Data: A Negotiator's Point of View

There is no denying the importance of data to inform the buy make it smarter more effective more efficient and meet the agreed upon goals and objectives set by the client and media agency Recently most of the talk about data has come exclusively from the sales community In each case they talk about their data access to data and willingness to make it work for the buyerWe haven39t heard very much if anything from those people who are making the long term commitments on behalf of their clients So let a former national broadcast negotiator take a look from his perspectiveFirst off no argument Data is importantBut part of the negotiatoramp8217s job is to look across all broadcast venues and purchase those that best meet the clientamp8217s needs To do that and to compare one versus another you needamp160data that measures and analyzes everything the same wayAs much as we clamor about Nielsen we have relied on these ratings for many years We know they are imperfect but the methodology is there a 20 AA ratingamp160has the same meaning everywhereamp160the nationally projectable sample is there and the consistency is there It39s a source thatamp160measures all broadcast options the same wayHow can a sound buyingamp160decision be made using different data from multiple sources Can the buyer assume that all the data being put forth is nationally representative Is using similar methodology Is an unbiased third party sourceWhat about those broadcasters that do not appear to have data to inform the buys on their networks Clearly I must use the data I have access to It doesn39t seem to make sense to make multimillion dollar decisions by looking at differing sets of data from multiple sources I need my own my ability to look atamp160comparable data that measures everyone the same way using the same methodology allowing for a fair comparison of all my optionsIt39s really hard if not impossible to make purchaseamp160decisions when the options are being evaluated on different basis Having said that I applaudamp160the networksamp8217amp160initiative in introducing new metrics to measure effectiveness But I need a common standard to make my dollar commitments and until then I39ll try to make use of your data in some other way It39s a positive incremental step in a long process that is just at the beginningSo thank you networks but I will still make my buying decisions using the data I have that allows me to look at all of you on common groundThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of Media Village management or associated bloggers Image at top courtesy of freedigitalphotosnetamp160

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Data: A Negotiator's Point of View

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Marc Goldstein

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