Editor’s Note: Two articles, from different sources, mirrored this opinion: marketers no longer have the tools to accurately determine what messages connect with consumers. (Article two of two.)
The media industry is still nowhere near reaching consensus on how to measure video content and advertising across different platforms, like mobile, live TV, etc.
Why it matters: The industry had hoped to come to an agreement on a universal standard by this point, but efforts have been sidelined mostly by the competing interests from different companies that worry a uniform standard may not paint their numbers in the best light.
“We’re a bit stalled … There are many players competing in the measurement and attribution space, but they don’t have representative samples. They’re all slightly biased by their own footprints … And it’s not conducive for advertisers to manage their investments.”
— Jane Clarke, CEO, Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM)
The Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM), an LLC backed by industry stakeholders from various mediums, put out a study of all the companies trying to solve for the problem. CIMM identified over two dozen vendors working on video performance measurement and attribution, and the list is growing.
Over the past two years, the media measurement industry has become more fragmented than ever, as new companies and products launch to take advantage of voids in measurement and attribution.
The Media Rating Council, the de facto industry watchdog, began gathering comments last year for a proposed “Audience Measurement Standard” that was supposed to be adopted by everyone beginning this year. But disagreement over the standard, and in particular how to weigh the duration of a view on different platforms, has caused the non-biased standard to generally be ignored.
TV networks like ESPN and NBC have created their own video measurement metrics. And digital platforms still all use different standards to measure what constitutes as a view, with most adopting definitions so short that a “view” is considered no more than a portion of a video’s pixels being watched for a second or two.
Traditional players in media measurement have been trying to improve their methodologies to meet the new times, but have also had to deal with corporate struggles, which have in some cases held them back from innovating as quickly as they would’ve liked to.
Source: Fischer, S. (2018, September 18). Axios Media Trends #4: Video Measurement Is Still a Total Mess. Axios.