News You Can Use

comScore and Rentrak to Merge, Creating Leading Cross-Platform Measurement Company

• Posted: October 5, 2015

On September 29, 2015 comScore, Inc. and Rentrak Corporation announced that the companies have entered into a definitive merger agreement.  According to the press release on comScore’s website, the new company will provide even more robust measurement solutions to the media and advertising industries.  This press release also states that the merger “paves the way for new cross-platform ratings currency and expands choice for the television and advertising industries.”

Serge Matta, comScore’s current CEO, who will lead the combined company as CEO, provided insight into the strategic rationale for the merger,  “Together we have an even more powerful ability to deliver what our clients and the media industry have long been asking for: a comprehensive cross-platform measurement currency that accounts for all the ways in which content is consumed, whether that happens on a desktop, mobile device, live or time-shifted TV, video on demand or through over-the-top devices.”

Bill Livek,  Rentrak’s current Vice Chairman & CEO, will serve as the company’s Executive Vice Chairman & President.  He stated “Both companies have been innovators in content and consumer measurement, advanced demographics and analytics, providing the industry with world-class digital, TV and movie consumption information. This merger will accelerate the pace of that innovation, and offer an improved solution for cross-platform measurement, not available anywhere else.” He also stated, “Rentrak’s expertise in precisely measuring TV and movies, and comScore’s industry-leading digital measurement capabilities, are natural complements. Combined, our expertise and information assets will enable us to provide the industry with the most granular measurement solutions that reflect the ever-changing way that people are consuming content across platforms.”

 

 

 

The Great Debate Video-Game of Media Thrones-Who Will Wear the Crown?

• Posted: October 5, 2015

Gayle Fuguitt, CEO & President, The Advertising Research Foundation, introduced this debate. Steven Wolfe Pereira, VP, Brand Strategy & Marketing Solutions, Oracle, moderated the panel composed by David Poltrack, CRO, CBS; President, CBS VISION; Howard Shimmel, CRO, Turner Broadcasting; David Morgan, CEO & Founder, Simulmedia; Margo Georgiadis, President, Americas, Operations, Google; Radha Subramanyam, President of Insights, Research & Data Analytics, iHeartMedia, and Brad Smallwood, Head of Measurements and Insights, Facebook. Participant discussed how all parties (brands, agencies and publishers) should provide transparency to data and methodologies so the industry can develop better solutions for cross platform audience buying and measurement.

 

The C-Suite Mobilizes

• Posted: October 5, 2015

During Advertising Week, leaders in the world of media measurement and analytic services participated in a panel discussion, which was moderated by Gayle Fuguitt, President and CEO, ARF.  The “The C-Suite Mobilizes” panel discussed and debated two major issues:

-When will analytic and measurement functions look, feel and act as smartly as your mobile phone?

-How is the C-Suite leading us out of the “Frankenmetrics” world?

Participants in this panel:

Artie Bulgrin, SVP, Global Research & Analytics, ESPN

Steve Hasker, Global President, Nielsen

Bill Livek, Vice Chairman & CEO, Rentrak

Pierre Le Manh, CEO, Ipsos, North America

Andrew Appel, President & CEO, IRI

Lori Hiltz, CEO, Havas Media, North America

Serge Matta, President & CEO, comScore

Brian Wong, CEO/Founder, Kiip

The participants discussed the dramatic changes and fragmentation in the field of media measurement and demographic currencies, the lack of standards across media platforms, the development of large cross-platform measurement services, the influence of big data and many other critical issues.

Gayle concluded the panel by presenting a final question to all participants: “Looking ahead five years, how will buyers and sellers be transacting in the year 2020?”
Speaking at this Advertising Week panel, Nielsen Global President, Steve Hasker, discussed his company’s “total audience measurement tool,” which the company will roll out by the end of 2015.  This product will provide a way to measure audience across all platforms, so that advertisers and media companies will be able to track viewership of digital and TV content in an apples-to-apples fashion, according to Nielsen.

Steve Hasker also stated the CBS will begin to include Nielsen’s digital audience measurement in its TV ratings, according to reporting by Steven Perlberg, The Wall Street Journal.

 

 

 

Insights2020: Facing 2020 with 20/20 Vision

• Posted: October 5, 2015

During Advertising Week in New York, Millward Brown Vermeer presented the initial findings from the Insights2020-Driving Customer-Centric Growth Study.  This study was undertaken in partnership with The Advertising Research Foundation (ARF), ESOMAR, LinkedIn, Kantar, and Korn Ferry.

Insights2020 examines the drivers of customer-centricity and describes how being a customer-focused company impacts business and financial performance. The research revealed a number of striking differences between over- and under-performing organizations, and all tie back to three key dimensions of customer-centric growth: Total Experience, Customer Obsession and Insights Engine.  

Among these findings:

-74 percent of companies that over-perform on revenue growth create customer experiences based on data driven insights as opposed to only 30% of the under-performing companies.

-83 percent of revenue growth over-performers link everything the company does to its brand purpose, as opposed to only 31 percent among revenue growth under-performers.

-62 percent of over-performers leverage insights and analytics to drive consistency across all customer touch-points, only 26 percent of under-performers do.

-In 78 percent of over-performing companies, customer-centricity is fully embraced by all functions whereas this is only true in 12 percent of the under-performing companies.

-66 percent of all over-performers are working to link their disparate data sources, compared with only 33 percent of under-performing companies doing so.

-The Insights and Analytics function reports straight into the CEO in 33 percent of over-performer companies; this is true for only 13 percent of the under-performers.

This study was based on more than 325 in-depth interviews with senior marketing and insights leaders, and 10,000+ interviews with practitioners across 60 markets

These initial findings are being presented this week at the ESOMAR Annual Congress in Dublin, Ireland; as part of Advertising Week in New York with the ARF; and in Austin, TX, at The American Marketing Association (AMA) Annual Meeting.

The attached press release provides additional details about the differences between over-and under-performing organizations and the impact of customer-centricity.

 

Is the Future of TV Programmatic?

• Posted: September 28, 2015

The panel discussion, “Is the Future of TV Programmatic?” was a highlight at comScore’s first industry summit on the future of audiences and advertising.  Josh Chasin, writing for the comScore Insights blog, discussed the working definition developed by the panel, “Programmatic is simply about automation.”  However, the panelists also felt that “one of the principal implications of this automation is the opportunity to introduce data assets into the transaction process in a more efficient way than ever before.”

Chasin points out that the panelists were all strongly positive on programmatic growth in TV advertising transaction; however, they also unanimously believe that the upfronts will continue in the near future.  As long as the demand for TV advertising inventory exceeds the available supply, there will be an upfront market in order to secure access to that inventory.

However, this TV inventory (or “video inventory” is the term preferred by the panelists) will increasingly be transacted programmatically.  In addition, the scatter market is expected to develop in a similar manner to the RTB, the exchange-based market in the digital space.  Programmatic platforms will enable scatter deals to get done closer to real time.

The panelists agreed that TV is going programmatic, which will benefit both buyers and sellers.

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Mobile to Overtake Newspapers

• Posted: September 28, 2015

According to the latest Advertising Expenditure Forecasts from ZenithOptimedia, in 2016 mobile internet advertising will become the world’s third-largest advertising medium, behind television and desktop internet and ahead of newspapers.

The media agency’s forecasts show that next year mobile will account for 12.4% of global adspend while newspapers will take 11.9%. In terms of actual value, mobile advertising will grow 38% in 2016 to US$71bn, while newspaper advertising will shrink 4% to US$68bn.

Mobile advertising is the driving force behind the growth of the entire advertising market, ZenithOptimedia stated, as it will contribute 83% of all new ad dollars between 2014 and 2017. And as mobile continues its inexorable rise, so print continues to decline across most of the world. ZenithOptimedia predicts that newspaper adspend will shrink by an average of 4.9% a year through to 2017, while magazine advertising will shrink by 3.2% a year. Their combined share of global adspend will fall from 19.6% this year to 16.7% by 2017.

In that year, internet advertising is expected to account for 34% of global adspend, slightly behind television’s 35.9% and is likely to gain the top spot in 2018 on current trends. Total adspend is forecast to grow 4% this year to reach US$554bn before accelerating to 5% in 2016, thanks to the four-yearly boost supplied by the summer Olympics and US presidential election.

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Neuroscience in Marketing: Fact and Fiction

• Posted: September 28, 2015

 

Heather Andrew, UK CEO of Neuro-Insight, a consumer neuro research specialist firm, discusses the fact and fiction around the neuroscience techniques which enable advertisers to understand what consumers think about their campaigns.  By using these techniques to assess brain activity, subconscious, emotional responses of consumers can be revealed.  These responses are often difficult to measure via traditional research.

Among the Facts:                                                             

-Neuroscience adds value on top of traditional research methods: measuring the brain activities of audiences provides clarity on issues that people might not be conscious of or find difficult to articulate.  Neuroscience helps to identify emotional responses and to identify what is stored in memory on a second-by-second basis as audiences engage with content.

-Measurement of memory is crucial to assessing ad effectiveness: successful memory encoding has a strong correlation with decision-making and purchase behavior, and is the most important metric on which neuroscience can report.  Emotional response is also crucial, but high memory encoding levels are important to great advertising.

Among the Fictions:

-Neuroscience can read minds.  Fact: neuroscientists use technology to identify which parts of the brain are active as consumers interact with different types of content. Analysis of this information provides insights about the impact of the content.

-Measurement and analysis will stifle creativity. Fact: neuroscience often highlights the effectiveness of highly creative ads that can be undervalued by other methodologies.

-You only need a small sample when using neuroscience. Fact: samples of approximately 50 people are generally viewed as a minimum cell size.

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83% of Technology and Business Stakeholders Capture IoT Data, 8% Make the Most of It

• Posted: September 28, 2015

The intersection of the Internet of Things (IoT) and big data has great business impact potential. This article by Chuck Martin, writing for Media Post, presents findings from the study “IoT Meets Big Data and Analytics.”  This study, conducted by Dimensional Research for ParStream, sought to understand the stakeholder experiences and challenges related to IoT. The study presents the results of an online survey of 200 business people with professional responsibility for IoT projects.

Among the findings:

-While 83% of these stakeholder collect data, only 8% are making the most of it by fully capturing and analyzing it in a timely fashion.

-77% view data collection and analysis as important in their IoT projects.

-44% believe there is too much data to analyze effectively.

-36% feel that it is difficult to capture useful data.

-34% of the respondents either don’t store or don’t analyze any IoT data.

If the challenges involved in IoT projects could be resolved:

-76% of respondents would collect and store more data.

-70% believe they would make improved business decisions if they were able to capture and store data faster and more cost effectively.

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Mobile Phone Video Viewers Spending Most of Their Time With Short-Form Content

• Posted: September 28, 2015

According to Ooyala’s Global Video Index’s Q2 2015 study, online video viewers using mobile phones spent two-thirds of their viewing time in Q2 with content less than 10 minutes in length.

According to the report’s executive summary, mobile phones and PCs are equally popular (at 32% each) for short-form videos of 1-3 minutes in length.  However, when it comes to content over 10 minutes in length, tablets (57%) and connected TVs (53%) were the top choice of views, followed by desktop (40%) and mobile phones (33%).

The report further analyzed content over 30 minutes in length: connected TVs were the top choice (52%), followed by tablets (36%), mobile phones (23%), and PCs (22%).

In Q2 2015, mobile video plays exceeded 44%, and by the end of 2015, Ooyala expects mobile to account for more than 50% of all global video plays.

 

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22% of Cable Customers Also Subscribe to OTT Services

• Posted: September 21, 2015

According to a new study by Millward Brown Digital, 22% of cable subscribers also subscribe to an over-the-top service.  Although some cable subscribers do cut the cord when they become OTT subscribers, other cable customers want both types of content, and therefore, maintain both subscriptions.

Jon Lafayette, writing for Broadcasting & Cable, presents additional findings from this Millward Brown Digital report:

-Netflix is the largest OTT provider.

-HBO, which introduced HBO Now earlier this year, is currently experiencing the fastest growth.

-Amazon Instant Video is also growing faster than Netflix.

-Hulu has been growing more slowly over the last few quarters, but has recently introduced an ad-free tier.

-Millennials represent the majority of HBO and Netflix subscribers.

-35% of cable login subscribers are millennials.

-25% of cable subscribers are baby boomers.

According to Millward Brown Digital, content plays an important role in the consumer subscription decision.  According to this study, “It’s important to note these insights do not declare the death of cable TV.  Rather, they highlight the importance of content to a cable provider’s overall strategy and the importance of targeting that content to different generations.”

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