Measurement is at a crossroads, and the way forward will be marked by more transparency and choice in currencies.
Six companies that will, together with many others, represent the future of video measurement shared the stage at the JIC Measurement Summit to rally around this vision. The panel featured Tom Keaveney, President at 605, Carol Hinnant, Chief Revenue Officer at Comscore, Ashwin Navin, CEO at Samba TV, Blair Robertson, Chief Technology Officer, InnovidXP at Innovid, Sean Muller, CEO at iSpot and Ross McCray, CEO at VideoAmp, moderated by Jon Watts, Managing Director at CIMM.
Watch the full conversation above.
The future of measurement is now. It's here. It's in this room.
- Carol Hinnant
Leaders from six measurement companies took the stage, and every single one of them agreed it's time for change—panel-only based measurement cannot suffice to measure viewership of today and tomorrow. And a quick fix or change to existing methods won't work either, according to Sean Muller. The industry needs to completely "redefine what currency looks like for today's world, and stop trying to retrofit the clunky, old way of transacting," he said.
We can't use methodologies of the past to analyze signals of today and the future.
- Ashwin Navin
Why? Because today's viewers have changed how they consume media, and the metrics of success for advertisers have shifted with them. Currency-grade measurement needs to keep up with new signals and KPIs in order to be a sound foundation for transaction. That's what JIC aims to solve for by creating standards for cross-platform measurement solutions—standards that the measurement companies on stage welcome with open arms.
Panelists agreed—standards won't come at the price of competition or differentiation. In fast, they stand to encourage a multi-currency future, one in which buyers can confidently partner with any number of currencies, knowing that the measurement lives up to a baseline industry standard.
A census-level streaming dataset, with viewership data flowing in from multiple publishers, will also allow measurement companies to differentiate and add value for clients. "It will allow innovation to go faster," McCray explained. "It will allow [measurement companies] to have our own different strategies and to respond in ways that will add more value to the client."