VAB: Sell-Side JIC Is A 'Council,' Not Committee: Sheds More Light On Operational Structure
- by Joe Mandese @mp_joemandese, February 20, 2023
More light was shed on the sell-side push to create a so-called “JIC” that would certify multiple new advertising currencies used to buy and sell TV and premium video advertising.
Speaking during a panel discussion at the Association of National Advertisers’ (ANA) media conference on Friday, Group Executive Vice President Bill Tucker described it as something that would have a “different operational structure than international JICs,” which normally stands for “joint industry committee,” and then asked Video Advertising Bureau Executive Vice President Danielle DeLauro to explain what it actually is and how it differentiates from the Cross-Media Measurement platform being developed by the ANA with input from the VAB and others.
It may be a nuanced divergence, but DeLauro went on to describe it not as a “committee,” but a “council.” In fact, she used the word "council" six times in her explanation, but never referred to it as a committee.
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Beyond that descriptive difference, she characterized the council as “publisher-led” and being driven by five of the VAB’s members, with the VAB’s involvement.
“This council is for something that is cross-screen,” she explained, adding: “It’s different in that it is not cross-media. It is cross-platform. It is something that is meant to be in the cross-platform landscape.”
Specifically, she said the council was conceived to deal with the fact that the TV industry’s legacy currency -- Nielsen’s panel-based TV ratings estimates -- “are going to be retired as of September 2024,” and there “has been an acceleration within the industry to try and find alternate solutions and really coming out with new ways of measuring television.
“What this council is looking to do is to really support the idea of a multi-currency future.”
DeLauro said that while the council will create certification standards for new currencies for “cross-platform” measurement unifying linear TV and streaming audience estimates, it is:
“Not looking to count currencies.”
“It’s not looking be be a currency.”
“It’s just looking to be a council that is looking to be unifying. And also looking to collaborate with buyers and sellers.”
Beyond that, DeLauro said, it will ultimately be up to “buyers and sellers” to determine which currencies they actually use in their negotiations, implying that the ad industry is in store for a whale new era of haggling over what currency to use -- that may make the old days of Aribtron vs. Nielsen (local TV), or MRI vs. Simmons (magazine audience) data look quaint by comparison.
In terms of how the council’s certified cross-platform currencies would interoperate with the ANA’s Cross-Media Measurement system, she said they are two very different but related things.
The currencies will be used by buyers and sellers to negotiate ad deals, but they will be able to input that data into the ANA’s cross-media measurement system to calibrate it with other media-measurement data in order to account for the impact of each in their campaigns, adjust their ad buys and “reallocate” ad budgets if and when necessary.
In other words they are simply trying to force Nielsen----or somebody else--- to "count" all of the "ad impressions" on whatever screen they appear and in every location---with a large, device monitoring panel---or assembly of panels. As for the exact definition of "ad audience" that is almost 100% certain to be that the ad message appered on the screen for at least two seconds and, sadly, it's most unlikely that it will aslo include an attentivenesss measure which detemines who and how many are in the room when the ad messge appears and, especially, if they are "watching". Attentiveness will be one of the many "alternative currencies" that various sellers and buyers might---or might not---- employ as an additional "refinement" to the much bigger "impression" stats that will, no doubt, be insisted upon as the basic "audience" currency.
Do I blame the sellers for this? Of course not. They are doing what comes naturally. Will the ANA sponsored initiative take a different view and include attentiveness as a basic component? That remains to be seen ---but I suspect that unless advertisers are prepared to fork up many millions of dollars annually for a really ad-relevant service then the sellers ---who foot most of the bill---will, again, have their way.
Ed: Spot on! A sellers led "Council" certifying currency measures to their established standards? MRC does that!
It appears that this is a continuing farrago of misinformation, confusion and avoidance of addressing the underlying issues. And per Joe's comment, we thought that MRI vs. Simmons and Nielsen versus Arbitron, neither of which lasted, was tough!
I believe we agree that there needs to be a single currency for each media platform which should be equivalent, as close as possible, to the single currency of each of the other major platforms - based on persons, not devices, measured Eyes/Ears-on which is considered the threshold of attention.
OOH via real JICs has offered such a currency, aka "visibilty adjusted contacts" VAC's, worldwide for the last 10+ years to avoid the discounting of those currencies not providing person's measured actual exposure to the programming or the ads by media agencies. Consequently OOH provides highly relevant learning opportunities for the US in the current imbroglio in so many ways. Thoughts?
I don't think the implications of the "VID" system that sits at the core of the cross media meaurement initiative are fully understood. Once the advertisers grasp that this "swiss army knife audience" goes way beyond the de-duplication of campaign audience then they will be happy to fully fund it and more.
Attention? sure. Custom audience metrics? ok. co-viewing? whatever.
These are media micro-adjustments relative to the business uses.
Chris, while I'm a long time supporter of attentiveness measurements for TV ----and radio as a matter of fact---going way back to the days of "media selection" models 60 years ago----I have long maintained that this kind of information has a great bearing on both TV programming and advertising evaluations. Taking the latter, if advertisers had attentive information for each commercial placelment as well as their total time buys they could see whether a particular execution was wearing out its welcome, who was attentive and to what portion of each message, what the real reach and frequency was for their campaigns, how they compare to rival brands, what percent of their advertising audience was duplicated by those for competing brands, etc. And even when it came to execution, if they were considering a certain approach for their commercials they could single out a particular target group and determine if it was particularily attentive to slice-of-life or celebrity endorsements or animation or special effects or certain kinds of music for commercials in general. Indeed if they were casting their commercials the same kind of analysis could be done---like is a particular star or performer more or less likely to capture attention.
I could go on and on about the possibilities, yet the thrust of this initiative seems to be on basic media planning issues like the duplication of a buy on one plaftform when melded with another and various configurations of assumed frequency which, frankly can be dealt with routinely right now by anyone with real media knowledge. Sadly, we are fishing in the pool with mostly small fish when there's a much larger one---with bigger and tastier fish---that we are igroring.
The larger one, in your opinion, is?
To explain. I see attentiveness as the only way to get a fix on who remains in the room and is watching a commercial minute or commercial. So, in that respect, it is a more accurate way to determine what we think we are getting now---"average commercial minute viewers". This is becuase the current people meter system assumes that a person who identifies himself/herself as a program viewer when the channel is first selected watches every second of content until the channel is changed---unless the system is notified that "viewing" has ceased. As this rarely happens---even though many people do in fact leave the room or become distracted---the result is a major overstatement of commercial audience.
Setting that point aside, of the three general areas where attentiveness can be used---TV time buying/media planning, TV programming, and advertising implications, I rate the last as potentially the one which could have the greatest impact and make a huge contribution to our knowledge---even though visual attention is a threshold indicator of impact and does not tell the whole story. This is because there is no other party to influence the outcome as is the case with TV Time buying. Here, the likely outcome once sellers understand that the buyers are trying to get higher representation on shows---dramas---with superior ad attention levels the sellers will respond by jacking up their CPMs for such placements potentially nullifying any gains even if such were attainable. However the sellers play no disruptive role when it comes to an advertiser learning how its commercials attract audiences, if they are wearing out, casting ideas, etc, etc. So such information can be used more meaningfully.
So asymetric views of the market between buyer and seller.
Media currency is a shared view while attention metrics an intepretation only available to the buy side. Even that doesn't go far enough. In the end analysis, attention (as a means) needs to be tied to sales (end) - either kinetic (now) or potential (in the sales cycle; can be years).
And therein lies the most interesting nugget around cross media - which again I think people are completely missing. VIDs can be connected to CRM and other first party data. But also the synthesis process that adds detail to aggregate, syndicated surveys and panels can also be applied attention metrics. VIDs become the key connector.
The problem, Chris, is that we operate in rigidly defined silos where none of the three parties--the TV time sellers/time buyers/media planners nor the CMOs/brand managers/ agency creatives or the TV programmers is integrated with the others. So, even though a capability such as attentiveness measurement has overlapping implications that are substantial, the time selling/ time buying/ media planning silo is the main if not the exclusive driver of the effort to find the "right" TV audience measurement system---I'm including all forms of "TV" in this. And it's orientation is limited to seller objectives---like finding all of the "viewers"and monetizing them ---or dealing with issues traditionally associated with the media planning function---like what's the "ideal" reach and frequency. These border on but do not really go to ad campaign effectiveness and certainly not to how TV programs are created.
The future is here but not evenly distributed.
Back to the VID concept - it's out there to address the specific issue of de-duplication but all the things that you and Tony bring up, and much much more are within that functionality. Tony was bang on taking about OHH as "in scope" Thing is, not a lot of people understand what is possible with synthetic data.