Lack of Origin data transparency puts broadcasters on ‘backfoot’, says Sky Media exec
The Future of Media London 2024
UK broadcasters are being put on the “backfoot” by Isba’s cross-media measurement platform Origin, a Sky Media executive warned, citing concerns over data access and transparency.
Speaking at this month’s Future of Media London, Sky Media director of client marketing Karin Seymour raised apprehensions around the lack of data transparency for sellers to Origin, the cross-media measurement solution currently in beta testing.
Calling it a “challenge”, she told a panel of advertising, media and advertising leaders that “we as sellers wouldn’t have the same access as the clients and the agencies to reports on the output, which puts us slightly on the backfoot.”
Seymour argued that while brands with large, sophisticated media teams, like Tesco and Boots, can be trusted to understand the nuances of Origin’s data, “there’s 5,000+ advertisers in the UK… there’s a big influence coming from procurement, from the CFO, from lots of different people, and if they don’t necessarily have the teams around them to support, that slight difference in outputs or in interpretation can be taken the wrong way.”
“I think we all want the same thing,” she continued. “As media owners, as broadcasters particularly, we absolutely understand the need for advertisers to be able to look at the picture holistically. So we’re 100% supportive of that ambition and what Origin are trying to do.”
But, she added that broadcasters have concerns “around the comparisons”, namely “making sure that we are comparing the same things that are held to the same standard — 100% viewed, sound on, versus two seconds of 100% pixels — how do we assure that?”
Channel 4 streaming and social sales leader John Cox, who was also on the panel, agreed with Seymour, stressing further that “having different trade bodies giving different results and measuring different things — we have to be careful not to muddy that.”
Still, he added the broadcaster is “very much keen to make sure the industry is not trying to hold anything back,” concluding that broadcasters are “just trying to make sure it’s measured in a fair way”.
Brands back Origin
The remarks mirrored ITV’s Kelly Williams own message on the topic of Origin last month. As The Media Leader reported, Williams said it was “worrying” that Origin would be using a separate, smaller audience measurement panel than the one used by Barb to measure TV audiences.
The cross-media measurement project launched in beta last month without using audience data from Barb, the UK’s established TV measurement body. Instead, it is using its own panel of 2,500 households built by Kantar.
That has drawn criticism from broadcasters, who have expressed nervousness about advertisers using different measurement standards to the detriment of TV.
In a separate interview at the Future of Media London with Isba director general Phil Smith, Media Leader editor-in-chief Omar Oakes pressed him on Origin’s move away from using Barb’s measurement standard. Smith insisted that advertisers want choice between measuring MRC-standard and non-MRC-standard impressions, and that their demand for Origin was high.
Some advertisers have further argued the broadcasters’ concerns are overblown. Sam Taylor, interim marketing director at Direct Line Group, previously wrote that “any suggestion that an advertiser might use Origin as a currency to apply the same value to these very different AV formats is somewhat of an insult.”
This was also reflected in Seymour and Cox’s panel, which also included Amy Caven, head of media strategy and planning at Boots, and Tom Marden, head of media and campaign planning at Tesco.
Mardon expressed that the TV development was he most excited for is Origin, and how it will help brands better understand the true incremental reach that different media environments provide.
“I think that sometimes it’s easy for the non-media folk in the business to believe some of the appetising myth that’s out there,” he said. “Whereas I think Origin will give probably the best way to go, actually, this is what individual partners contribute to ROI.”
Caven added she believes Origin will benefit all channels by helping “show the compound effect of all different channels together”.
Broadcasters lean into performance
During the panel, Seymour admitted that broadcasters are under pressure to lean further into providing performance marketing metrics.
Championing Lantern — Sky, Channel 4 and ITV’s forthcoming joint measurement panel aimed at tracking the short-term impact of TV advertising on sales — Seymour called it an “exciting […] proof of concept” that is trying to prove “short-term outcomes that TV is not traditionall known for” such as web visits and sales as well as brand uplifts.
When asked whether there is a demand coming for TV to be a performance medium, Seymour said: “Yes and no”, elaborating that “digital-born businesses” are “asking us for a lot of digital metrics that the platforms have been able to offer in the past.”
She continued: “So I think there is [demand], yes. But I think we all know that TV does do more than just brand, we just haven’t properly been able to demonstrate it. So now it’s just about being able to demonstrate the breadth of what we do.”
As Seymour described, developing performance capabilities comes at the benefit of new-to-TV advertisers. She revealed Sky has grown the number of new-to-TV advertisers it works with 9% year on year, with “one a day” coming on board.
“Those are not the big brands, those are the long tail that have been doing social and search and now want to grow their businesses and they’re finding that TV is hugely effective.”
Broadcasters have also increasingly considered employing AI to aid in approaching long-tail, new-to-TV advertisers by reducing the costs associated with producing TV ad creative. Last month, ITV became the first broadcaster to release ads made primarily with generative AI, and when asked if Channel 4 is considering developing a similar product, Cox said it is “definitely something we’re looking at” as part of a push to “break down the barriers to entry” for non-traditional TV advertisers.
The comments come amid a protracted debate about the future of TV advertising and whether the channel should lean into chasing performance-heavy advertisers or more loudly champion the brand advertising it is most known for. Of course many in the industry, like Profit Ability 2 author and Wavemaker managing director of audience intelligence and marketing science Dominic Charles, have argued that the “brand versus performance” debate is “ill-advised”.
That hasn’t stopped it from raging on. At the Future of Media London panel, Samba TV VP of agency solutions Dan Conneally argued that broadcasters “need to be a bit careful that we still remember what TV has historically ben great at from a brand-building point of view” and that the industry does not “shift wholesale into this performance-led media [just] because we have the opportunity and capability to do that” There’s no reason why it can’t be both, really”.
At last year’s Future of TV Advertising Global conference in London, ad effectiveness expert Peter Field was even more forceful in advocating for TV to stay away from performance marketing, stating that to the “disgust” of performance marketers, “TV is just so goddamn effective”.
The Future of Media London panel was chaired by Adwanted Events head of content Sam Tidmarsh.