NBCU Names iSpot.tv National 'Currency' For Upfront Ad Buys
- by Wayne Friedman , March 22, 2022
NBCUniversal says iSpot.tv will be this upfront ad market’s cross-platform "currency" partner for marketers for the 2022-2021 TV season.
NBC has added eight other certifications, beyond the previously announced iSpot.tv. It has also added seven new "certified" measurement partners.
"As we head into the upfront season, we wanted to make it clear that, at this moment in time, we will be transacting against our certified cross-platform partner, iSpot.tv," Kelly Abcarian, executive vice president of measurement & impact, advertising and partnerships, NBCUniversal, said in a release at the start of NBC’s One22 developer conference on Tuesday.
Abcarian also said: "Marketers can now leverage iSpot’s viewership data to activate cross-platform advanced audience media plans."
advertisement
advertisement
Offering up more detail around all its measurement partners, NBC now says iSpot.tv will be the national "currency contender" for audience measurement.
Other measurement certifications include Comscore, which will be the "currency contender" for local audience measurement and Conviva for streaming/digital audience measurement.
For audience verification, measurement companies include: DoubleVerify, Oracle's MOAT, Integral Ad Science, iSpot.tv (for ad catalog); and Comcast's FreeWheel and Innovid (for ad serving).
Abcarian added: “Our certifications aren’t permanent or set in stone. In a space as dynamic as measurement, companies must keep pace with consumer behavior.”
NBC did not disclose specifics around its certification process.
For its supply-side platform, NBCU’s One Platform, which the company is starting in October of this year, it will have fully enabled “programmatic” buying on its streaming platform Peacock, with programmatic guaranteed activation of NBCUnified audiences.
NBC says “scaling” cross-platform activation will be done with iSpot and cross-publisher activation will be done with advanced advertising platform OpenAP.
For better media workflow, NBC says automated cross-platform RFPs (request for proposals) will be done in partnership with Mediaocean and Salesforce.
NBCU says it will launch the new Peacock DSP (demand-side platform) integrations with Adobe, Amazon, Amobee, Beeswax, Samsung DSP, Viant and Xandr, as well as Peacock private marketplace deals, and on Peacock linear channels and premium live events.
The way I read this, NBCU is naming iSpot.tv as the audience currency supplier for its AVOD time sales and anything else that is non-linear" for the upcoming year, but will use Nielsen for its much, much larger "linear TV" sales. I also assume Nielsen's new "Big Data" service is a likely "contender" to provide NBCu's non-linear currency in the future---when the new service is MRC accredited and has been vetted by buyers and sellers.
As for local market ratings, as it always has been, Comscore is a "contender" for audience measurement but NBCU will be using Nielsen.
Some people are dancing in the streets thinking that this is the end of Nielsen but that's not a realistic evaluation. While I wish all of the contenders the best---nationally and locally----what is really needed are objective validation studies of the various methodologies compared to some sort of "gold standard" or "ideal" method of measureing what these companies claim to be measuring. In days of yore, the telephone coincidential was thought to be the best method but not anymore. So what would we use as the "perfect" method in a validation study? That's a though one to answer---but, perhaps, a "camera" style attentiveness study might serve that purpose. Maybe.