Magna Carta: The OG media measurement
Opinion
Impressions are a modern-day version of 1215’s ‘London quarter’. But the clamour to create an equivalent metric across all media is problematic — we need to start with education.
A few weeks ago, the Route team had an away day in Salisbury. The day featured late trains, exploration of a beautiful medieval cathedral city, childhood photos and an all-hands workshop led by the inspirational Marc Caulfield.
It turns out there are not so many OOH ads in Salisbury (to be precise: 93 posters, two screens and 2.4m weekly impacts). Media owner friends, take note of a relatively untapped market…
So instead of staring lovingly at posters, we took in Salisbury Cathedral, which also houses one of the four original Magna Carta manuscripts from 1215 AD.
I ended the day with a feeling of renewed vigour for what we do as a joint industry currency. Which undoubtedly was our CEO Denise Turner’s masterplan all along…
Independence, objectivity and fairness
It started from entering the Magna Carta exhibit, where we were met with the phrase: “To no-one will we sell, to no-one deny or delay right or justice.”
This got me drawing parallels to our remit as a joint industry currency seeking independence, objectivity and fairness. A utilitarian utopia where nobody’s perspective is worth more than anyone else’s (albeit on a fairly niche scale).
This was heightened still by the time I got to clause 35 on “Weights and Measures”, which sets out governance around the implementation of standard measures for the purposes of regulated trading.
It states: “Let there be one measure of wine throughout our whole realm; and one measure of ale; and one measure of corn, to wit, ‘the London quarter’; and one width of cloth (whether dyed or russet or ‘halberget’), to wit, two ells within the selvedges; of weights also let it be as of measures.”
The original JIC
Written in 1215, Magna Carta is something of the OG for the joint industry currencies of today, as it introduced the idea of trading metrics for goods.
We focus on the number of people seeing posters and screens, those watching the telly, reading news brands and magazines, surfing the internet or listening to radio and podcasts. The 1215 version was about standardising how much wine or ale you got in your goblet, how much corn you got in your barrel or what length of material you received for your hard-earned coins.
Eight hundred years ago, there were differences in the definitions for standards depending on what was being traded. Even where the base measure was called the same thing, differences existed below the surface. Yet, despite this, trading ensued unencumbered.
Take, for example, whether you were buying ale, wine or corn — the metric was a “London quarter”.
For corn, this “quarter” was the weight of 76,800 grains; for ale, it was a gallon container full of ale; and the wine gallon was the amount of liquid weighing the equivalent of 76,800 grains of corn (the same weight as a gallon of grain — or a half-peck).
While they were called the same thing, they were in fact different measures and this did not cause trading issues — mostly because people were not buying “cross-media” quarters of corn soaked in a mix of ale and wine.
Rather, in 1215, the key success factor was that everyone knew what their standard was and how it was measured. They knew what they were buying.
What’s an impression?
Zoom forward to the modern day and differing measurement standards for trading media still exist, even under the same terminology. Impressions are a modern-day “London quarter”. Depending on what you are buying, your impressions may be served, viewable, viewed or probabilistic.
This trend is not only annoying, but potentially dangerous. The clamour to create an equivalent metric at the lowest common denominator across all media means less accurate, less usable measures than were in place previously.
For example, impressions in a one-to-many medium such as OOH do not quantify audience; they only count the number of times ads are played out.
We can fight this. In fact, the best way to practise responsible use of audience data in 2024 is to champion education.
Book your people on to Media Research Group’s Tools of the Trade. Insist they study for the IPA’s Media Research Essentials Certificate. Check out Denise’s measurement and accountability session coming up at the Advertising: Who Cares? event on 12 September.
Armed with deeper knowledge, we can trade all media in a way that helps brands grow.
And, on that happy note, I’m off to channel the away day feeling by treating myself to a generous Magna Carta measure of ale.
Euan Mackay is chief strategy officer at Route