What The Joint Industry Committee Means For Ad Measurement

by Laurie Sullivan , January 9, 2023

OpenAP, an advanced advertising company, worked with national programmers such as Fox, NBCUniversal, Paramount, TelevisaUnivision, and Warner Bros. Discovery and the VAB to create a committee that will certify multiple cross-platform currencies. The deal, announced Monday, aims to create the certification by the 2024 upfront.

The Joint Industry Committee (JIC), as it is called, will host an event with the goal of accelerating multi-currency industry efforts.

The group says the measurement certification process -- which will not replace the Media Rating Council (MRC) or other organizations that certify measurement -- should begin in partnership with the VAB starting this month.

The JIC also plans to create an open-source programmer data set where third-party measurement firms can combine data with streaming viewership data.

With connected television (CTV) becoming a source of integration with search, Search & Performance Marketing Daily (SPMD) reached out to OpenAP to get more information on the formation of JIC.

OpenAP CMO Brittany Slattery shared her thoughts about the partnerships and clarified some of the strategies.

SPMD: Are those working with the organization on loan from other companies?

Slattery: The JIC will be a separate entity, but initially will be managed and launched out of OpenAP. The infrastructure is already in place to make this happen through the work OpenAP has done, particularly with the clean-room developments with Snowflake. We will be able to turn this around quickly because of that.

SPMD: Where will the programming dataset be housed as open source?

Slattery: The new unified programmer streaming data set will be housed in the OpenAP Data Hub, which is the cross-platform and cross-publisher clean room solution OpenAP is building in partnership with Snowflake.

The OpenAP Data Hub enables the seamless sharing of proprietary digital exposure data resolved to OpenIDs with authorized constituents, without the actual moving of data. The solution was announced last June, you can get more details on that announcement here.

SPMD: Why did it take so long for these companies to initiate the change?

Slattery: In 2022, significant progress was made by participating programmers to create the infrastructure needed to transact on new currencies.

Examples include NBCUniversal’s Measurement Innovation Forum and Currency Council and The VAB’s Measurement Innovation Task Force. Now, the JIC’s role is to accelerate the progress of all of the individual efforts and create common standards that can be scaled across the entire premium TV ecosystem.

SPMD: Why is the option of another measurement system so important for the industry?

Slattery: Advertisers have long requested more choice and options in measurement currencies, and we collectively believe more competition will drive innovation.

Additionally, CTV cannot be measured by a panel. It must be census-based and requires publishers' permission for full coverage.

The control and standard audit of collective programmer streaming data will be provided to those who meet the certification requirements.

SPMD: What media is included in the cross-measurement?

Slattery: Premium long-form video. This excludes short-form user-generated content like TikTok.

We expect several more programmers to join the JIC in the weeks and months.

The requirement is that they must represent premium long-form video content and agree to the same guidelines as the programmers in sharing their streaming data.

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2 comments about "What The Joint Industry Committee Means For Ad Measurement".

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Tony Jarvis from Olympic Media Consultancy, January 10, 2023 at 4:27 p.m.
As shoud be noted by all Media Post Staff writers and contributors, this entity is NOT a JIC but a MOC - Media Owner Commitee. Very very different. In addition, beware any measurement or so called currency approach that does not involve a truely representative persons panel. It is only via the attention of a brand target group (persons!) that brand campaigns can generate an outcome.
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Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, January 10, 2023 at 7 p.m.

I would add to Tony's comment that we should be wary of the term "currency" as it implies the use of some metric other than "audience" as the sole result that a seller would guarantee to a time buyer.

For example can we imagine that a seller and buyer would agree on total CTRs generated instead of "audience impressions" for a branding---not a direct response---- advertiser? Not likely. Or would a seller promise ACR panel measured TV set usage ratings, instead of Nielsen measured TV set and "viewer" ratings? That doesn't make sense. Same point applies to other indicators such as pupil dilations, facial contortions or attentiveness. Somehow, you need to project these against an "audience" base to calculate your "cost efficiencies".

In just about every case that I have heard of, the seller starts with an audience tonnage guarantee---based, sadly, on the fact that the ad appeared on a TV screen---not that it was watched---aka "impressions". Then, where it seems appropriate---and beneficial--- to the seller a second guarantee may be made which uses some other metric or an index re targeting---that will be projected against Nielsen GRPs to compute "targeted GRPs". Or, in the case of attentiveness, the effective number of eyes-on -screen GRPs. That's all---- and let's not assume that these machinations are applied universally as many buys---especially those in the upfront---are focused almost exclusively on low balling a corportion's CPMs.