Online And Offline Channels Are Victims Of Measurement Inequality

Traditional methods under-report viewership in TV, while in digital, it is not clear which standards are comparable to linear. Dmexco participants call for a step change.

The problem of reconciling measurement across on and offline channels was a key theme of “The Creativity in Media” session that brought together Lindsay Pattison, global CEO of media agency network Maxus, and Linda Yaccarino, chairman, advertising sales and client partnerships at NBCUniversal.

The session, on the first day of the Dmexco Conference and Exposition in Cologne, Germany, saw Yaccarino describing the state of measurement as “a failed report card on all of us.”

The problem is what Yaccarino described as measurement inequality. In TV, she said, traditional methods under-report viewership, making it hard to justify the creation of quality content.

“Then, in digital, what are the standards that are comparative to linear? For example, is it a view or a viewer?”

Pattison agreed, pointing out that “not all impressions are created equal.”

And Yaccarino called for a step change.

“Let’s break away from legacy measurement and get the commercialisation right,” she said. “If we create a clear path for measurement, it would make a lot of other hurdles a lot easier to get over.”

Yaccarino argued that this mattered because “it’s not about TV versus digital, it’s the fact that TV plus digital makes the campaign stronger and the customer experience better. We need to address a different media mix.

“TV isn’t dead, it’s the old definition of TV that’s dead,” she said. “TV now exists everywhere you go. Every screen acts as a TV screen.”

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