Origin ‘on track’ to launch to wider market by Q2
Origin, the cross-media measurement solution currently in beta trials, is “on track” to launch to the wider market in Q2, with a tentative May release date.
According to Martin Lawson, Origin’s chief customer officer, the launch is “very much going to be a minimum viable product”, with the team continuing development on the platform through 2026 and beyond to add further features and media partners.
The beta phase launched in September 2024 and involves 32 advertisers and 14 partner agencies, which are are currently using the platform with real audience data. Those advertisers represent roughly £3bn in media investment — equivalent to over 12% of total UK adspend and 80% of agency billings.
“A sizeable cohort of the UK industry are already actively using the platform,” Lawson told a crowd at last week’s Connected TV World Summit in London.
The beta stage includes deduplicated audience reporting from linear TV, Meta and YouTube. TikTok will be onboarded in Q2 and Amazon in Q3, according to Lawson.
Between the platforms and linear TV, the channels account for around 70% of total UK adspend, a “sizeable chunk from the get-go”, said Lawson: “But that’s obviously not where we want to end up.”
“We’ll be guided by advertiser prioritisation as we look to prioritise the channels that we onboard in succession once we move past launch,” he added.
While Origin will launch with core reporting data including deduplicated reach and frequency, additional features in the development pipeline include premium reporting, such as outcomes-based measurement, as well as integrating planning tools into the platform.
“Over time, we’ll diversify the reporting capabilities to meet a wide range of advertiser need states that have been articulated to us,” Lawson continued. “Best-in-class cross-media measurement needs to have a perspective on outcomes. Not just reach and frequency, but outcomes like brand lift or sales conversion.”
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‘Neutral’ service
Lawson described Origin and its users as “learning a lot through the beta trials”, which have already generated over 500 reports.
He called the project a “neutral service”, adding: “We’re there to surface data that end users want to see. It’s up to them to overlay the parameters, not for Origin to impose standards or beliefs upon them.”
However, critics of Origin have expressed concern that the initiative could bias spend in favour of platforms and potentially act as a currency, despite repeated claims from Origin leaders that this is not the intention.
Broadcasters and media strategists have also expressed anxiety that Origin lacks stringent measurement standards.
Barb CEO Justin Sampson has cited a lack of Media Rating Council-standard reporting across Origin as the reason the TV joint industry currency (JIC) has thus far declined to license its viewing data to Origin (which, in turn, is using a separate Kantar-led panel to measure linear audiences).
That said, The Media Leader has previously reported that a plan is under consideration to integrate Barb data via a hybrid reporting model.
Not a silver bullet
During a different session at Connected TV World Summit, Sampson emphasised the importance of underlying comparability of metrics, describing Origin’s inclusion of non-Media Rating Council-standard audience data as akin to a “foreign exchange nightmare” for JICs that work to a higher measurement standard.
Denise Turner, the outgoing CEO of OOH JIC Route, also expressed concern at the event that cross-media measurement efforts could lead advertisers to measure to a “least common denominator”.
She remarked during a Q&A session with Lawson that the “narrative around Origin” is that “people feel like it’s the answer to everything”.
“We’ve never maintained that Origin is the answer to everything,” Lawson replied. “We see it very much as another data point that end users would use in the decision-making process.”
He noted that Origin does not contain spend data or attention data. It also lacks reporting for a host of media channels, such as OOH, Turner pointed out.
“There’s conversations in play with a number of other media channels,” Lawson said, adding that the “long-term ambition” is to “have a fully comprehensive perspective on all media touchpoints”.
He continued: “Origin isn’t a silver bullet. It’s been designed to be a complement to measurement systems that are already in the marketplace. Our preference is always to ingest JIC data.
“The very clear advertiser mandate that we have is to get something out to market as quickly as possible and then to build it out from there.”
Plan tabled for Barb to join Origin in hybrid reporting model