Change has been the only constant of the past 18 months, but for brands that know how to adapt, this change represents opportunity. Holistic measurement – from understanding incremental impact across channels to building in considerations for macro factors like consumer behavior shifts and the pandemic – is key to sustained growth.
The ARF’s Paul Donato interviewed Snap’s Gaz Alushi about the impact of privacy-centric ecosystems on measurement and the consumer. From his perspective of working within a walled garden, Gaz speaks to how Snap puts the consumer first without conflating tracking with measurement in capturing the impact of an ad campaign. Paul and Gaz also discussed the industry’s response to privacy regulations, working with first- and third-party data, the MRC’s cross-platform standards, and how Snap works with partners across the spectrum to measure its audiences.
Stephen DiMarco (Tubular Labs) moderated this discussion on the second day of the conference with the anchor commentators who shared their perspectives on what they heard and what it means.
Realeyes uses software solutions for measuring human attentional and emotional response to advertising. Max Kalehoff explained the importance of attention measurement as a gauge of brand performance. He urged companies, particularly those with latent sales, to incorporate it into their business models.
Moderator Jorge (TikTok) asked the panelists three key questions:
MediaCell is an app that transforms a smartphone, tablet, or laptop into a passive portable audiometer. It also captures on-device consumption of audio and video. It is currently deployed in panels in the U.K. and Australia and will soon by deployed in South Africa. Ipsos is working with Kantar to use MediaCell in the Netherlands to produce the radio currency there. Its audio measurement capabilities are based on ACR technology. It is easy to on-board panelists; Jim noted that there were no breaks in the data in their U.K. panel due to the pandemic.
Nielsen uses the Portable People Meter (PPM) to passively measure audiences for radio and to enhance its national and local TV ratings. It is now testing a new wearable device to replace the PPM to measure audio and to replace button-pushing to measure person-level television audiences. The new wearable is intended to enable cross-platform measurement of audio and video. Two other pieces of equipment accompany the device – a beacon to allow Nielsen to distinguish between in-home and out-of-home exposure and a data hub to transmit the data back to Nielsen. Another component of the wearable system is a mobile app which will enable engagement and communication with Nielsen and can also be used to transmit data back to Nielsen.
Amobee’s Alexander Knudsen covered the benefits of cross-screen measurement in a fragmented media landscape and the insights it provides for planning and buying teams with a client case study from Toyota and H&L Partners. Addressing marketers’ key issues with a converged planning approach, Alexander detailed how cross-screen analysis worked with Amobee’s 4Screen Experience measurement product as well as how Toyota used the resulting insights to optimize in real-time.
The major challenge to measurement is the vast amount of content to measure and the ability to deduplicate across the many screens. Inclusiveness is the second major challenge – showing the face of America. But this is an opportunity also. The third is chasing identity and privacy at the same time.
Scott introduced Marc Pritchard to the ARF stage with a discussion about the most important marketing and advertising measurement challenges in the industry and Procter & Gamble’s priorities in approaching solutions. While the perpetual fragmentation of the media ecosystem is complicating accurate measurement across platforms, advertisers still have the same simple questions, according to Marc. The consumer is the center of it all – how many people are advertisers reaching, how often are they reaching them, and how effective and efficient is the advertising itself?