No Huge Demand From Agencies For An Online Currency
Agencies are not demanding an online currency, and cost could prove a significant barrier to the development of one, according to Richard Firminger, the outgoing regional sales director, northern Europe, at Yahoo!, who was speaking on the panel at yesterday’s MediaTel Group ‘Future of Online’ seminar.
However, he did admit that it is possible that this currency is required. “It [would] help our industry grow up and compare apples with apples. Though those business that are expected to fund it I think are going to find it difficult, and I think the agencies need to decide whether they are prepared to fund it through a licence,” he added.
Speaking from the floor, Chris Boyd, the chief executive of the ABC, said: “[Richard Firminger] mentioned that buyers aren’t demanding [an online currency] at the moment and that’s absolutely true. Until the buyers demand a currency, you won’t see one.”
He added: “I think It’s up to the buyers in the end to decide what they want to be able to prove to their advertisers what sites and sectors are actually working.”
Media journalist, Ray Snoddy, said: “I love the disparity between the online people who are quite happy to sign up to forecasts that their industry is going to be worth £2.5 billion by the end of the year, but ask them for some money for standardised research and they start pleading poverty. I think they should just pay up.”
Sheryl Norman, digital director, UK, at Omnicom Media Group, said that a currency would be a positive development for agencies. “From the agency side, one standardised tool that is going to help us sell online better is a good thing at a very fundamental level,” she stressed.
However, she did express reservations, saying that there are “clearly a lot of issues in actually developing that tool.”
She continued: “Ultimately whether or not agencies are going to be willing to sign up to it and invest in it is going to be based on the ultimate end product And is the cost of that going to be worth what it is actually going to deliver for us in terms of our clients, and moving some of our clients over that we’re having a tougher time convincing to move into online.”
Fellow panellist, Louise Ainsworth, MD EMEA at Nielsen Online, admitted that when she first entered the research space 18 months ago, she did not feel there was a need for an online currency.
“The internet is the ultimate measurable medium, you get what you pay for, you can track the performance all the way through to acquisition and to the sale in many cases,” she said.
“But I think it is really when you are trying to tap into those FMCG dollars, when you’re trying to tap into the CPM space that you release that it’s all about the research – because you are not in fact able to say what the result of that transaction is or engagement in any one moment.”
She now believes there is an argument for having an online currency and it is to do with helping online grow with the advertisers and creating a standard definition within the marketplace.
“It’s helping to take some of the confusion out of what is already a very complicated space,” she said.
Peter Bowman (see Moving Towards A Planning Currency For Online), manager of the Joint Industry Committee for Internet Measurement Systems (JICIMS), said from the floor that he believes this year a “proper tender” will be out, and that the latter part of this year or early next year will see an appointment made.
“This isn’t really about research… it’s really about ad revenue,” he stressed, adding that the group is in a position to put out requests for proposals.
He said: “Essentially it is about putting the display aspect of online on a level playing field with other media.”
Boyd welcomed the next phase in JICIMS’ evolution: “I welcome the stuff JICIMS is about to do, I just want it to happen. It seems to be taking a little bit of time.”
Another delegate, Alex Maddox from Telmar, pointed out that an online currency was needed as there was a “glaring gap” in TouchPoints not having online data available.
Adam Freeman, commercial director at Guardian News and Media, said that it was a tragedy that digital had not been on TouchPoints from the very beginning. “It’s definitely been weaker because you can’t add in a digital audience, you can’t make TouchPoints work as well as it could have done.”
He continued: “Another issue we need to confront, which is why we need an industry standard, is every agency has its own research tools. If we’re not careful, we’re going to have three or four different agency perspectives and they’ll be setting the rules not the media owners.
“NRS is a brilliant tool, completely unused in trading because it’s all down to circulation, dominated by auditing which then completely dictates agency remuneration, and it’s an absolute nightmare. And we’ve allowed that to happen in print and it will go that way instantly if we don’t do it in digital. We haven’t even got the pre-planning tool. We would have done this three years ago if we could have got certain American providers to support it.”