Great expectation from multiscreen audience measurement

Two oft-discussed topics in media meets off late are Programmatic Buying and Multiscreen Audience Measurement. Both take into account the surge of digital and the anticipated growth in its consumption in times to come.

Multiscreen Audience Measurement, subject of this piece, has captured the media industry’s fancy. One can well imagine the power of a metrics or media measurement tool which can exactly figure out consumers’ engagement with various media in the course of a day. That might be a thing of the future – however, efforts in this direction are already on. 

On global front, comScore has launched XMedia, a measurement service that, as per its officials, analysis incremental as well as duplicate reach across screens; in addition it provides audience engagement data too. Nielsen too is said to be developing a cross media audience measurement tool. Both, however, have yet not been accredited by Media Rating Council.

Meanwhile in our country, three quick announcements have been made in this direction. It was in the recent past that ABC announced its intent to provide digital data as well, and just a couple of days back TAM enlightened that it was all set to provide 

Teleweb data, obtained by marrying TAM data to Internet data being captured by IMRB. It has also expressed its intent to come out with combined data for radio and digital some time in future. BARC has already expressed its intentions to provide multiscreen data in times to come.

Media measurement, a critical part of media planning & buying is thus getting prominence and attention it deserves.  But does one require so many currencies in this space? Anita Nayyar, CEO India & South Asia at Havas Media, states, “Ours is the ‘Data Analysis Age’ so it might very well be even more than these, this is a reality we must accept. The space for players will be determined by effectiveness of their offering and its usefulness to advertisers and agencies. Hence, it is important for us to pay attention to the output arising out of combined effort of these players .The presence of an X number of players is incidental.“  The keyword here is ‘output’. In today’s world of CPA (continuous partial attention), how much would consumer controlled measurement tool would work can be a matter of debate.  And if one platform it is consumer controlled and on the other data is captured automatically – that too might lead to a few issues. 

Industry, however, is happy that standardised multi-screen measurements are being put in place.  As digital becomes an integral part of media mix, it according to them, is the need of the hour. Anupriya Acharya, Group CEO, ZenithOptimedia Group, India expresses, “It was long overdue. I am happy that there is some movement in this direction because so far, agencies are at best using their own algorithms to arrive at multi-screen recommendations. Till date there is no standardised, industry level data/analysis. Indeed, there is room for multiple research companies in the multi-screen and multi-media analysis space – it gives us alternatives. I presume as time passes and this area matures, either there will be consolidation or they will each get into differentiated products.”

Differentiation is critical – and in our little understanding of the space, all these offerings indeed appear to be different from each other.  Having said that, would it be prudent to measure the same media in a myriad different ways? If one is measuring a specific digital experience – it would be cumbersome to measure it based on three different matrixes.  Even if NRS and IRS had coexisted or for that matter even TAM and BARC – argument would have been which one is a sturdier metrics – and not that some bits need to be measured on one system while, another part would have to be measured the other one. Still, it became the story of survival of the fittest.

Ashish Bhasin, Chairman & CEO South Asia Dentsu Aegis Network, Chairman Posterscope and psLive - Asia Pacific catches the pulse as he states, “Somebody needs to provide a proper measurement of the impact of multi-screens and catalyse in-depth analysis. I would prefer one currency with all the features needed to understand multiscreen consumption behaviour. Ideally it should be BARC as that is the industry metrics. However, since BARC has not yet ventured into it – any other agency working in this direction is welcome, as it would fill the void.”

Systems are in place and these would start churning out data (analysing?) soon. Does it mean advent of a new era in media planning? Will a multimedia measurement lead to an integrated approach while creating media strategies one wonders! However, we get a quick nudge from 

T Gangadhar, MD, MEC as well as from Nikhil Rangnekar. CEO - SA 1 at Spatial Access.  T Gangadhar exhorts, “There is not yet a proven multi-media measurement system. Intent isn't the same as action. 

Let's wait and watch how this unfolds in the coming months.” He however adds, “If we are able to capture and report media consumption accurately, it would absolutely lead to an integrated approach. Today we have discrete measurement systems - BARC for television, RAM for radio and IRS for print readership. The industry has always wished for single-source data but we are still far away. Should that happen, there is no doubt that the planning and innovation funnel will get more robust.”

Nikhil Rangnekar, meanwhile takes pains to explain that what we are seeing at the moment is not multimedia measurement but multiscreen one. He says, “Multi Media measurement is a misnomer. I think we are looking at multiscreen measurement and not multi media. This would mean that users will be able to understand the output of their AV campaigns on a consolidated basis (TV + digital views) rather than on a standalone basis.” He further explains, “If an advertiser is running a campaign on Youtube along with TV, then one can evaluate the GRPs and Reach/Frequency of the total campaign. This will clearly impact the way media planning and buying decisions are made, because it will make the two screens comparable and hence part of the same optimisation process.” In a quick aside, what really comes out of ABC’s digital analysis, and how it is integrated with print data remains to be seen.

Multiscreen data would depict the new reality, and hence would impact the planning process, seems to be the verdict. The industry is waiting to see the collective and incremental impact of television and digital – and thus increasing the measurability and accountability of the two.

Anupriya Acharya says, “It will have a positive impact. At this point in time only a handful of agencies with proprietary models are giving multimedia analysis. But when such data is available at an industry level, it becomes an established practice with wider usage. It will surely encourage more agencies to participate in multi-media and multi-screen planning for more effective media recommendations.”

All the media experts Adgully.com spoke to are of the view that multiscreen measurement would definitely help in case of videos. One would look at video consumption across screens.

We have a few questions though – how would engagement levels be measured –just by the time spent on a video? What about continuous partial attention? Another thing we would love to understand is – are the involvement levels the same when one is watching a video on TV and when the same is being watched on a personal digital device? Questions to which, we might get answers in days to come.

TAM &IMRB effort Teleweb might be the first one to deliver multiscreen data. Does the industry feel that it would bring value to table?  The response is affirmative though cautious. Anita Nayyar states, “This TV-internet measurement will be the new trend in the industry and very required in the current media landscape. TeleWeb gives audience measurement of TV viewership data from TAM India and the web audience measurement of IMRB International, so again this is subjective to the scope of the databases of TAM and IMRB. “

Ashish Bhasin concludes, “Any new data or any new information you get always helps you make better decisions. But I hope it does not land up causing confusion where BARC is giving one rating and TAM is giving another rating etc. The currency should eventually be only one.”

One is sure that in times to come, one would see a lot of changes in the way multimedia data is captured, analysed and delivered. It is a beginning in the right direction, and someday soon a research agency would come up with a multimedia audience measurement solution, that takes into consideration all media being consumed except print and marry both to get a robust measurement system. 

Would Google want to enter this space we wonder!