• by Skip Brand , June 12, 2014

All the Cannes Lions party invites are out, the juries are formed, and all that is left now is to announce the winners!  Something as subjective as judging creative can come out in the advertising world with just one winner, great runner-ups and not many complaints. However, after 20+ years of CTR measurement, the industry has not proven it can provide a fast, simple and easy brand score to help brand advertisers plan, buy and validate in real-time premium programmatic or RTB (real-time branding, not just bidding).  A new, differentiated -- yet accepted -- brand score is needed as TV brand dollars begin flowing naturally into premium programmatic in all formats, especially in digital video.

Today’s best solution for measuring brand advertising comes from Google, the 800-pound gorilla in digital. They have been demonstrating over and over again that measuring brand lift and brand recall can simply solve all our problems.  Many do not believe that to be the case.

Back in 2007, Radcliffe and Partrick first defined uplift of brand lift metrics at the same time the Marketing Accountability Standards Board (MASB) was founded to establish marketing metrics for continual improvement in brand recall. This movement in metrics was in response to a growing demand for accountability, standards and scaling at the time of web 1.0.   Much as they did back in 2007, Google, Nielsen and Comscore continue to use surveys through qualitative measures, but these simple measures are not helpful in the present real-time marketing world. This new world requires a fast, simple measure with mobile, local and big data incorporated as needed.

A recent study found that during Q1 of 2014, 90% of buyers of digital video purchased their ads in similar fashion as they did for TV with a cautiously fixed CPM. Buyers do what they are accustomed to. Despite this inertia, there is a bright spot that these brand marketers want to measure more than click-through rate and completions. According to the video study, cross-screen buys are looking for a fast and simple brand metric or score with brand action, impact, sales, lift and recall as these buying habits are moving into premium programmatic.

Many chief marketing officers (CMOs) care deeply about helping with the company’s business goals, increasing the brand value and winning awards. These CMOs are engaged at Cannes Lions to win their respective creative awards while they live and die based on their company’s respective Interbrand Best Global Brands rank, product Q Scores or their contribution-based business KPIs. The CMOs I know want more than search metrics, CTR’s, completions, viewablity, and antiquated 2007 brand lift survey results. They want a simple measure, score or metric they can use in digital and cross-screen in the fast-paced world of marketing.

Many of the world’s ecosystems use single scores or ratings that many can agree on, build, evolve and make into a standard. A CMO’s new best friend is the chief data officer. This key figure helps internally, and now externally, using big data science and measurement as the key executive-defining strategy for the next growth opportunities, product offerings, markets to pursue – and for competitors to look at. 

John Wanamaker gave us the one of the oldest clichés in advertising when he said, “Half of the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” We solved this dilemma quite a few years ago with qualitative and quantitative analysis and Web 2.0 techniques.  However, a Brand Score using meta-analysis and a single, simple real-time analytics tool will make premium programmatic really take off for brand advertisers. These new sophisticated brands want a single brand metric that can incorporate cross-screen measurement and use the “KISS” (“Keep It Simple Stupid”) principle when incorporating mobile, local and big data into a real-time score.