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TV / Media Research and Insights

Archive for Conferences

Posted by David Tice 
· July 18, 2019 
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Conference Summary: Mavericks of Media 2019

As guest-blogger for the 2019 edition of the Mavericks of Media conference (which is put on by knect365), I wrote up summaries of the keynotes and break-out session  I attended. You can find the daily summaries on the knect365 website:

Day 1 of the 2019 Mavericks of Media conference: Day 1 (July 10 2019)
Day 2 of the 2019 Mavericks of Media conference: Day 2 (July 11 2019)

Enjoy!

David Tice is the principal of TiceVision LLC, a media research consultancy.
– Don’t miss future posts by signing up for email notifications here .  
– Read my new book about TV, “The Genius Box”. Details here . 

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Categories : Conferences, Media devices and services, Pay TV, Streaming Video, SVOD, TV
Posted by David Tice 
· April 23, 2019 
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Scenes from the ARF 2019 AudiencexScience Conference – Day 2

AxS logoDay 2 of The 2019 AudienceXScience conference from the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) was held April 16th in Jersey City. This annual fixture in the media research industry calendar – a rebrand of the ARF’s 2006-2018 Audience Measurement conference – again brought together many luminaries to shed light on the current state of media measurement.

ARF logo

Detailed Notes for Day 2
See Day 1 Notes here

Below are notes from each of the panels/presentations I attended. These notes are by necessity distilled down based on how quickly I could take notes, so they do not reflect the totality of the presentations or discussions. I apologize in advance to any presenters who feel short-changed, misinterpreted, or misquoted.

Marketing Effectiveness in the Digital Era – Les Binet, adam&eveDDB

Presented results from a long-term analysis of UK data, which has head to four books. Fundamental principle: Brand (building) vs activation (sales). Activation can be high efficiency and high ROI – but while it creates sales blips, it does not build growth. Brand building creates long-term memories – broader reach, different attention, more memorable activities; its decay is slower which leads to long-term build.

How to maximize effectiveness

  • Penetration is always the main driver of growth; reach is king
  • Maximize mental availability; brand awareness/salience/fame
  • Messages vs emotions; rational is used for activation, emotional for brand effects

Invest in share-of-voice; if share-of-voice is greater than share-of-market, then growth. An optimal budget should be 60% brand, 40% activation. The fundamental rules haven’t changed with the emergence of digital. Digital increases efficiency and makes activation easier, but brand building is still more important in the long run.

The Race to Own the Future of TV – Julie DeTraglia, Hulu; Natasha Hritzuk, WarnerMedia; Ali Rana, Snapchat

— AT&T’s sale of Hulu?
JD: no change in near term at Hulu
NH: WarnerMedia are treating their upcoming DTC service as a CPG product, not a tech product. Doing UX research for consumer features. Content discovery and personalization are key attributes.
— Snapchat issues?
AR: they have Discover for storytelling from respected partners. Both scripted and unscripted shows. Content for mobile is very difference from regular TV.
— Future of appointment TV?
NH: Appointment TV now is when people get together to watch, not a set time based on broadcast schedule
JD: viewers want their content on every screen. Most of Hulu viewing is a connected TV in the living room
— Ads?
JD: Hulu wants to offer choice and flexibility like they do for viewing their programs. The ad load is less than regular TV; viewers can choose ads or have interactivity. All this leads to more effective ad environment. Their choice to place ads in “pause” screens was another space they could use without interrupting viewing (since viewing was already paused)

— Measurement?
NH: are we putting the cart before the horse by focusing on developing current measures, when they are working on ad experiences that bypass traditional ads; shouldn’t the measurement match the new experiences, rather than trying to fit new experiences into the old measures?
JD: Measurement needs to be part of the ecosystem. She has to do attribution with different vendors depending on measure needed. Hulu does some attribution now directly so to bypass.
AR: In 5 years, all advertising will be “performance” advertisers (eg, only pays on results, not exposures or impressions)

— Importance of diversity
NH: It’s a given. May need to offer multiple service options to serve all consumers.
JD: Same. Their research covers all types of persons.
AR: Snap has diverse user base and staff.

Seeking a Framework for Measurement – Radha Subramanyam, CBS

Media measurement has historically been about counting, in the future it will need to add outcomes as well. The current state of attribution research is that there are no consistent outcome measures or standards; and the impact of linear TV is underestimated.

The state of counting is it is too complex and still siloed. She wants simplification: a total audience count across all devices that gives total program and commercial audiences.

Philosophy for the future

  • Data comes in all sizes
  • Consumer analytics need to be aligned (survey and passive measures)
  • There is an art and a science to interpret meaning of data – the art focus on storytelling

And apparently, if she’s on your team and she yells at you, it’s a sign she cares.

Exploring the Multiple Dimensions of Attention – MediaScience & Google

What is attention? Desk analysis of existing literature revealed there is attention (in a continuum from Passive to Active) and inattention. There is much academic research on attention but little on inattention.

Attention is the absence of inattention, and inattention can be accurately measured. In the lab, blink duration and eye fixations per second had the highest accuracy in measuring attention/inattention

Within attention the best measures may be dependent on the content viewed, or the intended outcome of the stimulus.

Next steps are 1) a pilot to see if measures of attention translate to ads and 2) confirm the best measures for ad attention.

The Future of Audience-Based Buying  – Comscore

This session was really just a review of OpenAP without any new insights. It was also somewhat ironic as WarnerMedia (Turner), one of the founders of OpenAP, announced three days later it was dropping out of the OpenAP system.

OpenAP is helping network sales teams and their buying partners utilize new datasets. These can be used for planning, buying, posting, and auditing.

Demand for OpenAP has been “limited” but expanding. Despite the free access, the presenters quoted there are about 1,000 individual users signed up.

Consistent segment definitions can be used across network groups with secure segment sharing. It also allows independent 3rd party posting.

From Proxy-Based Optimization to People-Based Optimization – Survata

The problem of proxies. Today optimization is typically against viewability, CPMs, and reach but not against outcomes (such as brand lift).

To enable auto-optimization, need to move from campaign level to persons-level reporting (the latter being modeled). Also need single KPI to optimize against (such as funnel impact).

Can’t use traditional survey research, need “programmatic scale”
Can’t use tradition panel accuracy, need superior data accuracy
Don’t use look-a-like respondents, need causal AI

Cross-Platform Insights Every Influencer Will Cite This Year – Nielsen

This was pretty much a recitation of relevant results from the latest Total Audience Report from Nielsen.

There has been a 182% year-over-year increase in connected TV (CTV) impressions
There is currently about 10 billion(!) hours per month viewing time of CTV in the USA, translating to about 75 hours/month of CTV time among CTV users.
CTV adds about a 16% increment to a P18-49 audience.

Erwin Ephron Demystification Award

Congrats to Leslie Wood!

Brand Purpose and Cinema – NCM, ScreenVision, MESH

Many brand experiences are perceived as neutral, whereas consumers and brands both want “purpose”. This study used Real-Time Experience Tracking (RET), a one week brand experience diary.

Paid brand touchpoints are seen as less engaging and persuasive than owned or earned touchpoints. But paid can be a first step to drive people to the better-received owned/earned experiences.

Cinema cuts through neutrality [as one would expect from an NCM/ScreenVision presentation]. Two thirds of cinema brand experiences were positive, more than any other touchpoint, and was particularly helpful among 18-24 demo. TV & cinema together work even better.

A Levi’s case study was presented. Cinema exposures were 2x more engaged than TV alone; 93% found cinema memorable compared with 71% of TV.

Can Data Privacy Be Good for Brands? – Dan Linton, W2O Group

The risk of harm is real. Examples are physical (such as when FitBit jogging data revealed secret military/CIA bases) and emotional (such as when a woman miscarried but still was followed by baby advertising online).

The California Consumer Privacy Act will have a large impact, and is being followed by similar laws in WA, VT, OR, CT, IL, and TX. GDPR is already impacting the EU.

But GDPR did not kill off digital advertising in the EU. In fact, privacy ethnics are not detrimental but can be a positive differentiator for a brand/ad tech service. There are many positives that can result. These include:

  • Getting ahead of the curve in terms of what data are collected and how – and if any will fall foul of new laws
  • Becoming aware of, and organizing, data streams. Where are they from? Why do we use them? Are they really needed? Where are they stored? Is there PII to worry about?
  • Being transparent will build trust
  • Give consumers a reason to engage and share their data

Presenting the ARF Code of Conduct – Paul Donato, CRO of the ARF

Donato discussed the recently announced ARF Code of Conduct. What makes it different?

  • A focus on research not activation-type data
  • A commitment requires research of terms and agreement
  • A chain of trust between elements of the research process
  • Includes automated, location, and AI-driven research
  • There are monitoring KPIs; the ARF can see how many times the terms have been read and agreed to
  • There is a required annual compliance report

Companies can apply online and it is voluntary. It was made voluntary to avoid company lawyers resisting a more structured commitment.

[Donato completely sidestepped the whole issue of compliance. The code is a nice idea but it has no teeth – there is no active enforcement by the ARF and it’s dependent on someone being a whistle-blower. And the penalty of having the ARF seal rescinded may likely have no effect other than temporary embarrassment]

Too Much Math, Too Little Meaning – Rishad Tobaccowala, Publicis

We are in the 3rd connected age (1st = initial computer/browser based; 2nd = computer + smartphone; 3rd = internet of things, all is connected)

Issues:

  • Erosion of trust
  • Close-mindedness – we need to do “A/B testing” in our own beliefs, ie consider other viewpoints
  • Rising inequality
  • These are all the dark side of the first two connected ages

Data isn’t missing about what to do to solve many of these issues, it’s the will to implement solutions

Purpose – what are we doing all this for?
Poetry – where is the art/beauty in what is being done?
People – you need to change people or keep them and change their mindset

END OF DAY TWO – END OF CONFERENCE
See Day 1 Notes here

David Tice is the principal of TiceVision LLC, a media research consultancy.
– Don’t miss future posts by signing up for email notifications here .  
– Read my new book about TV, “The Genius Box”. Details here . 

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Categories : Advertising, Conferences, Personal reflections, Research business, Streaming Video, TV
Posted by David Tice 
· April 22, 2019 
· No Comments

Scenes from the ARF 2019 AudiencexScience Conference – Day 1

AxS logoDay 1 of The 2019 AudienceXScience conference from the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) was held April 15th in Jersey City. This annual fixture in the media research industry calendar – a rebrand of the ARF’s 2006-2018 Audience Measurement conference – again brought together many luminaries to shed light on the current state of media measurement.

ARF logoA surprisingly large 550 registrations were announced for AudienceXScience, indicating that the conference is in good health. However, part of that may be due to the ARF killing off its long-running annual conference this year (called re:think for many years before being rebranded ConsumerXScience in 2018).

Among the recurrent themes this year are:

  • Attribution and its issues continues to be the hot topic in measurement
  • One to segment may be a better targeting approach than one-to-one, especially given future developments re privacy
  • Data quality and the need for “ground truth panels” continues to make a comeback

Detailed Notes for Day 1
See Day 2 Notes here

Below are notes from each of the panels/presentations I attended. These notes are by necessity distilled down based on how quickly I could take notes, so they do not reflect the totality of the presentations or discussions. I apologize in advance to any presenters who feel short-changed, misinterpreted, or misquoted.

Opening Remarks – Scott McDonald, ARF President

McDonald feels there had been an improvement in measuring video in the past year, at least in coverage. But there are still blind spots and there are still uncooperative sellers who won’t open their walled gardens.  Advertisers need to pressure Amazon and others to open their systems to measurement. But there is no consensus yet on a cross-platform video measurement that takes into account both TV and digital. McDonald repeatedly called out “parochial concerns” as roadblocks – companies wanting to keep their data walled up to gain a competitive advantage.

Advertising in a Modern Media Company – Rick Welday, Xandr Media (A&T)

Welday spend some time on the advertising structure within AT&T: WarnerMedia with premium advertising opportunities, AT&T with ability to serve addressable ads across multiple channels, and Xandr being AT&T’s adtech solution. Key trends include 1) addressability scaling; 2) addressable is becoming easier to buy; 3) addressable expanding into other areas; 4) advertisers are committing to always-on budgets enabling digital optimization.

Frequency capping continues to be an issue. Example showed 70% of impressions were served to 28% of targets. However, using Xandr increases efficiency and allows advertisers to reach the “gold” light TV viewer. But Xandr right now only works with the 2 min of local avail time given to MVPDs.

The future includes improvement of frequency delivery and also sequencing ads. Local avails converge with national ads. Format innovations via AR, MR, and 5G. Very bullish on 5G and on its potential ability to bridge rural & digital divides.

Transforming Measurement – Megan Clarken, Nielsen

Overall media use has increased from 50 hours/week in 2003 to 75 hours/week in 2018 – an increase of 50%. Targeted advertising has increased from 2017 to 2019 from $2.4B to $6.8B for linear TV ads, and from $47B to $73B for digital TV ads.

Is there a problem with “measurement”? No, measurement is being done (by Nielsen, of course). There are issues with the overall system

  • alignment on comparability
  • everything should be measured and available, like for TV – all see all
  • how to avoid fraud
  • improvements in the ecosystem to support this goal

Many people are unaware of what Nielsen can do with de-duping audiences and with measurement within walled gardens.

Planning in an AI World – Brad Smallwood, Facebook

82% of display ads are bought using automated systems. Agencies, advertisers, and platforms need to think differently – “liquidity” and “signals”.

Liquidity allows each $1 to be spent on the next most valuable impression. An automated system selects the most valuable impression and creative, and serves it to the right person in real time.

Signals are behavioral data that machine learning uses to make predictions. They drive improvement in ROI for advertisers.

Automated systems like these are only as good as the data passed into them. And do the signals align with the end goal of a campaign? E.g., advertising ROI and optimization are two different things.

He feels that the implication for Nielsen and measurement is how can Nielsen make marketing better? It should be a marketing improvement company, not a counting company. It should add value rather than being a cost center.

Counting the Right Viewers in OTT Measurement – Nielsen

We should be measuring people not devices for both linear and digital.

  • Connected TV audiences are different from both linear TV and digital audiences
  • Should be measured at the persons level
  • This will assist dynamic ad insertion (DAI)

More Than Impressions: OTT in the TV Daypart Model – Roku & TVision

How does attention (measured by eyes-on-screen) and OTT translate into TV’s traditional daypart model? OTT has similar co-viewing levels as linear TV but attention to commercials is 50% higher for OTT. Why?

  • Intentional viewing
  • Can’t skip ads
  • Captive audience – channel surfing is much more difficult than in the past

These OTT advantages persist across the total day. Final points: 1) OTT is TV – mostly same viewing habits; 2) OTT has higher attention; 3) OTT breaks the linear daypart model.

Quantifying and Aligning Emotion – Magid & Warner Bros Entertainment

This paper discussed efforts by WB to help their affiliates align the local news promos shown in syndicated Warner Bros programs with the content in those programs, allowing greater synergy in brand image and increasing audience flow into local news.

For Ellen, 99% of affiliates use it to lead into local news; high levels also for Warner Bros programs Dr Phil and Judge Judy. Particularly for the feel-good Ellen, the typical “if it bleeds it leads” style of news promotion can cause cognitive dissonance and actually decrease intent to view the news.

A series of surveys and focus groups, the former making use of Magid’s Emotional DNA metric, showed that the more tonal the news promo is to the program, the better the tune-in rate. A key point is to use a positive spin in the promo, even if it’s a serious story. An example would be “Suspects identified and being pursued by police” rather than “Killers on the run!”.

The findings are being shared with news directors at the the affiliates.

In or Out? – WarnerMedia

Advanced TV includes data-driven linear TV. Audience Now is WM’s (nee Turner’s) own targeting system. Has been proven to drive outcomes – example showed 1.6x ROAS target among campaign using Audience Now vs not using it.

Uses three components: 1) Spot level measurement via EDO; 2) Nielsen Catalina data; 3) Kantor surveys.

Audio and Video at the Intersections of Digital Video and Linear TV – Omnicom & Tunity

This paper discussed out-of-home (OOH) measurement. There is a gap for OOH measures where audio cannot be heard. This is addressed by the Tunity app, which apparently streams the audio of muted programs to a user through their smartphone. The Tunity data was analyzed to look at OOH viewing behaviors.

Key takeaways:

  • Tunity app did indeed capture OOH viewing
  • A substantial amount of use of the app was “in home” as well as OOH
  • Location of viewing was a substantial influence on viewing behavior
  • Need to think about how OOH viewing can contribute to the TV audience
  • Consider including OOH into cross-platform measures

How a Truth Set Can Power Data Accuracy Verification – Ericsson Emodo

Emodo is the digital advertising arm of Ericsson. There is so much focus on media quality but so little on how we decide to buy. Segments, build requests metadata, attribution studies all dependent on data.

Raw data can be 46% inaccurate, even filtered data can be 34% inaccurate. Emodo can use Ericsson’s cell-tower-level data from all mobile service providers to validate GPS location data (their data not dependent on device, OS, carrier).

When questioned further, the presenter had difficulty articulating why Emodo’s data are a truth set: “It’s hard to explain;” “Scale and completeness”.

Takeaways: 1) Carve out data quality from media quality; 2) seek proof of data quality not just indicators; 3) recognize the key role that “truth sets” should play in scaling data

Calibrating Bias in Online Samples for High Quality Surveys at Scale – MRI/Simmons

This presentation made some very on-point points, mainly reminding people that online panels and surveys are not representative in the same way traditional probability sample are. This is a key point that from experience I know that people ignore, forget, or are not even aware of.

Sample bias tends to be narrow; in other words, most of a survey using a non-probability sample can be perfectly fine but then a few points are not representative of the real world. Analysis of data using Simmons’ National Consumer Sample showed some deviations in topic areas such as:

  • Online shopping
  • Communications
  • Video streaming
  • Use of tech
  • Numerous psychographic attributes

Use of demo weighting does not address these differences, only moderates them a little. Bottom line is do not ask questions about online uses or attitudes to a non-probability online sample.

[personal note: this argument was made for years by Knowledge Networks in support of its probability-based panel called KnowledgePanel (now part of Ipsos). Unfortunately, these arguments typically fell on deaf ears; researchers acknowledged the numerous papers put out by KN on the topic, but getting them to actually spend the extra money for KnowledgePanel sample was a much more difficult task. I wish MRI/Simmons better success than we had!]

A Segments Journey – clypd, Acxiom, MRI/Simmons

This presentation discussed taking segments from MRI to other environments. The issue: audience consistency. Offline and digital measures represent identities and attitudes differently.

They followed five segments from MRI to the Nielsen-MRI fusion, and also MRI to Acxiom to DMPs, publishers, etc.

For the segments, they evaluated the segment sizes and how well the profiles compared (using 47 variables). As for the Nielsen-MRI fusion, there was good matching. With the digital fusion, the matching was (as expected) less good. Issues included ID fuzziness, loss of scale, drop off, and impact.

Correlations for digital segments were in the range of 0.62 to 0.71 compared with the Nielsen-MRI segments which were 0.89 to 0.97. But due to the inherent differences in the datasets, it should not be expected that digital segments match the correlation of the two probability-based datasets.

Standards, Research and Rationale – George Ivie, Media Ratings Council

Need to move from gross impressions to targeted characteristics. Need to increase the quality of the digital side of measurement to that of TV. The standard is based on consistency for video exposures. Provides stronger content focus for digital, stronger ad focus for TV.

There are rules for granularity and comparability, durations and completions, practices for appending audience characteristics. Because of its establishment in current agency systems, the 30 second base is being used.

Is it for planning or currency? Both, but mainly as a currency. Planning tools, which are not the basis of sales, don’t require same rigor. Duration weighted video impressions (DWVI) is getting almost all the debate and comment, despite taking up only 4 of the 70 pages of the draft document.

Going Beyond :30s, :15s or :06s – Vas Bakopoulos, Mobile Marketing Association

This was the first study to pass the new ARF Certification Program and dealt with attention and cognitive load. Mobile ads do more in one second than we think. Attention is almost always similar and cognition follows closely.

Focus on creative in the first second. Ads that fail, fail in the first second. For longer exposures, are you overpaying for unneeded exposure if key effects are almost immediate?

Advance Toward Digital Audience Quality – Robin Opie, Oracle

Poor audience quality results from several factors:

  • Bad actors
  • Weak ID graphs
  • Over-extension of data
  • Quality of source data
  • Bad modeling

Oracle employs a number of different processes to combat bad quality, including:

  • Audience health
  • Model diagnostics
  • Ecosystem diagnostics
  • Real-world validation
  • ID graph accuracy

Grow Your Brand With Better Audience Targeting – Nishat Mehta, IRI

Top tips for targeting:

  • Quality @ scale (what is the highest quality at the highest scale?)
  • Recency of data
  • Future proofing (getting ahead of regulations – is data collected now in a way that will be legal in the future? Example – he feels traceable tender will not survive in the future)

Should a big brand be microtargeting? Does that defeat the purpose of building a big-umbrella brand? Plus he feels microtargeting is too creepy.

Paving the Way for News Organizations – Lisa Ryan Howard, NY Times

[note: This might have been the worst-presented session of the entire conference, with Ms Howard spending most of her time standing in one place, hand on hip, looking down to read the teleprompter… not the type of dynamic presenter needed at 5PM in the afternoon.]

This presentation basically reviewed the NY Times’ advertising assets, and how they have adjusted to the current digital era. A brand needs to matter… and consumers need to know what matters. The NYT has expanded into audio with podcasts, and into TV with an upcoming series on the FX network.

The NYT ReaderScope application gives advertisers insights into what topics are being read by their targets, and insights into contextual advertising.

CampaignScope is an advertising tool that profiles content and what each impression was exposed to/read. They are currently still mostly audience buys, but want to move more advertising to contextual, which they feel is more advantageous both in terms of effectiveness and the reader experience.

END OF DAY ONE
See Day 2 Notes here

David Tice is the principal of TiceVision LLC, a media research consultancy.
– Don’t miss future posts by signing up for email notifications here .  
– Read my new book about TV, “The Genius Box”. Details here . 

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Categories : Advertising, Conferences, Personal reflections, Research business, Streaming Video, TV
Posted by David Tice 
· February 27, 2019 
· No Comments

Entering the Gen Z Zone

As guest-blogger for the 2019 Media Insights & Engagement Conference (staged by knect365), I am putting some of the overarching themes I heard at the conference in perspective. I discuss about what was said at the conference about Gen Z, the rising group of young adults, in my second post-conference piece.

“A number of presentations at the 2019 Media Insights & Engagement Conference talked about the newest generation for us to worry about: Gen Z. Presentations or keynotes touching on Gen Z were given by Viacom, Freeform, ABC, TiVo, BBC America, and Zebra Intelligence/Ipsy…”

Read the rest of the post at the knect365 website here.

MIE Conference logo
The MIE conference was held in Los Angeles between January 29-31. Details about the conference can be found here.

David Tice is the principal of TiceVision LLC, a media research consultancy.
– Don’t miss future posts by signing up for email notifications here .  
– Read my new book about TV, The Genius Box. Details here . 

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Categories : Conferences, Personal reflections, Research business
Posted by David Tice 
· February 20, 2019 
· No Comments

Advice for Future Researchers

As a guest-blogger for the 2019 edition of the Media Insights & Engagement Conference (which is put on by knect365), I have put some of the themes I heard at the conference in perspective. In this first post, I discuss about what was said at the conference about what future – or up-and-coming – researchers should know.

“Up-and-coming or future researchers were on the minds of several presentations at the 2019 Media Insights & Engagement Conference, which took place January 29-31 in Los Angeles. These included a panel of high-level research execs, a session from Viacom, and a tech perspective. And, at least two of the “Off the Record Industry Conversations” discussed future researchers, or researchers now vs. then.

There seemed to be three main themes that I took away from these sessions…”

Read the rest of the post at the knect365 website here.

MIE Conference logo
Between January 29-31, the MIE conference was held in Los Angeles. Details about the conference can be found here.

David Tice is the principal of TiceVision LLC, a media research consultancy.
– Don’t miss future posts by signing up for email notifications here .  
– Read my new book about TV, The Genius Box. Details here . 

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Categories : Conferences, Research business
Posted by David Tice 
· February 12, 2019 
· No Comments

Scenes from the 2019 CIMM Summit

CIMM logoThe eighth annual CIMM Cross-Platform Video Measurement & Data Summit was held on February 7th at the Time Warner Center in New York. As always, this annual fixture in the media research industry provided an interesting discussion about the state of media measurement.

Among the recurrent themes were:

  • C-3 and C-7 measures, meant to be temporary, are now 12 years old and do not seem to be going anywhere – despite not reflecting today’s viewers
  • Greater transparency is still needed at all levels
  • The need for “ground truth panels” seems to be making a comeback
  • Attribution continues to be the hot topic in measurement

In something of a change from previous editions, no-one from Nielsen or Comscore (or any start-up measurement service for that matter) presented or was part of a panel.

The hand-outs, press releases, and deck from the summit are available on the CIMM website, as are materials from earlier summits.

This was the first CIMM Summit since CIMM was acquired by the ARF back in October. I hope that CIMM and the ARF will continue to offer this summit, and to keep it free so that all those with an interest are able to attend.

Detailed Notes

Below are notes from each of the panels/presentations. These are by necessity distilled down based on how quickly I could take notes, so they do not reflect the totality of the discussions.

After a short kick-off by CIMM CEO and Managing Director Jane Clarke, the first session featured an interview of Krishan Bhatia of NBCUniversal.

  • C-3 and C-7 are outdated by today’s viewing habits
  • C-Flight introduction by NBCU came with little pushback. There is some friction around the work but not about the concept
  • They are working on attribution, campaign measurement, and how to prove performance across all NBCU media
  • He is skeptical that there will ever again be a one-size-fits-all solution
  • 34% of NBCU consumption is now on digital – expect it to be up to 50% very soon

The next session was a panel featuring Rob Master of Unilever, David Cohen of MAGNA, and Laura Nathanson of Disney to discuss business needs for cross-measurement and metrics.

  • RM: There is no common solution. Industry needs to develop a common vernacular to discuss. Can’t be perfect – what is now? near? next?
  • LN: Disney adjusted by moving all media sales under one group. The “plumbing” is an issue – need to plumb and test
  • DC: C-3 and C-7 are no longer sufficient. Need to move to exact commercial minute measurement. In the mid-/long-term, need to look at audible and visual measures across all platforms.
  • RM: Unilever doesn’t care so much about addressability – they have broad markets
  • LN: But then Unilever should use addressability to send different creative to various segments within a broad demo
  • One key thought to close:
    • RM: Transparency and dialog around counting
    • DC: Let’s “start by starting” – need to get moving
    • LN: Just because it’s hard doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it – it’s the reason we should do it

Next, an overview of this year’s update of the CIMM TV attribution whitepaper was presented by Jim Spaeth and Alice Sylvester of Sequent Partners. Attribution then discussed by Claudio Marcus of Freewheel and Lisa Giacosa of Spark Foundry.

  • What is the state of the art of attribution?
    • LG: I’m excited and hungry [for more]
    • CM: Like in the UK train stations, “Watch the Gap”. There are gaps in cross-platform attribution, and brand/longer-term effects
  • CM: Biggest effect so far on automotive. Auto had moved money from TV to digital – but attribution showed TV drove the digital exposures. Moving back to TV. Media & Entertainment another area – TV program promotion
  • LG: Need to understand content effects. Can’t just follow short-term ROI over a cliff.
  • JS: Need to use baseline sales as a basis for calculating incremental effects of attribution media

Following a break, there were brief updates of the Taxi Complete (AD-ID and EIDR) and Data Label initiatives.

Another panel discussed Deduplicating Reach for Content and Ads, featuring Radha Subramanyam of CBS, Eric Cavanaugh of Publicis, Beth Rockwood of Turner, and Ed Gaffney of GroupM and moderated by Scott McDonald of the ARF.

  • EC: A good quality attribution should be getting deduplication as a byproduct
  • BR: how things fit together is a big issue
  • RS: need both counting and outcome measures. But we need to up-level the conversation: There are lots of products and data, but are we any closer to making sense of media and marketing together? Need a commonsense playbook at a high level.
  • EG: Need dedup in place before this years upfront – or 2020 upfront.
  • RS: Vendors need to listen closely to needs. Their solutions are not necessarily addressing the needs.
  • EC: We also need to know about content to be able to place ads in context.
  • EG: Blindspots are getting smaller but there are new ones popping up every day
  • EC: We are getting one-off fixes to blindspots but need integrated response
  • RS: Integrating projectable and non-projectable samples is doable but needs more investment
  • BR: The technical issues of integration are easier than making the theory work
  • RS: In terms of privacy, one-to-many is less threatening than true one-to-one marketing

Is there One Metric to Rule Them All? Kavita Vazirani of NBCU, Brian Hughes of MAGNA, George Ivie of the MRC, and Sheryl Feldinger of Google discussed this topic.

  • BH: Need exact minute commercial ratings
  • SF: Need equitable (with TV) transparency at exposure and second-by-second ratings
  • KV: Need to measure effort vs return. Shouldn’t we be focusing on cross-platform measures rather than arguing about TV measures?
  • BH: already does second-by-second with MediaOcean, which is an old platform – so it can be done today
  • GI: MRC is working on standard definitions with partners and industry, aiming for impression-based duration-weighted data by 2021. Measures to include exposure, viewability, duration-weighting, complete exposure to an ad.
  • SF: Wants absolute exposure. His work shows that a 5 or 10 second exposure elicits a similar response, regardless of the total length of an ad
  • KV: Disagrees. She claims the only time a 6 second ad worked was as part of a larger integrated campaign
  • GI: There is a big gap in content measurement in digital. For content measurement in a cross-platform world, customer journey analysis is something that should be syndicated (eg, third party)
  • All: agree audio status needs to be known (muted vs non-muted)

The last panel talked about Audience-Based Buying Platforms for TV/Video. This panel included Bryson Gordon of Viacom, Mike Law of Dentsu Aegis, Bob Ivins of NCC Media, and Mike Welch of Xandr.

  • BI: Inertia is real. Need to get marketers to “cross the bridge” and not turn back halfway across. We need standards and transparency.
  • MW: Can help reach low incidence/low viewing HHs
  • BI: Need an automated platform like Google and Facebook. Still too much manual transfers between different applications
  • BG: users on OpenAP have already created 1,872 segments
  • Opportunities in 2019
    • BI: More inventory and optimization
    • ML: Platform, optimization, interactivity
    • BG: Automated workflows, cross-platform delivery, unified posting
    • MW: Platform, true cross-platform delivery

To wrap up the afternoon, Jack Smith of GroupM told us about what he saw at the 2019 CES conference.

  • The three areas to pay most attention to are Assistants (Alexa, etc); Autonomy (self-driving cars); and Simulation (VR/AR).
  • It is important to understand how algorithms work – what products are suggested when Alexa is asked to buy something. Should brands have an avatar to speak for themselves, rather than relying on Amazon etc.
  • Most everything will still be on screens. How are these to be measured?
  • Top takeaways: 1) Interface revolution. 2) Immersion environments. 3) The ethics of tech in general.

David Tice is the principal of TiceVision LLC, a media research consultancy.
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– Read my new book about TV, “The Genius Box”. Details here . 

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Categories : Advertising, Conferences, Research business, TV
Posted by David Tice 
· February 6, 2019 
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2019 MIE Conference Summaries

MIE Conference logoAs guest-blogger for the 2019 edition of the Media Insights & Engagement Conference (which is put on by knect365), I wrote up summaries of the keynotes and the break-out sessions I attended. You can find the daily summaries on the knect365 website:

Day 1 of the 2019 MIE conference: Day 1 (Jan 29 2019)
Day 2 of the 2019 MIE conference: Day 2 (Jan 30 2019)
Day 3 of the 2019 MIE conference: Day 3 (Jan 31 2019)

Also, read my three pre-conference posts here:

2019’s New SVOD Services: Blitzkrieg or War of Attrition?

Connected TVs: Corporate Connections as Important as Internet Connections

Does AVOD News Reveal a New Phase of SVOD?

 

David Tice is the principal of TiceVision LLC, a media research consultancy.
– Don’t miss future posts by signing up for email notifications here .  
– Read my new book about TV, “The Genius Box”. Details here . 

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Categories : Conferences, Media devices and services, Personal reflections, Research business, Streaming Video, SVOD, TV
Posted by David Tice 
· June 19, 2018 
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Quick takes from ARF 2018 AudienceXScience conference

ARF LogoLast week, I attended the ARF’s AudienceXScience (AxS) conference in Jersey City. A new incarnation of the former Audience Measurement conference, it’s one of my two favorite conferences of the year. Here are some highlights from the main keynotes, plus an observation about the conference itself.

The Future of TV’s Currency and Measurement
Linda Yaccarino (NBCU), Dave Morgan (Simulmedia)
Sound bite: The opening salvo in the recurring theme of traditional television being a better value versus digital. Traditional television needs to counter the narrative being driven by digital. The TV industry should not be tied to legacy audience measures or back office systems if they are not in step with the changes occurring in the industry.

Nielsen’s View on Media Measurement
Megan Clarken (Nielsen),  Scott McDonald (ARF)
Sound bite: Continued Nielsen’s recent themes of being open to new approaches and new partnerships to deal with business issues – without necessarily committing to either.

The Future of Media: An Epic Battle
Laura Martin (Needham & Company)
Sound bite: Despite advantages in many business KPIs, the FAANGs will not “defeat” legacy television because of the need for storytelling excellence and creating emotional connections. Their only path to success is acquiring a legacy media company and let it do its thing.

An Evolving Arena: Program Currency and Measurement
Lisa Heimann (NBCU), ‎James Petretti (Sony), Will Kreth (EIDR)
Sound bite: Cross-platform is important for program development and promotion just as it is for advertising sales. But a big part of the puzzle continues to be missing due to some streaming partners refusing to cooperate and share data.

An Agency Perspective: The State of Media
Lyle Schwartz (GroupM), Joe Mandese (MediaPost)
Sound bite: GroupM is asking more from the data but extracting less; research has not evolved to match consumer and business changes. Need to get to a seamless “device-agnostic” measurement, but to do so, marketers will have to reformulate their device-centric planning and viewpoints.

Reach & Frequency Balance: How to Get it Right in the World of Advanced Television
David F. Poltrack (CBS), Radha Subramanyam (CBS)
Sound bite: Ad buyers have always traded off between reach and frequency, but recent years have moved from a focus on reach to a focus on efficiency. This leads to less reach and more frequency, and undervaluing of television. Excess exposures have no value, so advertisers should be converting those exposures to new exposures via TV.

How to Use 6’s – ARF 2018 Primary Research
Paul Donato (ARF), Dan Schiffman (TVision)
Sound bite: Linear TV 6 second ads seem to work at present, but have had some advantages such as being placed in premium primetime content, in short pods, or in favorable pod positions. There are a lot of areas still to explore as these 6s become more prevalent.

Consumers, Cross-Platform & Trust
Bryan Wiener (comScore), Jason Lynch (Adweek)
Sound bite: Wiener sees the audience measurement space as open for innovation, but he did not seem to want to be held back by legacy expectations of quality or accreditation before releasing new products.

Oxford Style Debate: Has Marketing Taken Targeting Too Far?
Arguing for: Gian Fulgoni (former comScore), Radha Subramanyam, (CBS)
Arguing against: Dave Morgan (Simulmedia), Yin Woon Rani (Campbell Soup)
Sound bite: A new format for the conference, and it went pretty well – although it seemed too long since many of the same arguments kept being made. Those arguing “For” focused on the bad experience retargeting gives consumers, and that narrowing the base of consumers exposed to your brand can have a negative long-term impact. Those arguing “Against” said not to condemn a whole concept because of bad implementation; in the long-term, targeting is the right way to go as problems get corrected. As for the result of the debate, a fairly even split in the audience before the debate was converted into a clear win for the “Against” team after the debate.

How Far Can You Go? (before government steps in, that is)
Tim Wu (Columbia Law School)
Sound bite: The European model of GDPR with regards to data privacy is unlikely to gain traction in the USA. Instead, we may see more stringent fiduciary duty defined for those who collect or use consumer data.

Thoughts on the conference itself

The ARF AxS (or AM) conference series has been fighting a battle to maintain relevance over the past few years. Perhaps most notably, its usual dates are now used by both the TV of Tomorrow conference in San Francisco and the VideoNuze Online Ad Summit, siphoning off potential speakers from important digital media firms. Even among the core group of past AM participants (media companies built around TV networks), it seems attendance is down. Media consolidation doesn’t help, and neither do changes in budget or leadership priorities, but…

I often joke about seeing the “same cast of characters” at ARF conferences over the 20+ years I’ve been going to them, but perhaps it’s not so funny. I am a firm believer in the ARF and its mission, but I’m sure the ARF can appear to younger people as a crotchety old uncle trying to enforce dedication to methodological rigor and quality established by the generation of researchers who came up to lead the industry in the 1960s and 1970s. Not that rigor and quality are bad things, but I’m sure it sounds preachy at times, especially to younger industry members who are in companies founded on disruption.

The ARF has made strides in recent years in outreach to younger generations of researchers (Young Pros, for example). Under new leadership, it has refocused its overall efforts in the past year to be more relevant. And I’m sure the ARF tries to get its digital members to participate in AxS.

I Love You ARF, But…

But judging by AxS, the ARF still has a way to go to reflect the diversity in our industry – not only by demographics but also in types of firms that show up for its conferences. If it continues to be mostly older white guys talking about television-centric topics (I’m guilty on all counts, by the way), AxS will continue to lose ground to competitive conferences in the near term — and the ARF its relevance to the next generation of advertising researchers in the long term.

David Tice is the principal of TiceVision LLC, a media research consultancy.
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Categories : Advertising, Conferences, Personal reflections, Research business, TV
Posted by David Tice 
· February 2, 2018 
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Scenes from the 2018 CIMM Summit

CIMM logoThe following are some quick notes and comments I jotted down from CIMM’s Cross-Platform Media Measurement & Data Summit (CIMM = Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement). The CIMM Summit was held February 1st at the Time Warner Center in New York City, and was well attended by the movers and shakers of the media research world.

Presentations and videos of some or all of the presentations should be available soon on CIMM’s website, cimm-us.org.

Notes and Comments

Opening with Jane Clarke, CEO of CIMM
Jane reviewed CIMM’s manifesto and progress made in the past year. [I think how actual much progress will depend on one’s viewpoint (buyer, seller, vendor, or MRC (Media Ratings Council)]

Fireside Chat with Rishad Tobaccowala, Publicis
– he believes there will be a 20-30% reduction in impression-based advertising in the next few years
– “data connecting to data” is the next level of connectivity
– advertising has been in the segmentation business (breaking up large audiences); it’s now entering the aggregation business (collecting smaller, fragmented audiences to create reach)

Buyers and Sellers Speak Out (panel)
– highly entertaining panel!
– Cost per rating point (getting a program in front of a viewer) for ad-supported content is skyrocketing (Joe Marchese, FOX)
– Data about viewers of an ad impression are quickly becoming almost more valuable than the impact of the impression itself (Lou Paskalis, Bank of America)
– You cannot create the same reach of a Super Bowl ad with digital, even if you had a year [assuming full viewing of ad] (Marchese)
– We are now being forced to create valuable, engaging marketing content (Paskalis)

CIMM Attribution Provider Comparison Study (panel)
– Attribution models are like Christmas trees; you can turn them to look good and hide the bare spots (Newcombe Clark, AIG)

Disney-ABC Multiplatform TV Attribution, Phase 2
– There are three main drivers to multiplatform ROI: Audience size, consumer commitment to content, and consumer perception of quality (Cindy Davis, Disney/ABC). [this was highly quantitative but very reminiscent of survey-based work we did at Knowledge Networks in early/mid 2000s]
– “Smarts”, “edge”, and “relatability” are the three of the eight Magid Emotional DNA attributes that are best indicators of multiplatform ROI
– Report supposedly available at ABCAllAccess.com

Creating a Data Relationship with TV Viewers (Channel 4, UK)
– An audience analysis that was interesting if not particularly groundbreaking
– Did show some very cool personalized ads served on digital streaming
– Trying to sell on “ABC”: Audience demos, Behavioral info, Content/Context (building ads or pods related to the content being viewed)

Coffee Break

Industry Associations Speak Out (panel)
– “Muscle memory” [mentioned several times earlier in the day as a reason why various stakeholders don’t adopt new methods] is a good thing, because we need to consider both legacy standards and all viewers [eg, measurement needs to include all viewers, even those still watching VCRs, not just who consumes digital content] (George Ivie, Media Ratings Council)
– We as an industry need “TED Talks” to discuss marketing successes, not just continual talk about the challenges we are facing. (Bob Liodice, ANA)
– We eventually will need MRC audit and accreditation of sales or brand lift providers. If we are validating the data going in, then the loop should be closed by accrediting the lift calculations (Ivie)

Who’s Getting It Right? (panel)
– We need progress not perfection (Kate Sirkin, Publicis)
– Gaps that need to be filled:
— Complete multiplatform system, both pipes and data (Brian Hughes, MAGNA)
— Vendors need to take the time to understand our business to know what the business questions are (Lisa Heimann, NBC)
— Measuring attention or engagement, Magid’s Emotional DNA doesn’t scale. (Howard Shimmel, Turner)
— Be prepared to validate your methods (Daniel Slotwiner, Facebook)
— Transparency and validation. Measurement is now a team sport (Elissa Lee, Google)

Programmatic TV (panel)
– It still takes a long time to evaluate a campaign, up to six months (Dan Aversano, Turner)
– We could use a quick read on campaigns using proxy data (Greg Pharo, Coca-Cola)
– If you make one [national] ad addressable, then the whole program can’t be C3 rated by Nielsen’s rules (Aversano)
– There are too many layers, each with their hand out for a piece of the pie; this can force us to do what we CAN rather than what we would LIKE (Mike Bologna, One2One Media)
– Cycle times are becoming more and more compressed between pitch, sale, and execution (Aversano)

Is the TV Industry Ready for Ad Ratings?
– Results of 27 interviews with industry leaders by Artie Bulgrin
– In 1987, the PeopleMeter came on; 2009 C3 ratings; 2017 separate measures of content and of ads
– Having a standard cross-platform currency is seen as important but NOT critical
– Having an accurate measure of net reach and duplication IS seen as critical but doesn’t have to be “currency quality”

David Tice is the principal of TiceVision LLC, a media research consultancy.
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Categories : Advertising, Conferences, Mobile, Radio, Research business, Streaming Video, TV
Posted by David Tice 
· October 31, 2017 
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Out-of-Home is not out-of-mind at the ARF

ARF logoYesterday, the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF), in concert with the DPAA, presented a two hour seminar on “Maximizing OOH Impact” at its New York office. The seminar featured presentations by Nielsen, Clear Channel Outdoor, ESPN, and National Geographic/OAAA. While not a broad look at all OOH media, focusing mostly on TV and billboards, there were some interesting nuggets to be had.

The DPAA started out the day by saying that an increase in importance of OOH media is supported like a three-legged stool: consumers are spending more time out of home; there is less use of ad-supported media in-home; and OOH is increasingly digital in both display and in the process of advertising buying/selling/posting. While no data was presented to support the first two claims, it is helpful to see how the association is positioning this piece of the media industry.

OOH TV Viewing

Nielsen’s and ESPN’s presentations covered similar ground, discussing Nielsen’s new OOH TV measurement. This new service is based on using the PPM which is supplied to the Nielsen audio panel; those panelists can opt-in to the OOH TV service. Thus, while the data are collected and fused to the Nielsen TV panel, they cannot be considered currency quality – but as we see often in the media world, data filling an information vacuum does not always need to be held to currency quality.

In any case, the data do allow some interesting guidance about OOH TV use. First, young people drive it – the key TV demos of 18-34, 18-49, and 25-54 make up the majority of OOH viewers, and tend to watch OOH at a slightly higher proportion than they do in-home. Broadly generalizing from the specific data shown, it appears that game coverage could add about 15-20 percent to its audience by including OOH; general news and information programming somewhat less. These are notable increments for which subscribing networks now have a formal basis for monetizing more aggressively.

ESPN’s discussion about the new Nielsen service pointed out that they saw a higher lift for females versus males, and for Hispanics versus non-Hispanics. In the former case, their logic is that OOH tends towards event viewing, thus bringing in casual fans who are more likely to be female. In the latter case, Hispanics tend to have lower subscription levels to ESPN to begin with; thus watching OOH will have a larger impact than with non-Hispanics.

A big question – where is this OOH viewing taking place – is not answered by the new Nielsen service. They just know it’s not in the panelist’s home. Therefore this type of information will still need to be collected via respondent surveys done independently of the Nielsen OOH service.

Another interesting aspect is that by its dependence on an audio signal, the Nielsen service by default only counts viewing that the panelist would be able to also hear. Over the years, this has been a big debate among those wanting to count OOH viewership – should it only count if it’s both “eyes on” and “ears on,” or should “eyes on” without listening count, even if at a discount. This did not come up for discussion.

Clear Channel and Nat Geo

Clear Channel Outdoor discussed its RADAR product, which applies mobile digital data to billboards. Using anonymized smartphone data, CCO can tell if a device is in the vicinity of a billboard; if it’s heading towards the billboard; and if it’s on street with an acceptable view of the billboard. CCO can then further use geolocation to tell if that device entered a particular store within a particular time period – thus giving a passive measure of the effect of the billboard compared with non-exposed devices. Their data (not surprisingly) show that billboards outperform mobile ads only, and a brand that uses both outdoor and mobile ads gets compounded positive results better than either by itself.

Lastly, National Geographic and the OAAA discussed the very successful effort to promote the Photo Ark, a collection of photos of 7,000 endangered animals, and drive donations to preserving these animals. OAAA members donated the outdoor signage across all different types of locations such as billboards, transit ads, place-based media, and so on.

David Tice is the principal of TiceVision LLC, a media research consultancy.
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Categories : Advertising, Conferences, Out of Home (OOH), TV

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