Will video kill the reach and frequency stars?
“The old metrics of reach and frequency won’t matter in this brave new world.” So Rhys McLachlan said – Mediacom’s managing partner for implementation and future investments – at The Future TV Advertising Forum last week. And it’s something I have heard on a few occasions recently – and it may prove right… or wrong! That is the great thing with forecasts, as we have discussed here before.
Either way it’s not the best PR for UKOM, which was set up to provide just this, bringing online into line with other media, and hopefully increasing the number of branding campaigns in the DR-dominated online advertising world as a result. Whilst take up of Nielsen’s APS system has been very positive, there’s not too much sign of things changing yet – but online video may offer new angles and new opportunities for these advertisers.
Of course, behind such slightly provocative comments lies a broader point. BARB is not going to measure absolutely everything; the BARB executive is very public about that, suggesting data fusion will be the way ahead for the last few percent of viewing. In Rhys’ view, comScore is not the answer for video data either. This week we have also heard of a new BBC initiative, ‘Live Plus 7’, to collect viewing data from various platforms beyond the current seven-days measured by BARB. If the BBC do this, others may well follow – another research source.
And then there’s return path data from Sky too.
But, returning to the opening statement, what will the key metrics be in this new digital, multi-screen, multi-platform world? Engagement? ROI? Or possibly still reach and frequency? Answers on a postcard (or email) please.
This topic will be at the top of the agenda for MediaTel’s Future of Media Research seminar on 11th February. I hope you can join the debate there too.
Your Comments
No doubt about . BARB will remain for traditional “volume” viewing, but with all the new delivery systems growing fast engagement ratings are sure to follow .
Appropriate metrics will emerge (as they have done for decades) for the various stages of planning and trading. However, for the monetisation of the volume “reach” marketplace, BARB is the currency and the complex TV trading eco-system in the UK and that is not going to change overnight.
However, for many new video content properties and ad communications options around them, both over cable / satellite and online, a wide rage of metrics are already being used to define “value” to the planners & buyer, involving one or more measurements of engagement / value / ROI.
Yes they will. BARB and BARB-add-ons will remain the base buying currency; but a new range of planning-focussed data tools and systems will emerge/are already emerging.
Offline media research measures ‘opportunity’, not actual exposure. This worked as a surrogate model of measuring communications back in the 1950s when the JICs were born, because the gap between opportunity and communication was much narrower, because of all sorts of social and economic factors, that impacted on media and the consumers relationship with it.
As we now know that relationship has evolved and measuring just potential opportunity is not the absolute that it was then.
Digital measures behaviour, what people ‘do’. What it does not do is measure ‘why’. This is examined in a piece on the Long Tail that Sue Elms of Millward Brown wrote some time ago, and is also explored in a lot of Thinkbox’s research work with IAB.
What is missing is a means by which ‘why’ can measured in such a fashion that it can then be incorporated in the currency exchange model.
What will be dangerous will be if the digital behavioural concept gets used as a trading currency, and becomes a poor substitute for examining why someone engages with media.
And oh, if you are thinking of saying this is ‘too difficult to do’, then think of the alternative, and think of the implications for agencies and media owners if analytics rule everything you do.