A new survey from the CMO Council has revealed that recent news coverage about inaccurate and false digital media metrics has caused 21% of top marketers to reduce adspend across platforms such as Facebook and Google.
The report – titled Engage at Every Stage: An Investigation of Video Activation – states that 95% of marketing leaders surveyed believe digital media must deliver more reliability.
The study is based on insights from an online survey of 233 marketing leaders and qualitative interviews with brand leaders at Keurig, PepsiCo, Nestle Waters, Cox Communications and more.
More than 70% of marketers surveyed admit that negative news headlines have impacted video spend. This negative outlook of the digital media landscape comes as marketers intend to boost investments in online video advertising – a channel that 28% of respondents believe is more important than other media investments and that 40 percent say is growing in importance.
Facebook has made multiple admissions over the past two years of having miscalculated video views whilst ‘marking its own homework’; as a result, pressure on digital media platforms to implement accredited third-party measurement verification – similar to traditional media platforms – has increased dramatically. [advert position=”left”]
In June 2017, the IPA and ISBA launched a paper asking for all parts of the industry to defend accountable audience data and to uphold the highest industry standards of methodology and independent verification.
CMO Council’s study suggests that the industry has heeded their advice, as more than 70% of brand leaders admit that negative news headlines have had an impact on budgets.
“The frustration across the marketing ecosystem is palpable, and new headlines that breach trust and showcase systemic carelessness have inflamed the issue,” noted Liz Miller, senior vice president of marketing for the CMO Council.
“The industry as a whole must align on transparency and reliability. If we don’t live up to these expectations, we will see more accounts up for review and more orders being pulled.”
Whether this will be enough to have significant impact on the Facebook/Google duopoly remains to be seen; as of February 2018, the IPA has rated the progress towards implementation of accredited third-party measurement verification at just 6/10.
Meanwhile, both Facebook and Google have recorded record breaking ad revenues.
