digital buys (signal based), and digital is not very interested in using age based targets for anything but comparative purposes,” he added.

Others believe in going further by dropping age-break metrics entirely, even for comparison purposes. John Rosso, President Market Development, Triton Digital, a leading online audio measurement service, explains, “The real question in my mind is this: why care about age at all? The digital world has moved on to audience targeting and, through initiatives like Open AP, the traditional media world seems to be embracing more advanced audience segmentation as well. Do we still need to use demographics as a proxy for behaviors and intents when we can target those things directly?”

Nielsen remains the unbiased arbiter of age-break demographics preferring the industry to decide for itself what metrics work best for the buy/sell paradigm. Because of this, Nielsen must remain neutral. “We don’t set the rules for the industry. We rely on the industry to negotiate the rules amongst themselves. And there isn’t any general industry committee that I know of that actually says ‘this is the rule’ which makes it tough to reach a consensus. Nielsen is a third-party, independent organization so it's difficult for us to do it on behalf of the industry,” Clarken concluded.

In my next article on this topic, I will explore how outdated and irrelevant media buying and planning tactics are costing the media industry billions of dollars.

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

Optimism in the Face of Dramatic Change. ARF AUDIENCExSCIENCE Conference

For those of us who work in the media measurement space, the annual ARF measurement conference has always been a must-attend.  This year, topics ranged from the standardization of cross platform metrics, ad length, attribution, privacy and the uses of new technology like artificial intelligence to facilitate data insights. 

My impression is that measurement evolution is finally gaining traction with more collaboration between competing companies (Think: OpenAP), more efforts to create new standardized metrics and data labeling (CIMM and the IAB) and the end of business-as-usual constraints (ad lengths that vary from 6 seconds plus).

Three Big Trends

According to Scott McDonald, President and CEO, ARF, there are three major trends advancing in the industry. The first is “making progress with cross-platform audience measurement that is keeping up with technology and consumers—and if not, what the impediments are and how we can up our game.”

The second trend is breaking out of ad length constraints so as to more fully leverage platform and device viewing behaviors. The implementation of short-form ads, some as short as six seconds, is one possible solution. “But there are still questions around their effectiveness, how to best deploy them, and how they may affect the consumer’s frustration with ad clutter,” McDonald averred.

The third trend concerns privacy. “Marketing has been in a headlong race toward ever more precise targeting, fueled by the rise of big data, data analytics, and multi-touch attribution,” he noted. “Now, however, targeting is a risk with signs of consumer mistrust in how data is being used (from the Cambridge Analytica scandal and its follow-on effects), and the continued impact of the rollout of GDPR, an EU law with global implications.” 

However, McDonald cannot predict how the concern over privacy will unfold, how it could impact the media ecosystem, or whether there will be regulatory restrictions on data-driven targeting. “The industry has to evaluate whether it has gone too far in its zeal for targeting – so much so as to diminish advertising ROI and damage relations with consumers,” he concluded.

Changing the Current Metrics to Better Measure Cross Platform

There are those who believe that it is time to find a new standard metric for media that goes beyond age and gender. There is so much useful data out there that can craft a more nuanced and targeted audience measurement that we only need to come together as an industry and craft a more appropriate cross platform metric. But, in reality, it is not that easy. 

For some, Nielsen is and will be the standard. Dave Morgan, CEO Simulmedia, believes that, “Nielsen will be the gold standard of TV measurement well into the future.” But, he expects an evolution with, “core panel ratings enhanced with much more granular measurements that capture much deeper characteristics of audiences reached at the person/impression level and also real attribution to the delivery of desired business outcomes.” He added that we are already seeing some of this enhanced measurement in the marketplace and he expects to see it become a very significant part of the measurement mix by the end of 2020.

For others, the reason why the industry moves slowly is that there are different crediting qualifiers for the same measurements on different platforms. Consensus on which rules should be used for all platforms is an important next step. Josh Chasin, Chief Research Officer, comScore explained that for Live TV/DVR/TV VOD and OOH, credit for the full minute is given based off of who has the plurality of seconds in a given minute. Linear Mobile and Computer has a 30-second qualifier where credit is given only after a full 30 seconds of viewing has occurred. Dynamic Mobile and Computer currently has no qualifier but the MRC standard is 2 seconds with 50% of the ad viewable. How can these be reconciled and equated?

Consumers Continue to Rule

“We’re seeing a huge shift in viewing habits,” said Dan Robbins, Roku’s head of ad research. “Recent research of our cord cutting users shows that 78 percent think cable is too expensive, 57 percent believe there are too many channels, while 80 percent still watch as much TV as they did before they cut the cord. Streaming has become mainstream.”

But Linda Yaccarino, Chairman, Advertising and Client Partnerships, NBCUniversal, believes in the power of television because it offers premium content that is an unbeatable draw for audiences and advertisers. All of this talk about the power of digital is a false narrative, she posited. When advertisers are enticed by cheap CPMs for lower quality content, they fail to understand “the relative value of content they are getting.”

Maybe it’s all semantics. For Megan Clarken, President, Watch, Nielsen, it is all video no matter what device is being used. She explained that “from a measurement perspective, our job is to find comparable measurement across video,” placing TV as “part of the digital industry.”

Conclusion

Despite the continuing upheaval and viewer erosion on certain platforms, “I am extremely optimistic about the future,” Yaccarino stated, and added, “We need to challenge legacy. It is impacting all of our businesses all around. Why are we afraid of change? We have permission to change.” Change is certainly in the air. Now it is time to take a big breath and move decisively forward.

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

Grading Your Own Homework in the Closed Loop. A discussion with Nielsen’s Megan Clarken.

As data becomes more prevalent in the media ecosystem, there are many more content companies touting their own versions of closed loop data systems in time for the Upfronts. But just like trying to define programmatic or even define television, closed loop applications can mean different things to different people. I wanted to know more about closed loop applications and how they are impacting the measurement arm of the industry so I asked Megan Clarken, Nielsen’s President of Product Leadership, what is going on.

In terms of a definition of closed loop, Clarken offered, "The way we at Nielsen describe closed loop is when the marketer measures their own impact using their own data, or when a media owner offers to do the same via their own set of data. So, the same set of data is used to target which is then used to measure."

Because of increased marketplace competition and access to more big data sets, it is understandable why closed loop systems are so prevalent now. "For a lot of media owners," Clarken explains, "there is unprecedented access to data, specifically audience data. Data such as registration and downloads from apps enable owners to track their audience and collect big data sets. Through this data, which has been untapped in the past, the media owner may see attributes of their specific niche audience that enables them to differentiate themselves from the competition."

For me, I am at once excited by the prospect of closed loop systems propagating the media ecosystem and, at the same time, somewhat worried. On the plus side, these systems enable creative and highly targeted solutions for both content providers and advertisers. But at the same time, these systems are essentially walled gardens, unable to be collected into an industry standard and therefore not especially scalable in their current forms. This, I believe, causes a fragmentation in marketplace selling and delivering and essentially reduces closed loop into yet another internally controlled sales positioning tool.

Many of these closed loop applications have proprietary data and algorithms and there is some concern about the long-term value and usefulness of these applications for the industry as a whole. Clarken is unfazed and philosophical. "Selling against one’s own data and using it to stand out against the competition is one thing," she notes, "such as performance based, niche audiences like sports enthusiasts who eat fast food. But it becomes complicated when you try and guarantee against it using the same data, because it is not a third party independent measurement. It is like grading your own homework. If media is bought on closed loops, the measurement of the campaigns reach and effectiveness will be based on each of the media owners own data and in this environment, there is no independent verification and no way of comparing results across the industry. Measurement needs a referee that can be used to guarantee."

That is where Nielsen comes in. Closed loops should not negatively impact Nielsen's business, according to Clarken. "Closed loop platforms generally include Nielsen’s age / gender ratings data anyway, but with many proprietary attributes layered on top" she explained, "using these additional datasets to differentiate and promote performance is essential in our industry, but using the same environment to guarantee against is problematic and confusing to advertisers. Nielsen takes the friction out of the market by using comparable metrics across the industry. There is an important role for third party independent measurement to play and that is to create consistency across media and to validate a transaction without any bias.”

Although this appears to be a time of measurement transition, Clarken doesn’t see the industry moving to standardization of measured impact from measured exposure any time soon. Foundational metrics such as reach and frequency are not going away, she believes. Those metrics are staples to describe the most basic role of the media transaction. Nor does she see traditional age and gender metrics being replaced by target audience measurement. Age / gender are also foundational and create consistency across campaigns. They are stable, and they inform creative and can be tracked over time. What she does prescribe to is a set of secondary measures that validate effectiveness and ROI for more direct response and targeted ad models. Nielsen provides measurement across what we call the three “R’s” - Reach which measures exposure and Resonance which includes brand awareness and message effectiveness and ROI through services like NCS and MTA (multi-touch attribution).”

In terms of standardization of closed loop platforms for the industry, Clarken is not especially hopeful. She states, “I don’t think it is possible by the nature of the closed loop environment. There are differences between performance targets versus audience measurement. So it is hard to standardize when everyone’s targets and the sources of those targets are different. All are collecting data through different ways. But there is a need for standardization in the form of audience measurement. Advertisers ultimately want one third party verifier of their guarantee and this is the role that Nielsen plays.”

This article first appeared in www.MediaBizBloggers.com