JICIMS is “not a silver bullet”

Panelist Robert Horler, managing director of Diffiniti, said: “We haven’t engaged with things like JICIMS as quickly as we might have, but I honestly believe that it isn’t a silver bullet.”

He added that “there needs to be an awful lot more work time and investment” spent on issues such as engaging online around brand advertising and making compelling and exciting ad units, rather than on measuring how many people are online or how much a certain advertiser spent online.

Louise Ainsworth, managing director of Nielsen Online, said that while JICIMS will undoubtedly be helpful, it will not solve all the problems. “Putting consistent measurement in place will help but I don’t think it is going to solve all the issues of encouraging the FMCG advertisers to spend more online,” she said.

The general theme regarding JICIMS was that while it is undoubtedly important for the industry, people should be wary of placing too much weight on it too soon.

Dominic Allon, industry leader, Agency at Google, said: “JICIMS is crucially important. At the most recent JICIMS summit hosted at the IAB it was clear that the likes of Unilever and P&G see JICIMS as, ok not the silver bullet, but definitely a really strong starting point and I think that’s something that everyone in this room should understand and get behind.”

Giving a broadcaster’s view was Richard Parboo, head of agency sales strategy at ITV. “We’re the only commercial broadcaster that’s a member of JICIMS so we fully support this,” he said. “Research tools are so disparate and there’s no parity – for an industry that’s 14 years old, it’s not acceptable.”

He added that a majority of people at ITV believe that JICIMS is the broadcaster’s big chance to invest in an online measurement system. “It’ll probably be the one project that we really back,” he added. “It’s an encouraging sign that we would really endorse that.”

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