Commentary

Marketers Still Smarting Over Facebook Measurement Slip

Think marketers have made peace with Facebook over its recent restatement of average video views?

Not quite.

After a week of contemplation, the Association of National Advertisers is calling the bloated estimates a big deal.

“The recent disclosures by Facebook that they overestimated video viewing for two years is troubling,” ANA President and CEO Bob Liodice asserts in a new blog post. “While ANA recognizes that ‘mistakes do happen,’ we also recognize that Facebook has not yet achieved the level of measurement transparency that marketers need and require.”

What’s more, considering the fact that Facebook’s metrics have yet to be accredited by the Media Rating Council, Liodice is calling for an official audit.

“With more than $6 billion of marketers’ media being directed to Facebook, we believe that it is time for them … to be audited and accredited,” Liodice notes.

Not all industry leaders have been so critical of Facebook. At an Advertising Week event, this week, Interpublic Group CEO Michael Roth said the matter was “not that big a deal.” That’s because average time viewed is “not a key measurement for buying on Facebook,” Roth said.

Jeff Hinz, managing partner and digital director Mediacom, told me something similar, earlier this week.

“From a position perspective with my clients, we don’t buy on those standards from Facebook … so it doesn’t affect us,” Hinz said during a panel discussion at OMMA Video, on Wednesday.

“However, what it does speak to it is … transparency and accountability,” Hinz notes. In other words, it’s a “true issue,” he said.

 Likewise, Roth said that the ad industry’s general lack of transparency is indeed “a big deal.”

1 comment about "Marketers Still Smarting Over Facebook Measurement Slip ".
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  1. Rod Ellis from Adams Outdoor Advertising , September 30, 2016 at 12:44 p.m.

    It seems that every week we learn that the most measurable media, digital online, is not so measurable. Very curious!

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