Isba’s Origin goes live with real audience data for first time
Isba’s long-awaited cross-media measurement initiative Origin has launched with real-world data for the first time, with a planned market-wide rollout set to complete early next year.
Origin’s ‘beta’ trials will comprise 35 major advertisers who will test real campaign data for the first time across YouTube, Meta and linear TV.
They follow ‘alpha’ trials which ran during the second half of last year with five advertisers who used synthetic data to test ad campaign performance across different media channels, using a range of metrics to evaluate how ads performed without counting the same audiences more than once.
Origin will use its own TV audience panel
As The Media Leader reported earlier this month, Origin is launching without using audience data from Barb, the UK’s established TV audience measurement body co-funded by UK broadcasters.
Instead, the Origin platform will use its own 2,500 household panel (Barb’s panel was expanded this summer to include 7,000 households), which has been built by Kantar and uses Kantar’s Focal Meter technology to capture digital device viewing information.
Isba said the Origin panel will surface “never-before available second-by-second linear TV viewing data” to allow for “true like-for-like granular comparison of ad viewing duration across TV and online”.
The trade association added that an audit process of the solution has also begun with the goal of providing independent verification of input data and methodology.
The Media Leader understands that a “first tranche” of 50 users from 10 advertisers have started the onboarding process with the beta, with the remainder being integrated into the Origin platform over the next few months.
‘Gains in effectiveness and efficiency’
Isba, the 124-year-old UK trade body representing advertisers, has pledged to launch an industry-first measurement platform that “give users back control and provide reassurance in their decision making” when planning advertising campaigns.
Initial advertisers included in the first beta tranche include: HSBC, L’Oréal, NatWest, PepsiCo, Confused.com, Procter & Gamble, Red Bull, Tesco, Unilver and Virgin Media O2.
Gayle Noah, UK&I media director at L’Oréal, which also participated in Origin’s original Alpha Trials, said her team is “looking forward to the Beta stage with real L’Oréal campaign data in the platform.”
“We believe that the Origin trials and its subsequent development will deliver real gains in effectiveness and efficiency for L’Oréal advertising,” she added.
Trialists will be encouraged to provide feedback on product features and user experience to help shape the future of Origin ahead of launch.
Origin and Barb unable to break ‘apples to apples’ impasse
The use of non-Barb TV audience data has sparked concern among broadcasters. ITV managing director of commercial Kelly Williams warned against the move at an event in London held by commercial TV marketing body Thinkbox earlier this month.
“[T]here’s going to be two different currencies in the market,” he said, adding the solution would not “measure apples to apples”.
Williams continued: “I think for the whole industry, the agency and client world, it’s really, really worrying.”
Writing in The Media Leader today, Direct Line Group’s senior marketer Sam Taylor explained that using Barb data was “what advertisers wanted” but would restrict Origin “fulfilling its full remit to its stakeholders”. Taylor also insisted that advertisers are aware Origin is not a currency and need some way of measuring “apples with pears”.
“[A]ny 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,” Taylor added.
ITV warns advertisers over Isba plan to launch Origin without Barb
Commercial TV insiders have previously expressed to The Media Leader they suspect Origin would create a measurement system that devalues TV advertising relative to its digital counterparts, such as YouTube and TikTok.
Barb CEO Justin Sampson, meanwhile, has explained Origin has not sufficiently met its standards to allow it access to use Barb’s data.
“A failure to insist on consistent inputs in cross-media planning systems undermines a principle that’s important to both the WFA and Barb — namely the need for consistent audience building blocks that allow comparable evaluation of media,” he wrote in 2021. “This is why we will only make our data available to solutions that harness Barb with data sources that are objectively equivalent.”
Instead, Sky, ITV and Channel 4 launched their own joint-measurement initiative, CFlight, in 2022. That offers de-duplicated linear and video-on-demand measurement. Earlier this month the companies also announced a new joint-measurement panel, Lantern, aimed at tracking short-term impacts of TV advertising on sales.
‘Most important strategic priority’ for brands
Isba claims that Origin’s ability to surface non-proprietary and independently audited cross-media campaign audience data, from a single source, is a media-first globally.
Isba director general Phil Smith said reaching the Beta phase was “gratifying”, adding: “Origin remains our members’ most important strategic priority and is likely to remain so for some time.”
Following the conclusion of the Beta Trials, Origin will transition to another brief trial phase, dubbed Pilot Trials, wherein more advertisers and media owners will be integrated into the platform.
Afterward, the Origin platform will be made available to the whole market with an official launch in “early 2025”.
Origin CEO Tom George called the launch of the Beta Trials “a pivotal moment” for the Origin programme as it looks to turn theory into practice.
“The calibre and scale of the advertisers involved in this phase speaks for itself and underlines the demand from the market for the programme,” he said. “The Beta phase is the first part of an ambitious roadmap for Origin driven by user needs, where we will deliver more utility and actionable insight to drive effectiveness and improve the user experience of advertising.”
The Media Leader previously reported Origin will have received, since the project’s creation in 2018, £52m in funding by the end of this year, a reflection of the demand from across the industry for the solution.
None of the UK’s major commercial broadcasters, however, have financially supported the project.
Next month: Isba director-general Phil Smith will speak to The Media Leader editor-in-chief Omar Oakes about Origin on stage at The Future Media London (8-9 October, at King’s Place, London).
All information about the biggest and best conference about UK media and advertising is HERE.
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