January 25, 2023
Commentary
P&G's Measurement Cornerstones
- by Tony Jarvis , Op-Ed Contributor, September 22, 2021
With the advertising and media industries wrestling with “crossmedia measurement,” the second day of the Advertising Research Foundation’s (ARF) annual Audience x Science Conference Tuesday opened with Procter & Gamble Chief Brand Officer Marc Pritchard recommending cornerstones needed to address this Gordian Knot -- and other advertising concerns -- with a …
Tony, did Marc say how much money P&G was prepared to spend anually to fund a suitable---though of unspecified design---TV rating service?
No $ amount. According to my notes he did suggest that marketers should lead the way in collaboration with all major industry segments including the large industry Associations. The juxtaposition of the industry media measurement JIC's (outside the US and around the world) with the WFA initiative is intriguing.
As you would recall, it was P&G that attempted to start an industry TV measurement service here in the US many years ago.
Tony, I don't recall a P&G attempt to initiate a new TV rating service. Are you referring to Gale Metzger's SMART project of roughly 25 years ago? If, so, I worked on that one and my understanding is that it was funded by the three broadcast TV networks.
No. I beleive it was right before Gale's initiative but maybe right after it was closed down. Someone in the industry will remember. It was lead by a really agressive P&G Marketing Director as I recall but never really got off the ground.
Thanks for the coverage of the ARF's AxS conference. One day I will get there when it is safe to travel again.
I think that there could be underlying expectations that everything that can be measured should be measured, and that everything that should be measured can be measured, under the banner that we need to reinvent media and advertising measurement. The cost of precision is exponential, and getting supporters on board for that journey would be a Herculean effort.
I fully agree that the consumer must be at the heart of the measurement system. The problem is defining what do we mean by 'the consumer'.
To a TV broadcaster it is the viewer, to a radio station it is the listener, to the press publisher it is the reader, to the billboard owner it is the commuter/shopper, to the internet company it is the online-user. The list is virtually endless.
To the marketer it is the coffee drinker, the car buyer, the fashionista, the beer drinker. That list IS endless,
It is folly to expect that we will have such granularity. In fact the only way we would even approach such granularity is a panel of 7.8 billion people as every consumer is different in some way. And of course that will never happen for a plethora of reasons.
So folks, we will still need panels for media usage, strongly augmented by media owner first party data to derive some 'fit-for-purpose' audience metrics. The deeper you want to dive into the data for granularity, the bigger the panel needs to be - which has massive cost implications. The key is that the media metrics have to be on an equivalent basis - i.e. viewing thresholds of certified viewing (rather than just an impression served), or it is a waste of time and finances.
And equally importantly, that doesn't even take into account the role of the creative in the marketing/advertising message, which IMHO is crucial. A bad media plan can derail an advertising campaign, but even the greatest media plan cannot save a bad ad. And I know which is the more cost efficient path to improving marketing outcomes.