• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, June 12, 2024

Two years after embarking on an ambitious plan to develop a next generation measurement system enabling advertisers to control the reach and frequency of their ads across linear and nonlinear platforms, the Association of National Advertisers is spinning it off as a for-profit business that will be owned by the non-profit ANA.

The new company, Aquila LLC, already has made significant strides awarding two major industry suppliers to develop key elements of its system:

• Kantar Media, which will create new consumer panel that will be used to calibrate the reach and frequency of audience exposure across platforms.

• Accenture, which will oversee the overall system's technical requirements and will design the end-user interface advertisers use to analyze the reach and frequency of their campaigns across platforms.

Technical specifications, including the size and scope of the new consumer calibration panel, as well as the timing of the rollout, were not disclosed at this time, but Aquila is expected to roll out a beta version around the second quarter of 2025 and, ultimately a fully commercialized version later next year.

The 21 founding ANA members who participated in funding the initiative will receive certain benefits -- mainly discounted pricing on utilizing Aquila -- but the system will be a commercial service available for other third-parties, including non-ANA member companies to use.

“After sufficient testing and validation, Aquila is moving the [Cross Media Measurement] initiative to the next phase of bringing a scaled CMM solution to the U.S. This will unlock substantial value for all stakeholders and deliver an improved ad experience for all audiences and segments through transparent measurement,” said ANA Group Executive Vice President Bill Tucker, who will co-currently serve as president of Aquila, overseeing its operations.

Aquila will operate as a a separate and independent business from ANA and will have its own independent staff and a board of directors, as well as an advisory board composed of industry experts.

While Aquila is not intended to be a profit center, it was established as a for-profit company in order to be self-sustainable.”  

Its principles-based approach to deliver a privacy-by-design, neutral and transparent technical solution, as well as its Aquila branding, were designed to complement two separate, but cooperative global measurement initiatives developed by collegial trade associations outside the U.S.: ISBA Origin and WFA’HALO’.

"We're working in a coordinated way with WFA [World Federation of Advertisers], which has the HALO brand, and ISBA [Incorporated Society of British Advertisers], which has the Origin brand, so we were seeking alignment with galaxy thinking," explained Tucker, noting that the name Aquila is derived from a stellar constellation.

"It's a constellation of stars that has stars in it that are used by astronomers to measure the distances between the galaxies," he noted, adding, "So there's a measurement symbolism. But it also turns out that it's Latin for the word 'eagle," which is a nice thing too."

The timing of awarding Kantar Media the calibration panel project is noteworthy, because Kantar Media has not had an operational media measurement service in the U.S. for some time, but recently named former New York-based Google executive Nicole Gileadi its Chief Strategy Officer for North America, including responsibility for building out U.S.-based products.