Tracking Content. The State of Content Labeling. An Interview with EIDR’s Will Kreth

Will Kreth, Executive Director of the Entertainment Identifier Registry Association (EIDR), is in the epicenter of the content labeling storm. Being able to completely track a piece of content no matter where it airs and how it is consumed is the Holy Grail of programmers and advertisers. 

EIDR, which stands for Entertainment Identifier Registry, is a universal unique identifier system for movie and television assets. 

Charlene Weisler: EIDR has been advocating labeling for many years. What is moving it forward now? 

Will Kreth: Economics.  As the volume of content in distribution continues to increase around the world, the outdated systems of manual workflows, title matching, reconciliation and attribution of viewership / usage are unsustainable. There’s a quote from Clyde Smith, formerly SVP of New Technology at Fox Networks - "If you can’t identify it, you can’t automate, operationalize or measure it; and if you can't measure it - you can't monetize it.”  He said it about six years ago, and it’s still true. The pathway to sustainability begins with labeling all content in a unique, persistent and machine-readable format, which is what the alpha-numeric EIDR ID provides.

Charlene Weisler: What is the current state of labeling?

Will Kreth: Today we see labeling happening in a variety of ways, often with proprietary methods that are designed for specific purposes.  Moving towards a single standard identifier, which can be embedded once and then used for any number of tracking and identification needs provides a ubiquity and simplicity that has been missing in media and entertainment.

Whether it is a new TV series for 2019, a film production taking off in 2021, or a new indie short premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival this fall, we encourage everyone within the media and entertainment ecosystem to begin registering new titles with EIDR ID’s as soon as the greenlight on the project is given. The bottom-line is: earlier the better. If EIDR ID’s are attached to content from the beginning of the project, industry leaders, agencies and all parties involved will have a better understanding of what content is being referenced throughout its lifecycle.

Existing titles are also being registered with EIDR to take advantage of the benefits of this persistent identifier as content continues to be made available across an ever-growing distribution network. 

Charlene Weisler: Do you see the industry coalescing around a standard? 

Will Kreth: Yes. And while it’s taken a few years, the dynamic power of open standards to drive supply-chain automation has incontrovertible precedents in packaged goods (with UPC/EAN codes) and in books (with ISBN). We are proud to be part of the TAXI Complete (Trackable Asset Cross-Platform Identification) initiative, which was recently published as a pair of open standards by SMPTE to embed asset tracking into both content and advertising using an audio watermark. This initiative, led by CIMM (Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement) was started in 2013 for the purpose of setting standards and identifying the most effective means of multi-channel asset tracking.

Charlene Weisler: How will standards in labeling impact media?

Will Kreth: I’ve been chatting recently with folks from the book publishing world and the CPG (consumer packaged goods) industries - and they can’t imagine a world without unique IDs in their international supply chains. The only surprising thing about film and television is that it has taken until this decade to see global, non-proprietary IDs grow in adoption.

The ability to embed standardized identifiers throughout the media ecosystem will have a significant impact on the efficiency of cross-media workflows for both media companies and marketers. Television networks and digital content publishers will be able to use these unique IDs to more effectively create and manage integrated multiscreen experiences. The standards will also replace the need for legacy title matching processes and ease numerous inefficiencies in the cross-platform video distribution and measurement workflow.

Charlene Weisler: Is there a difference in ad and programming labeling efforts? If so, what?

Will Kreth: The biggest difference is in the ID, and who maintains the registry of data, but the process is the same.  While EIDR is specific to content assets, such as films, television shows, shorts and online video content, Ad-ID is used to track video advertising assets. Utilizing both Ad-ID and EIDR IDs, enables near real-time reporting for ad verification and audience measurement allowing marketers to better optimize live and on-demand advertising similar to how digital advertising is today.

Charlene Weisler: Where do you see this effort three years from today?

Will Kreth: From an automation perspective, by the year 2020, we expect to see several of the world’s top media companies requiring EIDR ID’s from all their business partners. The universal implementation of open standards within the industry will not only unleash innovation but according to a study by Ernst & Young in 2013, it will save the media and entertainment industry millions of dollars annually, and provide new opportunities for revenue generation.

Charlene Weisler: Any advice for programmers, advertisers and marketers on this issue?

Will Kreth: The internet is built on open standards and universally accepted, and we’re still seeing the resilient power of incremental value creation that has across the world. Looking forward, the Internet of Things wouldn’t be possible without open standards. Like a domain name URL, or an IP address, or even a telephone number — EIDR exists to bring an open and unique ID to all commercially-available audio/visual content. The sooner full adoption arrives, the better it will be for thousands of companies and the amazing work they bring to our screens, homes and theaters daily. 

This article first appeared in www.Mediapost.com

The Next Step In Asset Identification is Here

The quest for an open, industry standard method for content identification has moved one step closer with the recent announcement that the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM) and the Society for Motion Picture and Television Engineers® (SMPTE)® are joining efforts. 

CIMM and SMPTE formed a study group in August 2013 which was charged with formulating an understanding of technologies and future standards requirements that could be applied to content identification. The study group found that there are technologies that can survive compression and distribution through the media and entertainment (M&E) supply chain that bind media identifiers to content. The group also found that audio watermarking, rather than other techniques, is the most promising approach. This is an important step. 

Following this, a drafting group was formed that is charged with undertaking the actual standardization of technologies for the open binding of IDs to essence, using the findings from the study group as a guideline.

What does this mean for the industry and for cross platform measurement? I sat down with CIMM’s Jane Clarke and asked her the following questions:

CW: How important is this announcement?

JC: There is a plumbing level needed within the TV and video distribution ecosystem to enable accurate cross-platform measurement and more efficient and transparent media workflows. Moving to writing an open standard for binding identifiers to the essence of media content is a huge step forward for the industry and can enable industry participants to finally begin to communicate in the same language which will drive innovation not only for cross-platform measurement, but also for other automated innovation in digital TV such as dynamic ad insertion, programmatic TV ad buying and second screen synching experiences.   

CW: What makes this different from other approaches?

JC: The media industry currently has no open, uniform method of content or ad identification that survives compression and distribution through the supply chain. Putting such an identification method in place is a critical next step toward the establishment of an interoperable standard for all professional video content that can be used throughout the entire media ecosystem.

CW: How will this impact how media is bought and sold?

JC: Standardizing the identification of assets will bring greater speed, efficiency, transparency and accountability to the tracking and reporting of audience viewing data, and enable communication and comparisons across a wide range of technology and measurement vendors.  It could enable a wider range of metrics for buying and selling media, as well as the ability to introduce greater optimization in targeting audiences, creative and even pricing across an increasing range of video platforms

CW: Why is audio watermarking the most promising approach?

JC: Watermarking embeds a content or ad ID into audio or video content by altering the latter. It provides a positive and unambiguous identification of the content and allows two distinct programs with similar or identical audio or video content to be differentiated. Furthermore, extraction of a complete content ID is possible using a standalone detector without the need for an online lookup system.

CW: How has this announcement been received by the industry?

JC: Thus far, we have received a very positive response from the industry and have active participation from an excellent cross section of companies in the drafting group, which is responsible for writing the standard.

CW: Will this enable a proactive coding structure that codes future inventory before it airs?

JC: Both of the current managed identification standards (Ad-ID for ads and Entertainment ID Registry (EIDR) for content) can be embedded into the asset at the discretion of the asset owner.  This could occur early in the life of the asset, so that the IDs can be used for content management and shared among all the technology and measurement vendors, from the creation of electronic program guides through to trafficking, distribution and audience measurement in consumer-facing devices. 

CW: Who else is doing work in this space and how does it differ from this approach?

JC: The only other solutions that exist currently are proprietary. In this initiative, CIMM is collaborating not only with SMPTE, but also with the Entertainment ID Registry and Ad-ID, which is a venture of the 4A’s and the ANA.  The new SMPTE Drafting Group also has an official liaison with ATSC, which is an industry group developing the next generation of broadcast TV, and who have expressed interest in standardizing asset identification in that new standard.  There are also plans to liaise with other relevant industry groups, such as and SCTE and CEA, and other media industry trade groups such as the IAB and the ARF. 

Interview by Charlene Weisler, Weisler Media LLC. She can be reached through her research blog www.WeislerMedia.blogspot.com or at WeislerMedia@yahoo.com. Twitter: www.twitter.com/weislermedia

Q&A with Chris Lennon - MediAnswers

Chris Lennon, CEO of MediAnswers, is deeply involved in CIMM’s Cross Platform Asset Identification initiative which seeks to create industry standard asset identification for both program and commercial content. In this interesting interview, Lennon explains the purpose of the initiative, the process by which asset identification can be rolled out, how asset IDs migrate across platforms for a specific piece of content, timelines and next steps. He also offers some compelling insights into where he thinks the industry is headed over the next few years.

There are four videos in this interview:

Subject                                                 Length (in minutes)

Background                                                      (4:28)

Asset Identification                                         (6:34)

Migration and Next Steps                             (5:20)

Timeline and Predictions                              (6:04)

Charlene Weisler interviews Chris Lennon who talks about his broadcast background and MediAnswers in this 4:28 minute video:

Chris Lennon talks to Charlene Weisler about the work he is doing with CIMM regarding asset identification. The video is 6:34 minutes:

CW: How can you scale for an industry standard asset id? How do you get everyone to agree?

CL: That is always the challenge – it is always hard to get everyone to agree. I think the first step is to roll out a solution and say, “This is the standard” because that at least gives everyone something to point to. We don’t have that today. The industry does not have a single unified way of doing this. So we see this as the first step. It will enable people to see the advantages of doing this and then they will hopefully volunteer and adopt. This is not something that will be government mandated or mandated by the industry in general. It is something that people should see the advantages of doing. Pretty much every other business out there has faced this problem and has addressed this problem – identifying the things that they are selling. But our business is a little more complex. We cannot, for example, just stamp a UPC code on our commercials like a lot people in hard goods can or put an RFID on a commercial.  So we have challenges that a lot of other industries don’t have with that. It has become clear by the quality and quantity of people who have dedicated time to this that this is a real problem and there is a real motivation to solve for this. I am encouraged by that and by the fact that we have the buy-in of the major media companies in this. I think we have a good shot at wide spread adoption if we come up with a workable and a reasonably priced solution to fix this problem.

Charlene Weisler interviews Chris Lennon who talks asset identification when the content migrates as well as next steps to bring a standardized methodology to the industry in this 5:20 minute video:

CW: What about competing asset identification systems currently available out there like Nielsen or Google. How would this work?

CL: We don’t necessarily see the CIMM initiative as directly competing with them. One of the requirements that we identified early on is that whatever we do, we cannot interfere with existing practices that are in place right now. We don’t want to do something that will trounce all over the Nielsen watermark because that use is very critical to peoples’ operations right now. So whatever we do, we see it as being complementary to whatever is in there already. It is a requirement - we can’t step on what is already there. Also, although this can be used as a measurement tool, this goes far beyond that. There are other things that identifying the content will enable for broadcasters. So that is just really a part of it, nut perhaps the most visible use case that we’ve got. 

Chris Lennon talks to Charlene Weisler about the future of media in this 6:04 minute video: