Cross-Media Measurement: Whose Interest is Served?

I donamp8217t doubt it Trade bodies hire smart people and those smart people have access to legions of other smart people In this particular case egta lists 29 contributors from unless Iamp8217ve miscounted 10 marketsOf specific interest and relevance at the moment is Part 4 amp8220which outlines recent examples of industry collaborations and initiatives which aim to raise the bar in crossmedia total video audience measurementamp8221 This is the bit that acknowledges the work being undertaken at the moment by advertiser groups the WFA ISBA and the ANAEgta rightly points out that they have been keen to collaborate in these initiatives hosting their own mini conference in January this year attended by around 150 stakeholdersIamp8217m not sure which outputs from this event found their way into the WFA ISBA ANA work I hear not manyAnd right there it seems to me is the problemThe advertiser groups have correctly identified the issue amp8211 the need for an accepted crossmedia measurement system Theyamp8217ve issued a framework document for peer review although quite how widely that particular net was cast seems questionable and this global framework has been carried through to the US and UK local associationsSo far so grandBut for this to work it needs a roadmap and someone keeping their eyes very firmly fixed on the end goalAt the moment it appears that the people driving the car are Facebook Google and the other major platformsThey wrote the framework document They are the ones devoting the time and the energy to the projectIt is right that they should be heavily involved of course but I would question whether you really want a crossmedia system designed by people whose interest is both limited in the crossmedia sense and inherently biasedThe WFA ISBA and I bet the ANA are stretched and underresourced Theyamp8217ve taken on a mammoth taskSo when a couple of fairy godmothers appear waving resources data and no doubt some commitment to cash it is extremely hard to turn them awayHe who pays the piper calls the tune We all know it and we should bewareAdvertiser trade bodies were quite right to become involved in audience measurement In so doing they have come across two wellknown highly visible barriers one political one technical The politics or rather the money defines the technical journeyHow we measure audience impacts the reported size of the audience Many have believed for decades that the larger the audience the greater the revenueSuggestions from vendor researchers that we could all for example learn a lot from how people read or view or how the audienceamp8217s attention varies were typically filed away in the nearest binApply any filter to anything and the gross number goes down And the media buying and selling business only cared about gross numbersWe know we have always known that people view TV programs differently genretogenre timeofday to timeofdayWe know that the social platforms deliver a service that many love amp8211 but in a transitory amp8220give me what I need to know and move onamp8221 wayWe know that magazines are read with different degrees of intensity in different circumstances That the placement impacts the engagementEvery so often someone pops up with some research designed to keep the skeptics quiet Meanwhile the selling of gross numbers continues merrily alongWell we seem eventually to be at least discussing moving away from the large stick that is unqualified gross numbers to some sort of shaped tool or nuanced data Itamp8217s only taken us 50odd years but hey amp8230The problem is that whatamp8217s good for one is bad for another Live TV is losing audiences but itamp8217s attracting advertisers because it works It works because it engages viewersFacebook and the rest deliver massive audiences with unprecedented amounts of data attached But theyamp8217re underused for brand building because they donamp8217t engageTo be oversimple Facebook and their like need to focus on how big the broadcasters need to demonstrate how engagedThe WFA ISBA and the ANA must be careful They need to keep their eyes on the prize and not be distracted by shiny solutions created by those with the resources to give the time to a system that benefits them above allThere are a lot of smart people around Many donamp8217t work for Facebook or GoogleIt would be wise for the advertiser bodies to engage with the likes of egta and indeed others more than they appear to have done to dateThat will take resources and money amp8211 but if advertisers are truly serious about driving the industry forward in a solutionneutral manner as I believe they are then they need to pay attention to establishing a broadbased financial solution that funds a multitude of opinions and experts over a considerable timeOne thingamp8217s certain Facebook and Google etc will be expecting a return from their investment in outlining the crossmedia measurement system of the futurePhoto at top Ryoji IwataUnsplashClick the social buttons above or below to share this content with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

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Cross-Media Measurement: Whose Interest is Served?

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Brian Jacobs

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