An Existential Threat

10 November 2022

This week’s post builds on remarks I made from the stage at last week’s asi Audience Measurement Conference in Nice. 

I make no apology for revisiting material I shared when we last met in person in 2019. We are not progressing sufficiently in addressing the big issues, and we need to ensure we protect the consensual principles we have applied to the majority of industry audience measurement for decades. 

I felt that then, I feel it now. 

That is not to suggest that the JICs should have carte blanche to stagnate (not that they are doing so; well done to BARB for adding Netflix), but it does mean that we should not take for granted the benefits that come from all sides of the industry sitting down together to solve common problems. 

The phrase ‘an existential threat’ is not one I use lightly, but the largest, most influential media players on the planet – the online platforms – no longer have common cause. 

This is simply a reality. The arguments around Google trying to join BARB if only BARB would bend to Google’s will, have long gone. 

The notion of creating an online JIC to which Google, Facebook et al could all sign up to an agreed set of measurement standards looks a way off (at best), although the fact that many of the major online players have signed up to ISBA’s Origin programme is undoubtably a sign of progress.  

Meantime advertisers and their agencies still need to plan, still need to buy, and still need to evaluate effect. 

Measurement of audiences is a cornerstone of these activities. It is not the whole edifice, despite what some may believe, but it is vital.  

Edifices without cornerstones tend not to stand up for long. 

If the industry cannot find solutions, then the various players will find their own. The endpoint of which is multiple currencies, a concept that we have lived through before, that wastes time and focuses effort and money in the wrong place. 

A famous UK Media Director, Rodney Harris once said: “Media research is not designed to find out the truth. It is a treaty between interested parties”​. 

If you cannot sign a treaty the consequences that follow are not appealing. 

Natural tensions between buyer and seller, buyer and planner, planner and advertiser have historically always been solved peacefully. Techniques were found, systems improved, compromises made. 

But now we are into what is much more a political and financial discussion, with technique and measurement standards pushed to one side. 

There remains one faction of the media industry focussed on accuracy and doing things right, but unfortunately this is the faction from whom ad revenue is drifting away.  

The new giants could not give a fig for accuracy – if you doubt me how come Facebook manages (and not just once) to ‘reach’ more people in a particular demographic than exist in living breathing form? And then to try to explain that this is perfectly normal and justifiable. 

Online consensus groups do occasionally pop up. I am grateful to Bob Hoffman, whose new book ‘Adscam’ points out the following. 

“In April 2017 … a group of big-time advertisers, publishers, agencies, and media announced a coalition (The Coalition for Better Ads) to ‘rid the internet of annoying ads’.  

“In 2011 … the IAB, the ANA and the 4As (announced an initiative) called ‘Making Measurement Make Sense’.” 

I may very well read the wrong trades, but I heard little either at the time or more recently from either.  

As Bob puts it: “It is now five years since the establishment of the Coalition for Better Ads. Have they rid the internet of annoying ads? Try not to laugh.” 

It may seem ‘angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin’ stuff to be concerned about arcane audience measurement techniques but remember that the most effective way to drive eventual change is by starting a topic far away from the frontline. 

As the Chinese proverb has it: ‘The flapping of the wings of a butterfly can be felt on the other side of the world.’ 

Dismiss the technical experts, ignore their advice, their worries, and concerns and before you know it, we all have a problem. 

No common standards of measurement, means less accuracy in evaluating true effect, leading on to no justifiable business reason to build brands, and every reason to focus 100% on performance metrics. 

This is not a happy place for the industry to be headed.