‘Hit a wall’: Why TV advertising’s measurement currency change won’t happen in this year’s upfront cycle

By Tim Peterson

For as quickly as Nielsen’s grip on the TV measurement market appears to have loosened in the last year, the measurement provider will likely retain its hold on this year’s upfront. That conclusion has become more and more apparent as TV ad buyers and sellers have waded deeper and deeper into the present discord of the various measurement providers contending to be adopted as currencies.

“The currency thing, it’s kind of just hit a wall,” said a TV network executive.

While TV networks, advertisers and agencies will incorporate alternative measurement providers into their upfront deals this year, their inclusion will be largely limited to tests, and Nielsen’s measurements will be the currency on which upfront transactions are agreed to, according to executives at TV networks and agencies.

“We’re paying for Nielsen ratings anyway, and we won’t agree to [an alternative] currency without having done tests against Nielsen,” said one agency executive.

Omnicom Media Group has been participating in tests of alternative currencies with multiple clients, “but that being said, we’re not 100% confident that that’s what we should be transacting on this upfront,” said Sharon Cullen, president of integrated investment at Omnicom Media Group’s Hearts & Science.

“I don’t think we’ll do a lot of guarantees on anything other than what’s traditionally been done,” said Stacey Stewart, U.S. chief marketplace officer at UM Worldwide. “I think we’ll do some deals where we look at alternative measurement or consider alternative measurement as part of the deal in some way, shape or form. But I think those will be on a client-by-client basis with a handful of partners.”

The TV networks, meanwhile, are not aggressively pushing for advertisers and agencies to adopt alternative currencies in their upfront deals this year. For example, they are not issuing mandates that advertisers and agencies commit to using non-Nielsen measurements as currencies. “It feels like 2022-23 is going to really be another year of testing and learning,” said a second TV network executive.

“Everyone wants more timely, accurate and effective cross-platform measurement. You can’t deny that. And the industry has been calling for it, and no one has been able to nail it down yet,” said a third TV network executive.

The mess of measurement

Somewhat ironically, measurement discrepancies kicked off the TV ad measurement shift and are now slowing that shift. As Ad Age reported, advertisers and agencies have discovered disparities in the results and methodologies among measurement providers. “Our research group was looking at it, and every two weeks the numbers would change. You can’t transact when it’s this volatile,” said the first TV network executive.

Another obstacle is that the various measurement providers are at varying levels of interoperability with TV buyers’ and sellers’ ad tech stacks, said a fourth TV network executive. “They need to do some work to get the data structures in place to actually work seamlessly inside of buyers’ and sellers’ ad tech stacks. That’s an important thing,” this executive said.

For the most part, TV network and agency executives seem to be collectively breathing a …read more

Source:: Digiday