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Tony Jarvis

Member since April 2006Contact Tony

As proprietor and Research Architect for the Olympic Media Consultancy we serve global clients in 3 key areas: Provide expert leadership, analysis, planning and strategic thinking to optimize the value and usage of available media/marketing and data/systems information. Generate increased marketing ROI (revenue, profitability and brand equity) by providing relevant insights through designing, executing and interpreting superior advertising research. Evaluate and improve advertising and media effectiveness for agencies and their clients by understanding, developing and managing meticulous consumer research and applying "leading edge" models and concepts. Tony was Chairman of CARF, Canada and is a former Board member of The ARF and MRC . An Olympian he was formerly the British Olympic Swim Team Captain. He writes Op Eds exclusively for Media Post and also offers regular pithy comments on Media Post articles. He refuses to use "Fakebook"!

Articles by Tony All articles by Tony

Comments by Tony All comments by Tony

  • Court Upholds Meta's $25 Million Fine Over Political Ad Disclosures by Wendy Davis (MediaDailyNews on 12/03/2024)

    Wendy, another great piece!  Based on social media's on-going, utterly irresponsible, and often blatantly false and/or toxic content, that the ad industry has not demanded Section 23O of the CDA be rescinded is surely shameful.  In my opinion, it speaks to the evident collusion between our major industry associations and Council's to ignore or condone damaging behaviours, specious metrics or a littany of unethical business processes.  These industry  entities regularly produce invaluable outputs to help move our industry forward. However, their lack of desire to protect themselves and their members from the influence (and wrath - X!) of the "media death stars" demands detailed assessment by their Board's of Directors.  The "Advertising: Who Cares?" Movement can  offer invaluable insights to any Board that would guide them in addressing an array of issues that have contributed to the erosion of the quality, accountability, transparency and equity of "our" business.

  • X, Former Twitter, Still A 'Hellscape' by Maarten Albarda (Media Insider on 11/22/2024)

    Maarten: I hope you can hear my applause for your insightful comments regarding X and  "Leon" Musk.Consumers are, thankfully, already swtiching to Bluesky but in the meantime should advertisers and their media media agencies that use/recommend X be publically shamed?  Should the ANA & the 4A's push for eliminating Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, 1996, that protects the social media "Death Stars" for responsibility for third party content generated by their users?  Those that agree please consider joining the "Advertsiing: Who Cares?" Movement. Olympic Media Consultancy is a proud member of its Measurement, Accountability, Transparency, and Neutrality Group becasue our industry deserves so much better than the current status quo.  https://www.advertisingwhocares.org/ 

  • Why Sequent Partners Is Packing It In: A Conversation With Spaeth & Sylvester by Joe Mandese (Planning & Buying Insider on 11/07/2024)

    The industry is losing two rare and honest brokers that never backed off telling media or  marketing truths whatever the consequences, e.g., "last touch attribution is nuts!".  Amen.  The current state of the media and consumer research and marketing analytics businesses has, I suggest, never been in such a weak, and often deliberately biased and misguided state.  Losing Jim and Alice adds further concerns that, in my opinion, the decline in quality, transparency, accountability, neutrality, and ethical business practices will continue.  The industry owes a huge debt to these two phenomenal leaders and thinkers.

  • Presidential Election Predictions Data: Where We Stand by Ed DeNicola (MediaDailyNews on 11/04/2024)

    Ed: A terrific analysis.  Remember Tony's polling Guidelines:  Only use high quality polls, e.g., J Ann Selzer Co. in Iowa.  Many are poor and therefore misleading. Even for high quailty polls double the estimated range of error to "truly"  understand the potential spreads.

  • Market Like An Olympian: Dream, Train, Compete by Ivy Cohen (Marketing Insider on 10/15/2024)

    Ivy: As an GB Olympian operating in the US, you have eloquently captured "our" mindset.  As a career global media & Ad researcher, data quality, validity and its derivation & methodological technique(s) are a vital cornerstone in developing "winning" brand marketing campaigns.  In my opinion, sadly too many metrics and databases in use today in our Ad & Media business should either be yellow carded (per real football, aka soccer), red carded, or even disqualified.  That includes some databases and/or "Standards" [sic] vetted by MRC.  The current farrago involving multiple TV/Video currencies (currency for any entity is singular!) and abuse of JIC's -Joint Industry Committees that have operated globally for years - here in the US being a case in point.  There are many other examples which is why as an Olympian, I joined and am heavily involved in the "Advertising: Who Cares?" Movement, because we need to bring trust, accountability and transparency back to all aspects of our craft especially to media research and metrics here in the US.   https://www.advertisingwhocares.org/#about 

  • The Good Thing About Doing The Right Thing Is That It's Right by Dave Morgan (Media Insider on 10/03/2024)

    Dave: Yet another solid POV but everyone just follows the money?  How many US ad execs are members of the "Advertising: Who Cares?" Movement?  (Privately of course otherwise they would likely lose thir jop!) I believe I was one of the first and also joined the Measurement & Accountability Workstream Group which presented in London at the first Who Cares? Conference - "Measurement principles have not changed but the practices have!"  Were you there?  The discussions we had on measurement, metrics, defintion of terms, quality, reliability, verification, etc. and their use and application were, sadly, damming with major industry players, associations and organisations in the US suggested as some of the worst protagonists.  Respectfully I would modify your council.  Independently and thoroughly verify (outside of any industry organisation!), then trust. 

  • Billups Unveils New Attention Metrics For Out-Of-Home Media Buys by Joe Mandese (MediaDailyNews on 10/02/2024)

    As OOH JICs worldwide generally follow the WOO Guidelines for OOH Audience Measurement, May 2022 (which MRC chose to completely ignore!!!), the question is does Billups subscribe to these services which provide an Eyes-On audience estimate including geo-demographic campaign reach and frequency?  If they do not why not?  If they do how much does their proprietary approach addis it valid and at what cost? 

  • Paramount Drops Nielsen In Pricing Dispute by Wayne Friedman (Television News Daily on 10/01/2024)

    Are we really that surprised??? Paramount along with NBCUniversal, FOX & Warner Bros. Discovery own OpenAP and consequently the"Multi-Currency Certification Committee" that is masquerading as a JIC.  It is unequivocally neither a JIC nor a MOC and as reported in Media Post smacks of conflicts of interest.  Currency for any medium's trading is singular. It avoids the confusions generated by this on-going farrago.  

  • Advertising -- Who Cares? Hopefully, You Do! by Maarten Albarda (Media Insider on 09/27/2024)

    Great "starter" piece Maarten. As a proud and early member of the "Advertising: Who Cares? Movement and the "Measurement & Accountability (and as critically Transparency) Workstream group, I believe we have a good handle on the measurement and research isssues plaguing our industy (most especially in the US!).  Developing constructive actionable solutions is a work in progress.  As ROUTE's Denise Turner stated, "The principles of measurement & accountability have not changed but the practices have".  I woud add to that serious cocnerns with an increasing lack of tranparency (especially in the US media measurement arena) which has regretably led to the increasing lack of trust across all sectors of the ad business and which drove this initiative to try and restore its quality, standing and equity with stakeholders, advertisers and critically, consumers. The industry owes a huge debt of thanks to Brain Jacobs and Nick Manning.  If you care about our industry please join the Movement.  https://www.advertisingwhocares.org/#about

  • The Short Attention Spans Of Trade Associations by Joe Mandese (Planning & Buying Insider on 09/25/2024)

    Did Wpromote use real person's based actual exposure data, i.e., Eyes/Ears-On measurement perhaps Lumen or TVision data for each of their reported "viewed" graphs; or, so called "viewable impressions" data which ONLY represents device-based content-rendered-counts.  The latter would provide very different graphs and conclusions versus the former.  As you are aware our industry has a nasty habit of using terms that would not stand up to scrutiny or have become nebulous, i.e., "impressions"!

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