Coming off the heels of our OCR Roadshow, in partnership with Nielsen, the below article in MediaPost could not have been more timely. Should we be surprised at the rapid adoption of audience guarantees by video buyers? As we heard from agencies across the country from LA to NYC, the answer was a resounding “no.” Here’s why:
A year ago, the concept of replicating TV-like audience guarantees — the currency of paying only for audience members, as defined by age-sex, delivered in-target — was merely fodder for panel moderators looking to provoke lusty debate about the merits of GRP reporting in digital.
Fast-forward today, & the jury — major agencies and brand advertisers — have spoken with their wallets & ushered in the adoption of third party audience validation as an arbiter for campaign performance, with Nielsen’s OCR & comScore’s vCE competing for primacy.
Should we be surprised? Of course not. As agencies mandate video neutral, digital buyers are increasingly being tasked with buying online video as an extension of the TV buy. And the introduction of apples-to-apples measurement was destined to be the single biggest accelerator to knocking down the facade of buying silos.
Theoretically, this should have represented the coming out party for online video and the potential windfall of TV budgets. But as many a publisher — bloodied and beaten by 30% in-target delivery — can attest, online video and the GRP have made uncomfortable bedfellows.
Read the full article »
